La La Land wins big at Baftas with tinge of politics
LONDON: Glamour was shot through with grit at the British Academy Film Awards yesterday.
Frothy musical La La Land took five prizes including best picture, but major awards also went to tough welfare-state drama I, Daniel Blake and fractured-family stories Lion and Manchester by the Sea.
In keeping with an awards season that has coincided with a change of government in the US, even La La Land’s prizes came with a political tinge.
Accepting the best-actress trophy for playing a barista who dreams of Hollywood stardom, Emma Stone said that “this country and the US, and the world seems to be going through a bit of a time”.
She said that in a divided world, it was vital to celebrate “the positive gift of creativity and how it can transcend borders and how it help people to feel a little less alone”.
The UK awards, known as Baftas, are often seen as an indicator of who will win at Hollywood’s Academy Awards, held two weeks later. La La Land already is a dominant force at the Oscars, with 14 nominations. It also has won seven Golden Globes.
La La Land had 11 nominations for the British awards and won prizes for Stone, director Damien Chazelle, music and cinematography as well as best picture. Stone’s co-star, Ryan Gosling, lost out on the best-actor prize to Casey Affleck, who played a grieving handyman in Manchester by the Sea.
Affleck, also Oscar- nominated for the role, thanked writer-director Kenneth Lonergan for creating a film that “dignifies everyday lives and their struggles with great compassion”.
The New England drama also won Lonergan the prize for best original screenplay.
British actor Dev Patel pulled off an upset, beating favourite Mahershala Ali, from Moonlight, to the best supporting actor trophy for Lion, about a young man who goes searching for the Indian family from which he was separated as a child.
Lion also took the Bafta for best adapted screenplay.
Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake was named best British film. The 80-year-old director used his acceptance speech to lambast the country’s Conservative government.
Loach said his docudrama about a carpenter trying to get welfare after a heart attack shows that “the most vulnerable and the poorest people are treated by this government with a callous brutality that is disgraceful.”
Loach was cheered by an audience at London’s Royal Albert Hall that included Prince William, his wife, Kate, and nominees including Meryl Streep, Affleck, Stone and Nicole Kidman.
Viola Davis won the supporting actress Bafta for Fences, Denzel Washington’s adaptation of August Wilson’s stage drama about an African-American family. Davis praised Wilson’s play for showing “that our lives mattered as African Americans.” – ANA-AP