Montreal’s Sylvain Bellemare scores Oscar
Canadian sound editor takes home Arrival’s only win
TORONTO — Montreal sound editor Sylvain Bellemare was present at the Dolby Theater Oscar night as Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway wrongly announced La
La Land as best picture. Bellemare, who won the Oscar for best sound editing for Arrival, said it was “all very embarrassing” as producers scrambled on stage to reveal that
Moonlight was the true winner. “It was astonishing for like 15, 20 seconds. I think we thought it was a joke and no, it was real,” Bellemare said by phone from Los Angeles after the show had ended. “But yet people were really happy I think because Moonlight is a fantastic film that deserves so much,” he added. “La La Land is a great film, too, but it already has a lot of love and box office since it started and having
Moonlight triumph, it’s perfect.” The accounting firm PwC, which oversees the counting of the Oscar ballots, said Beatty and Dunaway had been given the wrong envelope.
Bellemare competed against teams from Deepwater Horizon, Hacksaw Ridge, La La Land and Sully.
“I had a good handshake by Ryan Gosling when I went to the stage,” he said, adding his thoughts were with Arrival director Denis Villeneuve and everyone else who worked on the film.
“There are so many people behind this prize. It’s a collective prize and I was so proud for them and for us.”
Arrival stars Amy Adams as a linguistics expert who tries to communicate with aliens that have landed in 12 pods on Earth.
Bellemare, 49, — along with Oscar-nominated Arrival sound mixers Bernard Gariépy Strobl and Claude La Haye — also won a trophy from the British Academy Film Awards. Bellemare’s previous credits include Villeneuve’s 2010 drama Incendies,
His other films include It’s Not Me, I Swear! and Monsieur Lazhar.
He was the lone Oscar winner for Arrival, which had eight nominations going into the show, including best director and best picture.
“So I wish there could be more but at the end we all win. We’re all here for a love of film and not for competition.”