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February of this year is not only marked by Carnival: the month will also be the stage for the biggest award in North American cinema and the biggest media exposure: the Oscar 2020on Sunday, February 9th. 333l6b
To celebrate yet another edition of Hollywood's most celebrated award ceremony, let's go back in time: how did the Oscars come about? And even more, what were your reasons for thinking about an award that would praise the cinema made there so much?
How and why did the Oscars come about? 34068
The Academy that founded the Oscars was not created just to honor performances and performances by Hollywood actors. According to Wisewreck, the award was created to… pay less to people in the industry.
Let's start from the beginning: in 1926, Louis B. Mayer, founder of the great Hollywood production company called Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) – whose image that represents her at the beginning of the films is a roaring lion, ? – and responsible for classics such as “Ben-Hur” (1925),
According to David Thompson, in an interview with Vanity Fair, Mayer was known for precarious labor (when he used set builders to build a mansion on the beach for a cheaper price, for example). However, after that episode, the builders got together, created a union and started charging a higher price for their work.
So Mayer was somewhat afraid that union and labor rights would get to Hollywood actors and they would ask for higher wages. That's when he thought of creating his own organization that, in a way, would bring together the class of actors, directors and screenwriters: the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences – also known only as the Academy.
In this beginning, 36 directors, actors, screenwriters and technicians made up the Academy and received an elite status for this privilege in Hollywood. That's where we got into the reason for the award.
To his biographer, Mayer said: “I've found that the best way to deal with movie producers is to hang medals around their necks. If I gave these guys cups and awards, they would kill themselves to produce what I wanted. That’s why the Academy Awards were created.”
The first Oscar ceremony in 1929 g3918
The first awards ceremony at the Oscars, in 1929, took place in a private event lasting about 15 minutes.
The ceremony, held for 270 guests, took place on May 16, 1929 and presented 12 statuettes to the winners that had already been announced by the Los Angeles Times three months earlier.
And, according to Telegraph, tickets cost about $5 at the time, which is like you'd spend about $75 — that's about $325 — to watch the Oscars.
According to academic Peter Decherney, it was a way of turning Hollywood talent into a brand of “artistic work” rather than just “work,” which made the concept of a union for these workers to organize themselves unnecessary.
Decherney also argues that the awards categories themselves were designed to segregate the industry itself between “artists” and “lesser workers” in the more technical categories.
However, Mayer's plan to stop the industry from seeking a union failed: the economic landscape of the 1930s saw actors, screenwriters and rights come together and organize. That's when organizations like: the Screen Actor's Guild, the Writer's Guild and the Director's Guild emerged.
Check out an image about the repercussion of the first award, which was published on the cover of LA Times in 17 May 1929.
What did that mean for cinema? 6o2q15
The award idealized by Mayer also served to create a certain mystical aura around Hollywood cinema, strengthening US productions as the main ones in the entertainment world and the great global reference.
As the media coverage intensified, the power of the Oscars grew and the award became the main one in the world of cinema, also causing the United States to invest more in this industry.
And another factor also mattered a lot for this: the culture of obsession with celebrities. What better to fuel this than seeing the celebrities you love so much on the big screen win a prestigious, glittering award? Beautiful, well-dressed people, wearing clothes that were made just for you to comment, enjoying a night of glamor in search of the renown generated by a figurine.
And the Oscar for Biggest Snubbed goes to… 2y5e6a
The origin of the Oscars is not the best. In fact, the murky motive behind the awards raises the question: what made the films win the categories?
We know that the choice made by the of the Academy involves a whole campaign process carried out by the studios and producers.
Further complicating matters is the creation of a single general category for best picture taking into : artistic content, entertainment value, commercial success and public image.
This ended up leaving some great films out, such as “Dançando na Chuva”, “Brazil” and even “Matrix”, in addition to the long films by the great filmmaker Spike Lee – who received his first Oscar in 2019.
And, of course, Brazil itself was snubbed by the award. It is almost unbelievable that Fernanda Montenegro's performance in “Central do Brasil” did not receive a statuette. Cinema outside the Hollywood-Europe axis, with a focus on the UK.
O Oscar 2020 This Sunday, from 20pm.
Source: Wisewreck.
