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Wide ScreenThe Oscars: How did Canada do?
Nominated in a total of five categories last night, Canada's nominees sadly came away with only one golden statuette at the Oscars last night. "Beginners" star Christopher Plummer took home the award for best supporting actor, the lone Canadian to walk away with a trophy at the 84th annual Academy Awards.
As Plummer aptly pointed out in his acceptance speech, the Oscars are just two years older than the Toronto-born actor, yet it was only Plummer's second nomination and his first win. Plummer took home the award for his performance as Hal Fields in "Beginners," an elderly man who comes out of the closet to his son (Ewan McGregor) shortly before discovering that he has terminal cancer.
The Canadian beat out actors young and old, including Max von Sydow ("Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close"), Nick Nolte ("Warrior"), Kenneth Branagh ("My Week with Marilyn"), and Jonah Hill ("Moneyball"). With a career spanning nearly six decades and with nearly 200 film and television roles to his credit, the Oscar win for the "Sound of Music" star seemed long overdue.
Sadly, other Canadian nominees were not as fortunate as Plummer. Toronto-born composer Howard Shore ("Hugo") lost to favourite Ludovic Bource ("The Artist") in the best original score category. The French composer had dominated the category at every other major award show this year, so Shore's loss was unfortunately not a surprise.
As for other aural categories, Welland, Ont.'s David Giammarco ("Moneyball") also fell short in the best sound mixing section, losing to Martin Scorsese' "Hugo," which dominated almost every technical section last night.
But the bad news continued for Canucks. Despite dual nominations in both the best foreign Language film and best animated short categories, Canada also came up short. Canada's official Oscar submission "Monsieur Lazhar" and the Canadian co-production "In Darkness" (Poland's official submission) lost to Iran's "A Separation" in the best foreign language film category, while Montreal's Patrick Doyon ("Dimanche") and the Calgary-based animation duo of Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis ("Wild Life") lost to Louisiana's William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg ("The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore") in the animated short section. Occupying two out of the five nomination spots is supposed to increase your chances, but not so for Canada.
Regardless, 2012 was one of Canada's best Oscar showings in years and one that likely won't be repeated any time soon, and Canucks can take solace in the fact that one of our own came away with one of the highest profile acting prizes of the night. On top of that, Plummer conducted himself with a level of class and charm that one would expect from a Canadian. The Canadian nominees may not all have the trophies to show for it, but at least they still have their dignity.
