Activism upstages acting on Oscar night
Guillermo del Toro’s romantic fantasy, The Shape of Water, won four awards, and Frances McDormand was a popular winner for best actress
Los Angeles — Romantic fantasy The Shape of Water won the best picture Oscar on Sunday, the film industry’s most prestigious honour, on a night where themes of female empowerment and activism almost overshadowed the awards. The Fox Searchlight movie’s Mexican filmmaker, Guillermo del Toro, won best director, dashing the hopes of a rare win by a woman or a black filmmaker. The movie, about a mute cleaning woman who falls in love with a strange river creature, went into the ceremony with a leading 13 nominations, and won a total of four Academy Awards. It won despite a plagiarism lawsuit filed in Los Angeles last month claiming its unusual plot was lifted from a 1969 American play. Del Toro has denied ever seeing or hearing about the play. Greta Gerwig’s independent mother-daughter tale, Lady Bird, came away empty-handed while Universal Pictures’ racial satire, Get Out, got just one award — for original screenplay — despite speculation that its bold take on modern race relations might...
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