Why Oscar needs a hint of danger

At this year's Oscars, the role of going off-script was left to more seasoned performers – the young were too busy being enthusiastic, writes DONALD CLARKE

THE KING'S Speechwon best picture. Colin Firth won best actor. Natalie Portman won best actress. Inceptionpicked up a bundle of technical awards. The jokes were lame. The presenters were neutered. No alarms. Few surprises.

Thank goodness for Melissa Leo. When the robust performer, picking up her best-supporting-actress Oscar for The Fighter, let slip a naughty word, the ceremony momentarily veered into the arena of unpredictability. Remembering a recent win by Kate Winslet, Leo quipped: "When I watched Kate two years ago, it looked so f***ing easy."

The Oscars are, in these islands, broadcast on Sky Movies Premiere, a channel that regularly screens films littered with nautical oaths. Yet, even the most fervent Tarantino fan will have blinked disbelievingly at the television. Context is all. The US media is enormously sensitive about such matters and, broadcast at teatime on the west coast, the Oscars are one of the primetime events of the year. Congratulations are due for reclaiming a fine Germanic expletive from semi-respectability. (Though it still receives the asterisk treatment on these pages.)

Consider the response (or lack of same) by Sky’s largely appalling London-based panel.

ABC, the US broadcaster, operates a time-delay that permits the bleeping of such words. Sky uses no such system. Still, emerging at 2.00am, Leo’s gaffe will hardly have caused much dropping of teacups or fainting of maiden aunts. Nonetheless, Alex Zane and his three guests – including, bizarrely, Brix Smith-Start, a former member of avant garde rock group The Fall – had clearly been instructed to pretend it never happened. Considering how predictable the rest of the evening was, this was akin to analysing a certain Dallas motorcade and, while admiring Mrs Kennedy’s dress and the unseasonally sunny weather, neglecting to mention that inconvenient assassination.

It was a measure of the degree to which things went to plan that, in terms of major awards, the biggest surprise came with Tom Hooper's victory in the best director category. It is, of course, customary for the best director and best picture gongs to go to the same project. This year, however, the bookies decided that Hooper, nominated for his workmanlike duties on The King's Speech, would lose to David Fincher, more experimental on The Social Network. The Oscar voters were allowing no such dangerous irregularities.

The Academy should do something about this. Shouldn’t it? Comfort food is all very well, but it would be nice to encounter the odd surprise on Oscar night. To be fair, there is evidence that the authorities recognise the problem. A year ago, eager to recognise edgier, less stodgy fare, the organisers increased the number of best picture nominations from five to 10. For the 2011 incarnation, they selected the two youngest hosts ever: chiselled James Franco and canyon-mouthed Anne Hathaway.

It would be difficult to describe Francaway’s performance as a runaway success. The faintly surly Franco was so taken up with his own hipness that he felt unable to permit anything so vulgar as a smile. When he entered wearing a dress, he made sure to lumber like a lusty Viking advancing towards an unguarded nunnery. Forced to compensate for her partner’s beatnik humourlessness, Hathaway flailed, grinned and pranced with such enthusiasm you feared the well-coiffed head might spin off its shoulders. One imagined a nice girl, forced to bring a dangerous new boyfriend to Granny’s birthday party, trying hard to distract from the fact that the leather-jacketed thug was smoking dope and throwing up in the punchbowl.

Their best moment came at the beginning when, after Franco had acknowledged how beautiful Hathaway looked, Anne quipped: “You look very appealing to a younger demographic as well.” Good luck with that, Academy.

Following recent wins for fresher pictures such as The Hurt Lockerand No Country for Old Men, Sunday night's events constituted a clear victory for the old regime. The King's Speech, which picked up four Oscars, is a fine piece of work, but, when set beside nominees such as the earthy Winter's Bone, the flashy Inception and the deranged Black Swan, it looks worryingly like an archetypal "Oscar film". Such projects are, traditionally, set in the past, based on true stories and feature lots of pretty costumes. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

This is, of course, not to suggest that Oscar should favour the young over their more experienced colleagues. (After all, Tom Hooper is nearly a decade younger than David Fincher.) One of the wittiest and most touching speeches came from David Seidler, writer of The King's Speech. "My father always said to me I would be a late bloomer. I believe I'm the oldest person to win this award," he remarked, before going on to hope that his record will soon be broken.

Kirk Douglas, seemingly indestructible at 94, made the throng seem like an assembly of pygmies when presenting Leo with her award. Fifteen years after suffering a stroke, he ambled on stage with a cane and – creating tangible nervousness throughout the globe – mouthed his way purposefully through the slightly risqué jokes. As he went on, however, it became increasingly clear that Douglas, a born showman, was savouring and exploiting the suspicion that he might not make it through the segment.

He inserted endless pauses. He struggled theatrically with the envelope. It took a nonagenarian to instil danger and energy into the ceremony. When Leo, no callow teen at 50, dropped her invigorating obscenity, the oldies confirmed that unpredictability is not the preserve of youth.

Colin Firth was, as ever, dignified in his acceptance speech. Natalie Portman, a deserved winner for Black Swan,was charming in her desire to thank everyone, including the camera operator. But the stubbornly stage-managed nature of the event has rendered it close to unwatchable. What innovations there were seemed plain puzzling. What was up with the peculiar decision to project sequences from previous winners – Titanic, Gone With the Wind– on a massive screen behind the presenters? The tributes to acting nominees, delivered directly to their seats, seemed, even at this back-slapping event, excessively obsequious.

What’s to be done? More swearing. More stubborn old blokes. Less reverence for the middle-brow. Maybe they should employ an unfettered Colin Farrell as host. That would be f***ing excellent.

. . and the winners are

BEST PICTURE

The King's Speech

BEST ACTOR

Colin Firth, The King's Speech

BEST ACTRESS

Natalie Portman, Black Swan

BEST DIRECTOR

Tom Hooper, The King's Speech

BEST SONG

"We Belong Together,"

Toy Story 3, Randy Newman

BEST EDITING

The Social Network, Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

Inception, Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb

BEST DOCUMENTARY

Inside Job, Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT

God of Love, Luke Matheny

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT

Strangers No More, Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

Alice in Wonderland, Colleen Atwood

BEST MAKEUP

The Wolfman, Rick Baker and Dave Elsey

BEST SOUND EDITING

Inception, Richard King

BEST SOUND MIXING

Inception, Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo, and Ed Novick

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

The Social Network, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Christian Bale, The Fighter

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

In a Better World(Denmark)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

The King's Speech, Screenplay by David Seidler

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

The Social Network, Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin

BEST ANIMATED FILM

Toy Story 3

BEST ANIMATED SHORT

The Lost Thing, Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Melissa Leo, The Fighter

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Inception, Wally Pfister

BEST ART

Alice in Wonderland, Robert Stromberg, Karen O'Hara