Night of surprises at Golden Globes
In a Golden Globes chock full of upsets, the Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody took best picture, drama, over Bradley Cooper’s heavily favoured A Star
is Born and Glenn Close bested Lady Gaga for best actress.
Few winners were seen as more certain than Lady Gaga as best actress in a drama at yesterday’s ceremony at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. But veteran actress Close pulled off the shocker for her performance in The Wife, as the spouse of a Nobel Prize-winning author. Close said she was thinking of her mother, ‘‘who really sublimated herself to my father for her whole life.’’
‘‘We have to find personal fulfillment. We have to follow our dreams,’’ said Close, drawing a standing ovation. ‘‘We have to say I can do that and I should be allowed to do that.’’
Minutes later, the surprise was even greater when Bohemian
Rhapsody won the night’s top award, shortly after Rami Malek won best actor for his prosthetic teeth-aided performance as Mercury.
‘‘Thank you to Freddie Mercury for giving me the joy of a lifetime,’’ said Malek. ‘‘This is for you, gorgeous.’’
Mahershala Ali, whom the foreign press association overlooked for his Oscar-winning performance in Moonlight, won best supporting actor for Green
Book. While the Globes, decided by 88 voting members of the HFPA, have little relation to the Academy Awards, they can supply some awards-season momentum when it matters most. Oscar nomination voting begins today.
The biggest boost went to
Green Book, Peter Farrelly’s interracial road trip through the early ‘60s Deep South, which has struggled to catch on at the box office while coming under substantial criticism for relying on racial tropes. It won best film, comedy or musical, and best screenplay. ‘‘If Don Shirley and Tony Vallelonga can find common ground, we all can,’’ said Farrelly, the director best known for broader comedies like There’s
Something About Mary.
As expected, Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando and Andrew Wyatt won best song
for the signature tune from A
Star Is Born, the film most expected to dominate the Globes.
‘‘Can I just say that as a woman in music, it’s really hard to be taken seriously as a musician and as songwriter and these three incredible men, they lifted me up,’’ Gaga said.
Though the Globes are put on by foreign journalists, they don’t include foreign language films in their two best picture categories (for drama and musical/comedy). That left Netflix’s Oscar hopeful, Alfonso Cuaron’s memorydrenched masterwork Roma, out of the top category. Cuaron still won as best director and the Mexican-born filmmaker’s movie won best foreign language film.
‘‘Cinema at its best tears down walls and builds bridges to other cultures.
‘‘As we cross these bridges, these experiences and these new shapes and these new faces, we begin to realise that while they may seem strange, they are not unfamiliar,’’ Cuaron said accepting the foreign language Globe.
‘‘This film would not have been possible without the specific colours that made me who I am. Gracias, familia. Gracias, Mexico.’’
Netflix also won numerous awards for the series The
Kominsky Method, which won both best actor in a comedy series for Michael Douglas (he dedicated the honour to his 102-year-old father, Kirk Douglas) and for best comedy series over favoured nominees like The Marvellous
Mrs Maisel and Barry.
‘‘Netflix, Netflix, Netflix,’’ said series creator Chuck Lorre.
‘‘We have to find personal fulfillment. We have to follow our dreams.’’ Glenn Close