Despite the chockablock ballroom full of Hollywood’s best and brightest, a jovial emcee in the comedian John Mulaney and honorees the audience seemed thrilled to celebrate, a pall of sadness was cast over the Governors Awards — an event created 14 years ago by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to shorten the Oscar telecast by relegating the honorary Oscars to its own untelevised confab.
Held Tuesday night, the ceremony — which was delayed two months because of the Hollywood strikes — honored two women who had just experienced remarkable losses. The editor Carol Littleton’s husband of 51 years, the cinematographer and former academy president John Bailey, died in mid-November. Just two weeks later, Michelle Satter, the Sundance Institute’s founding director and the recipient of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, learned that her son, Michael Latt, 33, had been shot dead at his home in Los Angeles.
“We need to talk through a broken heart,” the filmmaker Ryan Coogler said during his presentation to Satter, who had guided him through the making of his first feature, “Fruitvale Station.”
Still, as they say, the show must go on. And with Oscar nomination voting set to begin Thursday, A-listers of all stripes were in full campaign mode, working valiantly to try to ensure their spot on the ballot when nominations are announced on Jan. 23.
Boldfaced names mingling in the Ray Dolby Ballroom in Hollywood included Christopher Nolan, Margot Robbie, Robert Downey Jr., Greta Gerwig, Leonardo DiCaprio, Colman Domingo, Ava DuVernay, Florence Pugh and scores of others.
The first award of the night went to 97-year-old Mel Brooks, who the presenter Matthew Broderick said was older than penicillin, FM radio, polyester and the academy itself.
With a song-and-dance number from Broderick and Nathan Lane that featured a medley of Brooks tunes like “Springtime for Hitler” from his 1968 comedy “The Producers,” the duo, who starred in the 2001 Broadway adaptation of the film, did the majority of the work. Brooks quipped that he had sold his first Oscar, for his screenplay for “The Producers,” blew his nose onstage and promised not to sell this one.
Angela Bassett had never taken home the little gold man. She was nominated — and favored to win — last year for supporting actress for her role in” Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (but lost to Jamie Lee Curtis for “Everything Everywhere All at Once”) and in 1994 for her portrayal of Tina Turner in “What’s Love Got to Do With It.”
That changed Tuesday, and Bassett recognized the moment with a speech that recalled the few Black actresses who have won competitive Oscars, and how long it has taken for those prizes to be bestowed: Hattie McDaniel was the first, earning best supporting actress in 1940 for “Gone With the Wind,” followed five decades later in the same category by Whoopi Goldberg for her role in “Ghost.” Other Black supporting actress winners have followed, but Halle Berry remains the only Black woman to win an Oscar in the best actress category, for her role in the 2001 drama “Monster’s Ball.”
“This honor isn’t just for or about me,” Bassett said. “What I hope this moment means is that we are taking the necessary steps toward a future in which it is the norm, not the exception, to see and embrace one another’s full humanity, stories and perspectives. This must be our goal, and to always remember that there is room for us all.”
In Littleton’s prolific career of more than four decades, the editor has cut films as varied as “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” “Body Heat” and “The Accidental Tourist.” Glenn Close presented Littleton with her award. The two first worked together in 1983 in Close’s second film, “The Big Chill.”
“I accept this for all editors who toil in the darkness of an editing room, weighing each cut, making infinite choices to create a unique, believable world born of the imagination,” Littleton said. “Most of all I want to thank John, my dear Johnny.”
Then came Satter, who in her four decades as the founding director of the Sundance Institute has been responsible for nurturing the careers of some of Hollywood’s most respected filmmakers: from Quentin Tarantino, Kimberly Peirce and Gina Prince-Bythewood to Taika Waititi, Lulu Wang and Marielle Heller. The directors of the past three best picture winners: The Daniels (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”), Sian Heder (“CODA”) and Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”), all began their careers at the Sundance Labs.
Satter’s son, Michael, was the founder of an entertainment marketing firm that promoted the work of underrepresented voices, and he had worked closely with Coogler on the release of “Fruitvale Station.”
But it was Zhao, who was onstage with Coogler to present Satter’s award, who had the most emotional moment of the night. “Michelle, you’re a mother to me. And you’re a mother to Ryan. And you’re a mother to so many people sitting in this room,” she said.
“We are so grateful to you,” she continued. “We wouldn’t be here without you. We know you’re hurting. We’re so sorry and we know that there’s nothing we can say that can take away the pain. We want to say and we hope we can say this to you: We are all your children.”
