I meant this post to
be titled “DREAMING IN GOLD”, can you guess why? That´s right, it was a reference
to the motto of the Oscar Awards ceremony: “we all dream in gold”. It came as
no surprise that the ceremony was full of protest and it came as no surprise
that Leonardo DiCaprio won the Oscar for Best Actor for his leading role in The Revenant. But, by now, you must be
acquainted with all the winners that managed to dream in gold so I´m not going
to focus on that aspect here. However, I´d like to draw your attention to one
of those protests that took shape on stage. Lady Gaga, thanks to an unexpected
performance, touched a raw nerve with an issue that a lot of people weren´t
aware of: sexual assaults on American college campuses. If we wish to learn
more about one of the most worrying aspects of our present-day societies, we
should watch the documentary The Hunting
Ground, for which Lady Gaga made the song “Til it happens to you” along
with Diane Warren. Last year Lady Gaga sang in the Oscars ceremony to mark the
50th anniversary of The Sound
of Music and her performance was one of the most touching moments of the
ceremony; this year, her performance has also been one of the most acclaimed
ones.
Lady Gaga sings “Til it happens to you” surrounded by other sexual
assault survivors at the 88th Academy Awards ceremony. Lady Gaga and
Diane Warren were nominated for Best Original Song.
Music and cinema are
so closely linked that it is almost impossible to think of films without music.
Of course, there are films without music; those films are usually an attempt to
deprive them of any kind of artifice. But, in general, music plays the role of
underlying and enhancing the most memorable moments of a film. Maybe you
remember that I wrote a post on this matter last year (“The sound of music” on
24th June 2015). Therefore, it
was also touching to see Ennio Morricone win an Oscar for The Hateful Eight. He received an honorary Academy Award in 2007
but he had never won an Oscar specifically for one of his works, now at the age
of 87, he is a fair winner.
When I was a child,
my father took us to the cinema to watch The
Good, the Bad and the Ugly. It wasn´t just another spaghetti western, it
was a film starring Clint Eastwood and my father was elated at the prospect of
showing us a film where he appeared as an extra . When I recall this film, I
always think of my family going to the cinema, a cinema that no longer exists,
the image of Clint Eastwood with a long thin cigar in his mouth and the music, always the music of the film composed by
Ennio Morricone.
Film lovers are indebted to Ennio Morricone because, in my view, he has
composed some of the most beautiful film scores and soundtracks of the history
of cinema.
Anyway, I can´t help
remembering that today we are not dreaming in gold, in Belgium, at least,
people are not dreaming in gold after yesterday´s terrorist attacks. When a
tragedy strikes it is difficult to dream in gold. Have you watched In Bruges? Reality reminds me of this
film: a beautiful Belgian setting with a very dark plot. That´s the reason why
I decided to change the title of my post.
Awards ceremonies are an
opportunity to gather all kinds of people who work in the film industry and to
appreciate their work. Awards ceremonies help us to discover stories and
realities we were unaware of. Awards ceremonies enable us to dream about a
different world, sometimes, a better world.
