USA TODAY International Edition
Hollywood sets scandal aside for honorary Oscars
LOS ANGELES – The movie industry officially kicked into awards season Saturday night with the Governors Awards while reeling from a widening sexual harassment scandal.
Stars donned black tie and formal gowns to walk the red carpet of the glamorous Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences event honoring writer/director Charles Burnett, cinematographer Owen Roizman, actor Donald Sutherland and director Agnès Varda.
Each received Oscar statuettes for their distinguished careers in the annual ceremony, which signals the celebratory opening to the awards race that ends with the Oscars on March 4. Also, director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s virtual reality project highlighting the plight of Mexican immigrants, Carne y Arena, was granted a special Oscar.
But the event was clouded by still more harassment revelations, including the suspension of Supergirl TV producer Andrew Kreisberg after accusations of sexual misconduct.
“The good news is that tonight it’s about celebrating these four people,” actor Andrew Garfield told USA TODAY on the red carpet.
The speeches inside did not once touch on the scandal as each honoree, chosen by the academy’s 54-member leadership board, was extolled.
Jennifer Lawrence presented the Oscar to her Hunger Games co-star Sutherland, whom she says “took me under his wing” as a newbie actress. “For someone as generous and talented, it’s odd to think that Donald Sutherland has never won an Oscar before tonight,” said Lawrence, mentioning some of the actor’s “iconic roles” (Ordinary People, M*A*S*H, The Dirty Dozen, Klute). “His work is movie magic at its best.”
Holding his Oscar, Sutherland, 82, said he had been “beset by my mind’s unrelenting interrogation of me, demanding to know if I deserve this.” But he found awards solace in the words of the great comedian Jack Benny.
“(Benny) said, as I say to you now: ‘I don’t deserve this. But I have arthritis. And I don’t deserve that either,’ ” said Sutherland, exiting to rousing cheers.
Dustin Hoffman, who has been accused in two separate harassment incidents, received healthy applause from the audience when presenting the Oscar to his Tootsie cinematographer, Roizman (The French Connection, The Exorcist, Network). “Thank for sharing with us your remarkable gift,” Hoffman said. Roizman, 81, was moved to tears.
Jessica Chastain and Angelina Jolie were among Hollywood women who praised honoree Varda, pioneer of the French New Wave filmmaking movement. Varda, 89, called them “my feminist guardian angels.” Then the director announced from the stage, “Tonight I feel like dancing, the dance of cinema,” and broke into twirls with Jolie.
Ava DuVernay brought director Burnett (Killer of Sheep, To Sleep With Anger) onto the stage, saying the AfricanAmerican trailblazer was “a giant, a legend to us, an icon long before today.”
Burnett, 73, recalled a teacher who told him, “You’re not going to be anything.”
“I don’t know if he’s still around,” Burnett said. “If he is, I do hope he reads the trades.”