The cast and crew of “CODA” accept the award for best picture at the Oscars on Sunday, March 27, 2022, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
LOS ANGELES — After a movie year often light on crowds, the Academy Awards named an unabashed crowd-pleaser, the deaf family drama “CODA,” best picture Sunday, handing Hollywood’s top award to a streaming service for the first time in a ceremony that saw the greatest drama when Will Smith strode onstage and slapped Chris Rock.
Sian Heder’s “CODA,” which first premiered at a virtual Sundance Film Festival in winter 2021, started out as an underdog but gradually emerged as the Oscars’ feel-good favorite. It also had one very deep-pocketed backer in Apple TV+, which scored its first best picture Academy Award on Sunday, less than three years after launching the service.
It also handed another near-miss defeat to Netflix, the veteran streamer that for years has tried vainly to score best picture. Its best chance, Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog,” came in with a leading 12 nominations. It won one, for Campion’s direction.
But “CODA” rode a wave of goodwill driven by its cast including Morton Grove native Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotsur and Daniel Durant. It’s the first film with a largely deaf cast to win best picture. “CODA” managed that despite being one of the least-nominated films with only three coming into Sunday. Not since 1932’s “Grand Hotel” has a movie won best picture with fewer than four nods.
Kotsur also won best supporting actor to become the first male deaf actor to win an Oscar, and only the second deaf actor to do so, joining his “CODA” co-star Matlin.
“This is for the Deaf community, the CODA community and the disabled community,” said Kotsur, signing from the stage. “This is our moment.”
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But most were talking about another moment. After Rock as a presenter joked to Jada Pinkett Smith that he was looking forward to a sequel to “G.I. Jane,” Will Smith stood up from his seat near the stage, strode up to Rock and smacked him. After sitting back down, Smith shouted at Rock to “keep my wife’s name out of your (expletive) mouth.” When Rock, who also joked about Jada Pinkett Smith while hosting the Oscars in 2016, protested that it was just a joke, Smith repeated the same line.
“That was the greatest night in the history of television,” Rock said, before awkwardly returning to presenting best documentary, which went to Questlove’s “Summer of Soul (…or When the Revolution Was Not Televised).”
The moment shocked the Dolby Theatre audience and viewers at home. At the commercial break, presenter Daniel Kaluuya came up to hug Smith, and Denzel Washington escorted him to the side of the stage. The two talked and hugged and Tyler Perry came over to talk as well.
Smith, who plays Venus and Serena Williams’ father in “King Richard,” later in the show won best actor, his first Oscar. It meant Smith again took the stage shortly after what seemed likely to be one of the most infamous moments in Academy Awards history.
Smith’s acceptance speech vacillated between defense and apology.
“Richard Williams was a fierce defender of his family,” Smith said in his first remarks. He continued: “I’m being called on in my life to love people and to protect people and to be a river to my people.”
Smith shared what Washington told him: “At your highest moment, be careful because that’s when the devil comes for you.”
Ultimately, Smith apologized to the academy and to his fellow nominees.
“Art imitates life. I look like the crazy father,” said Smith. “But love will make you do crazy things.”
Up until the slap, the show had been running fairly smoothly. Ariana DeBose became the first Afro-Latina to win an Academy Award for supporting actress. Jane Campion won the Oscar best director for “The Power of the Dog,” her open-plains psychodrama that twisted and upended western conventions.
Campion, who had been the first woman ever twice nominated in the category (previously for 1993’s “The Piano”), is only the third woman to win best director. It’s also the first time the directing award has ever gone to women in back-to-back years, after “Nomadland” filmmaker Chloé Zhao won last year.
Best actress went to Jessica Chastain, who also won her first Oscar. Chastain won for her empathetic portrayal of the televangelist Tammy Faye in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” a movie she also produced. The award was presented by Anthony Hopkins, who last year was absent when he surprisingly won best actor in that ceremony’s final award.
After record-low ratings and a pandemic-marred 2021 show, producers this year turned to one of the biggest stars around — Beyonce — to kick off an Oscars intended to revive the awards’ place in pop culture. After an introduction from Venus and Serena Williams, Beyoncé performed her “King Richard” nominated song, “Be Alive,” in an elaborately choreographed performance from a lime-colored, open-air stage in Compton, where the Williams sisters grew up.
Hosts Wanda Sykes, Amy Schumer and Regina Hall then began the telecast from the Dolby Theatre.
“All right, we are here at the Oscars,” began Hall. Sykes finished: “Where movie lovers unite and watch TV.”
Sykes, Schumer and Hall breezily joked through prominent Hollywood issues like pay equity — they said three female hosts were “cheaper than one man” — the Lady Gaga drama that Sykes called “House of Random Accents,” the state of the Golden Globes (now relegated to the memoriam package, said Sykes) and Leonardo DiCaprio’s girlfriends. Their most pointed political point came at the end of their routine, in which they promised a great night and then alluded to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
“And for you people in Florida, we’re going to have a gay night,” said Sykes.
The first broadcast award went, fittingly, to Ariana DeBose, who became the first openly LGBTQ actor and first Latina to win best supporting actress. Her win came 60 years after Rita Moreno won for the same role in the 1961 original “West Side Story.” DeBose thanked Moreno for leading the way for “tons of Anitas like me.”
“You see an openly queer woman of color, an Afro-Latina, who found her strength and life through art. And that is, I think, what we’re here to celebrate,” said DeBose. “So if anyone has ever questioned your identity or you find yourself living in the gray spaces, I promise you this — there is indeed a place for us.”
Later, Kotsur became the first male deaf actor to ever win an acting Oscar, and joined his “CODA” costar Marlee Matlin at the only deaf actors to win an Academy Award. He received a standing ovation while many in the Dolby gave the Deaf clap, waving both hands in the air.
“Encanto,” the Disney hit propelled by its chart-topping soundtrack, won best animated film. Lin-Manuel Miranda, who penned the film’s hit songs, missed the ceremony after his wife tested positive for COVID-19. Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s three-hour Japanese drama “Drive My Car,” one of the year’s most acclaimed films, won for best international film.
After two years of pandemic, and beneath a warm California sun Sunday, the Hollywood rite of glamour again got into swing, with a jammed red carpet and a COVID-tested audience.
To help regain the cultural spotlight, the Oscars leaned heavily on musical performances (Billie Eilish, Reba McEntire), film anniversaries (“The Godfather,” “Pulp Fiction,” “White Men Can’t Jump”) and as many mentions of the “Encanto” breakout song, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” as possible. That made for an often buoyant ceremony that put less focus on the pandemic. The Ukrainian-born Mila Kunis led a 30-second moment of silence for Ukraine. Some stars, like Sean Penn, had lobbied the academy to have Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speak at the ceremony
Aside from a few blue ribbons spotted on the red carpet, politics were seldom center stage. The Oscars instead doubled down on razzle dazzle, and the movies as an escape. Producers brought in the likes of BTS and Tony Hawk to rope in more viewers. Some things worked better than others. Fan favorite rankings, as voted on by Twitter users — in a moment unlikely to be remember as an Oscar highpoint — honored Zack Snyder’s version of “Justice League.”
