French director Justine Triet won the Oscar for best original screenplay with her film Anatomy of a Fall at the 96th Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday. Meanwhile, Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer swept the board with seven trophies including best picture and best director.
Justine Triet, 45, and her partner and co-writer Arthur Harari shared the prize for best original screenplay for their French courtroom thriller Anatomy of a Fall.
"It will help me through my mid-life crisis, I think," Triet quipped as she accepted her prize.
« Cet Oscar va m’aider à traverser la crise la quarantaine ! »
— CANAL+ (@canalplus) March 10, 2024
Justine Triet et Arthur Harari sur la scène des #Oscars2024 pic.twitter.com/dLRdIJvJS0
Anatomy of a Fall, the tale of a woman (Oscar nominee Sandra Hüller) accused of killing her husband, struck a chord with its subtle take on gender issues.
"I wanted to overturn gender norms," she said in a recent interview.
"As a spectator, I hadn't seen many films where the woman is so unapologetic about owning her space, not asking permission from her partner to be that way."
"It's been a crazy year ", Triet said. After winning the Palme d'Or at Cannes, Anatomy of a Fall won two Golden Globes and a Bafta.
Masterful drama
Oppenheimer was nominated for 13 prizes, but with seven statuettes on the night it is still one of the most awarded films in Oscar history.
Christopher Nolan's masterful drama about the father of the atomic bomb also bagged acting prizes for lead Cillian Murphy and supporting actor Robert Downey Jr.
Nolan - a British-American filmmaker hailed as a generational talent - said that film as an art form still has room to grow.
"Movies are just a little bit over 100 years old. I mean, imagine being there 100 years into painting or theater," he told the audience at the Dolby Theatre.
"We don't know where this incredible journey is going from here. But to know that you think that I'm a meaningful part of it means the world to me."
He's just Ken
The other huge smash of 2023, Greta Gerwig's pop feminist blockbuster Barbie, featured heavily throughout the gala in Los Angeles.
Supporting actor nominee Ryan Gosling brought the house down with a star-studded rendition of I'm just Ken, accompanied by Guns 'n Roses guitarist Slash, as well as some of his on-screen Ken pals like Simu Liu and Ncuti Gatwa.
Billie Eilish's What Was I Made For? was the winning song from the summer hit film.
In one of the few competitive awards of the evening, Emma Stone won best actress for her daring performance in the surreal, Frankenstein-esque Poor Things, which won three other technical prizes.
Zone of interest
The powerful Auschwitz-set psychological horror film, The Zone of Interest, which on Sunday won the Oscar for best international film, stunned critics with its penetrating study of the banality in the shadow of the death camp.
The victory marks the first time that a submission from Britain has won the Academy Award in this category, which is open to non-English language films made by countries other than the United States.
"Our film shows where dehumanisation leads at its worst. It's shaped all of our past and present," said British director Jonathan Glazer as he accepted the award, before issuing a strong statement about the conflict in Gaza.
(with AFP)
