In an unprecedented turn of events, the 89th Annual Academy Awards ended with the wrong film being announced as best picture.
All the night’s other surprises were overshadowed when “Moonlight” won best picture, after “La La Land” was accidentally announced as the winner.
Producer Jordan Horowitz had already delivered an acceptance speech when a crew member came onto the stage looking for the Best Picture envelope. Apparently, presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were mistakenly given a duplicate envelope for Best Actress, instead of a Best Picture envelope.
While Horowitz and company were shocked by the mistake, they stuck around to congratulate the makers of “Moonlight.”
“I want to make sure that we’re all talking about the fact that a $1.5 million picture about gay black youth in America won best picture at the Academy Awards,” Horowitz told The Washington Post. “That’s a pretty sensational thing.”
Many people thought that “La La Land” would sweep the awards– having tied “Titanic” and “Ben Hur” for the most nominations ever– but “Moonlight” ended up taking home the top Oscars prize.
“Moonlight” is the first LGBTQ film to win best picture.
While “La La Land” didn’t win Best Picture, it did win in six other categories, including Best Actress for Emma Stone and Best Director for Damien Chazelle. Thirty two year old Chazelle is the youngest person to ever win Best Director.
Another surprise was when the Iranian film “The Salesman” won for Best Foreign Language Film and the director, Asghar Farhadi, was not in attendance to accept the award.
Farhadi and one of the films stars Taraneh Alidoosti announced last month that they would not attend the ceremony in protest to President Trump’s executive order on immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries.
Farhadi chose two Iranian-Americans to represent him at the ceremony and read a statement on his behalf.
“My absence is out of respect for the people of my country and those of other six nations whom have been disrespected by the inhumane law that bans entry of immigrants to the U.S.,” said Anousheh Ansari, reading from Farhadi’s statement. “Dividing the world into the ‘us’ and ‘our enemies’ categories creates fear, a deceitful justification for aggression and war.”
Unfortunately, the Best Picture flub was not the only mistake in this year’s telecast. During the “In Memoriam” segment, a photo of producer Jan Chapman was mistakenly used in place of a photo of costume designer and four time Oscar nominee Janet Patterson. Patterson died in October 2016 while Chapman is still alive, having recently produced “The Babadook.”
In a statement Monday morning Chapman said she was “devastated” by the mistake and added that Patterson was “a great beauty.”
If it weren’t for the Best Picture mix-up, surely the most surprising moment of the night was when “Suicide Squad” won an Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling. The DC Comics film was a huge critical flop, which is why many were shocked the film was even nominated.
