Photograph by Jason LaVeris/WireImage/Getty.
Photograph by Jason LaVeris/WireImage/Getty.
Photograph by Adam Taylor/ABC/Getty.
Photograph by Steve Granitz/WireImage/Getty.
Photograph by Jeff Vespa/WireImage/Getty.
Photograph by Gregg DeGuire/WireImage/Getty.
Photograph by Kevin Mazur/WireImage/Getty.
Photograph by Jason Merritt/Getty.
The Oscars are a study in time passing and the denial of time passing. Hollywood dreams—the word was used in nearly every acceptance speech—are of eternal youth, but because the Oscars are an annual ritual, the streaks and scars of time are always visible. The young and the current (Lupita Nyong’o, Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Watson) were kissed by the cameras, while last year’s actresses (Anne Hathaway, Charlize Theron, even Angelina Jolie) were photographed off to the side. They carried the dangerous taint of the recent past.
The announcers and the host paid over-the-top, maudlin homage to the over-fifty. Meryl Streep, Sally Field, Harrison Ford, Robert De Niro, Glenn Close, and Sidney Poitier were bathed in a haze of sentiment, as if they were already monuments to a golden age. Meanwhile, in the remembrances of this year’s dead, all the actors—though not the screenwriters, directors, or sound engineers—were shown in youth: friskily, brightly resurrected in the screen’s glow. “You’re too old to stand!” Cate Blanchett exhorted the crowd when they greeted her Best Actress win with a standing ovation. She’d spoken aloud everyone’s secret fear.
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