Oscar winner Ariana DeBose in West Side Story. Picture: Niko Tavernise 2021 20th Century Studios
Sixty years ago West Side Story swept the board at the Academy Awards, winning ten Oscars, a record number for a musical that still stands. But Steven Spielberg’s reimagining of the Bernstein-Sondheim-Laurents-Robbins masterpiece, nominated for seven this year, had to settle for just one on Sunday night.
As expected, hot favourite Ariana DeBose took the Best Supporting Actress gong for her dynamic Anita to add to all the other awards she has picked up already, including Golden Globe and BAFTA.
But the great Spielberg himself had to play second fiddle to Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog) for Best Director and his movie lost out for Best Picture to CODA, a film about a deaf family in a Massachusetts fishing community which edged out Campion’s long-time favourite.
CODA’s win was the nearest thing to a surprise on Tinseltown’s big night at the Dolby Theatre and all six major awards went as predicted in my preview with the other three going to Will Smith, Best Actor for King Richard, Jessica Chastain, Best Actress for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, and Troy Kotsur, Best Supporting Actor for CODA.
Out of luck was Andrew Garfield, nominated for Best Actor in Netflix musical tick, tick…BOOM!, and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Best Original Song contender from Disney musical Encanto came up short behind Billie Eilish’s ‘No Time to Die’. But Encanto didn’t go away empty-handed, winning Animated Feature.
West Side Story’s other nominations came in the Cinematography, Production Design and Sound categories, all trumped by Dune, and for Costume Design, where the honours went to Cruella. Dune also got the nod over tick, tick…BOOM! for Film Editing.
In Sky’s Oscars preview, it was stated that cinema-goers had voted 60-40 in favour of the original West Side Story over the remake in a poll asking which they preferred.
Jeremy Chapman
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