‘Moon Killers’Martin Scorsese’s latest film is dedicated to the memory of the author of the soundtrack. Canadian musician Robbie RobertsonHe died of prostate cancer on August 9 at the age of 80. Five months after leaving this world, the former guitarist and main composer of The Band, first Oscar nomination In the best original score section, it’s one of 10 categories that ‘Los Assassines de la Luna’ is aiming to win next Sunday.
Robertson thus joins a list of nearly 80 artists in the history of the Hollywood Academy Awards who have posthumously competed for the gold statuette in competitive categories. Until that date, only 15 people managed to win it from beyond (and one of them, twice).
Best adapted screenplay. ‘Gone with the Wind’. The first posthumous Oscar in history was awarded to this playwright and screenwriter, who was crushed to death by a tractor in his own garage four months before the triumphant premiere of ‘Gone with the Wind’, a monumental adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s novel of the same name. Howard was stated to be the sole writer of the script, despite the infamous interference of producer David O. Selznick.
The best soundtrack. ‘Around the World in 80 Days’. It’s a complete case of bad luck. Composer and arranger Victor Young collected 20 Oscar nominations during his lifetime, none of which he turned into an award. He suffered a cerebral hemorrhage in November 1956 and died at the age of 57. In March of the following year, he won the statuette with his music ‘Around the World in 80 Days’. Very late.
Art direction at its best. ‘Gigi’ and ‘Ben-Hur’. He is the only person to win a posthumous Oscar twice. Horning, who was a collaborator of the legendary Cedric Gibbons at Metro, was nominated for the statuette five times before his death in 1959 during the filming of ‘Ben-Hur’. In the same year, he was awarded the award for his work in Vincente Minnelli’s musical ‘Gigi’, and repeated it in the next edition with ‘Ben Hur’ (he was also nominated for ‘With Death on His Heels’ in 1960).
Best movie. ‘Ben Hur’. Of the 11 awards ‘Ben-Hur’ won at the 1960 ceremony, two were awarded posthumously. Mentioned is that of artistic director William A. Horning and producer Sam Zimbalist, who died of a heart attack while working on William Wyler’s enormous peplum in Rome. This is the only time the best picture Oscar has been awarded to someone who is no longer among the living.
Art direction at its best. ‘Spartacus’. In the years when historical dramas set in classical antiquity were sweeping artistic categories, Stanley Kubrick’s film earned the Swedish-born decorator his first and only Oscar, almost two years after his premature death.
Best animated short film. ‘Winnie the Pooh and the stormy day’. The great totem of American animation continues to hold the record for nominations (59) and awards (22 plus four other honorary awards) at the Hollywood Academy Awards. He won his final posthumous Oscar for the studio’s second short film, based on AA Milne’s stories about the Winnie the Pooh character, which was Disney’s final work as a producer before his death from lung cancer in December 1966.
The best soundtrack. ‘Foot lights’. It’s an interesting case. Charles Chaplin’s film was released in New York and several other cities on the East Coast of the United States in 1952, but due to the director’s communist sympathies, most of the country’s cinemas refused to show the film. Its official premiere in Los Angeles took place 20 years later, which made it possible for the film to be included at the 1973 Oscars, winning the award for best score, which Chaplin signed with Raymond Rasch and Larry Russell. But it was too late for these two, as they died in 1964 and 1954 respectively.
Best actor. ‘Network. An irreplaceable world.” Despite the fact that ‘Network’ co-star William Holden has more star status and more screen time, Metro decided to bet that the Australian Finch was the best asset for the Oscars and therefore put him in an intense competition that the actor did not participate in. took him on a promotional tour. he survived (he died of a heart attack in January 1977 after taping his appearance on the Johnny Carson show). Giving him the statuette was the bare minimum.
Photography at its best. ‘Tess’. This prestigious British cinematographer, who won an Oscar in 1973 with the movie ‘Cabaret’, suffered a heart failure during the shooting of the movie ‘Tess’ in France in 1978 and had to be replaced by Ghislain Cloquet. Two and a half years later, they both shared the statuette, but only the latter was able to receive it.
Best original song. ‘Beauty and the Beast’. In February 1990, songwriter Howard Ashman, who won the Oscar for best song for “Under the Sea” from the movie “The Little Mermaid,” revealed to composer Alan Menken that he had AIDS. She died just a year after completing her work on ‘Beauty and the Beast’. Three of her songs from the film were nominated for an Oscar in 1992 (‘Beauty and the Beast’ won) and she was nominated again the following year for ‘A Friend Like Me’ from ‘Aladdin’. His four posthumous nominations are still a record today.
The best documentary short film. ‘Educating Peter’. The short film, about a student with Down syndrome being placed in a regular classroom at a school in Virginia, earned cameraman and producer Tom Goodwin the only Oscar of his career, three months after he succumbed to cancer.
Photography at its best. ‘Road of Perdition’. When cinematographer Conrad Hall died of bladder cancer in January 2003 at the age of 76, he left behind a glittering career highlighted by two Oscars (for ‘Two Men and a Destiny’ and ‘American Beauty’) and seven other nominations. He also posthumously left the film “Road to Perdition” by Sam Mendes, which was dedicated to his memory and earned him his tenth nomination and third statuette in the same year.
Best Supporting Actor. ‘Black Knight’. The second installment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy was released six months after a reckless cocktail of drugs ended the Australian actor’s life, and his violent portrayal of the sociopathic clown known as the Joker was the film’s big claim from the start. As if on cue, the announcement of his Oscar nomination came on the first anniversary of his death. His family received the inevitable reward.
Best documentary feature film. ’20 steps from fame’. The last Oscar ever awarded posthumously was given ten years ago. The beneficiary was producer Gil Friesen, a senior music industry executive whose interest in the stories of showgirls who always lived in the shadow of big stars led him to commission director Morgan Neville to make a documentary on the subject. Friesen died of leukemia in December 2012, and the film won the statuette a year and three months later.