Television
Turn off the awards
Nigella Lawson
Just before the Oscars ceremony (The Oscars — Live: the 67th Academy Awards, BBC2, Monday 3 a.m.) gushed into life, Barry Norman popped up, rather in the manner of his now sadly defunct Spitting Image puppet, to tell us that this was the first year the Academy Awards would be shown live on terrestrial television over here. The last too, I rather think. The thing is, we need to feel it's about glamour, excitement, drama. Instead, in real time, all we are aware of is the mind-crushing tedi- um of it all. The films seemed the least part of it. Well, that's nothing new or nothing to be ashamed of either, really. But the frocks weren't up to much either this year. And the speeches were just routinely embarrass- ing in an unspectacular way — cracks- through-the-fingers rather than full-blown cushion-up-to the-face time. Actually, just switch-off time.
The beginning of this historical event didn't go too well. The sound and visual tapes hadn't been lined up properly so that the welcoming speech was issued from an unnervingly out-of-sync mouth. This stopped me listening to what it was saying — except to catch the closing words 'Go ahead kids! Make 'em laugh!' — so some good came out of it. Our host for the evening, David Letterman, then skeetered on to the stage. Now, this is an interesting thing: David Letterman is Mr New York, he is East Coast man. I know that the point of Hollywood is that we're all in thrall to it, but only in a cigarette-card collecting kind of a way. But these days, New York happily offers itself up as autograph-hunting hand- maiden to Los Angeles. Not merely Vanity Fair but the New Yorker is happy to pay homage to Hollywood. Of course this may be partly due to the fact that Tina Brown comes from film-making stock, but I rather think, if it doesn't sound too prissily pompous, it is also a sign that the picture industry has effectively colonised what used, loosely, to be the world of words.
David Letterman, gabby, fast-shooting, quick-firing East coaster was reduced, on the stage of the Oscars show to a gibbering, simpering, dull-joke-cracking wreck — and all in a stretched-out, slo-mo effect. He needs the tightness of his usual TV set, the back up and probably the writers, too. It just felt uncomfortable. Things were made a little tense too by having Barry Norman coming onto the screen every now and again to conduct interviews or make com- ments. In itself this was definitely a Good Thing, but he was obviously tormented by commands from on high via his earpiece. Interviews would become more or less frozen for moments, abruptly ended or over-enthusiastically re-entered into.
Nevertheless, these snippets were valu- able additions. It is a relief to hear a bit of honesty and irritation and not just from Barry Norman. The British obviously mind less about being nice and caring, or rather, seeming nice and caring, than their sob- bingly appreciative American counterparts. `I hope not' said Tracey Ullman briskly when Norman asked her whether she thought some prize or other was part of a general go-with-Gump swing, and Alan Parker happily testified to Forrest Gump's being 'a very mediocre film, actually', while back on stage a strapless Sally 'You like me — you really like me!' Field simpered about the 'unwavering values and simple determination' of 'my boy Gump'.
Parker gave his comment while appear- ing with Madonna to talk about their film, Evita, which has apparently come off at last. This snippet gave a particular insight into Hollywood. Madonna, all openness and no-holds-barred honesty suddenly clammed up when asked her view of the awards so far. She only went as far as to say she might not be in complete agreement with them. They then had a chat about how boring it was actually to sit through the entire ceremony (you're telling me) and then after a brief visit to the show we're back with Barry, Madonna's scuttled off, evidently worried that her mildly, mildly anti-Oscar stance might have injured her prospects.
In a way, the full-length Oscars was an excellent advertisement for the edited ver- sion (BBC1, Tuesday, 10.30 p.m.): I mean, who really wants to sit through the awards for make-up artists and sound-effects edi- tors? Anyway, my tape ran out before the end because the show overran, so I didn't even find out the real winners.
Previous page
