'Nomadland' wins best picture as Hollywood looks to rebound from pandemic [View all]

[brooklynite]

Source: Los Angeles Times

Capping a year that few in Hollywood will forget, much as they might want to, the 93rd Oscars ceremony Sunday night delivered an impassioned message that, while the movies may be down, they are far from out.

As expected, the motion picture academy gave the best picture prize to director Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland,” a quietly poetic character study about economically displaced Americans. The film had earned acclaim since its debut at September’s Venice Film Festival, and its strong showing — which also included a historic win for Zhao, who became the first woman of color to win the directing prize — had been widely predicted.

“I have always found goodness in the people I met, everywhere I went in the world,” Zhao said, accepting the directing award. “This is for anyone who had the faith and the courage to hold on to the goodness in themselves and to hold on to the goodness in each other, no matter how difficult it is to do that.”

A timely look at vulnerable older Americans trying to survive on the country’s margins, “Nomadland” prevailed over contenders that grappled with similarly weighty themes, including emotional dramas such as “Minari” and “The Father,” the Me Too-inflected thriller “Promising Young Woman” as well as politically charged period pieces such as “The Trial of the Chicago 7" and “Judas and the Black Messiah.”

Read more: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-04-25/oscars-2021-key-takeaways-diversity-pandemic-covid