It’s somehow uplifting waking up on International Women’s Day and finding out that “The Hurt Locker”, a film by a woman director, Kathryn Bigelow, won six Oscars.
I must admit I don’t particularly like awarding ceremonies, because it’s usually the people I’m not rooting for who end up winning, which eventually makes me sad and slightly angry.
Besides, the Academy Awards ceremony has become a tedious war between fashion houses to see whoever gets the best evening gown on the most beautiful actress and eventually increases its perfume sales the next day.
Even more annoying is the coverage you get from women’s magazines that seem only interested in giving "the best and worst dress" award to a long list of actresses, as if this were the most important thing on the planet.
If that's not enough, if
you work in the fashion industry, by now your email box is probably
bulging with emails from various fashion houses' press offices that are currently letting you know which actress was wearing one of their creations (in fact the latest email I got three minutes ago featured a description of one of the dresses worn last night that was much more detailed than the same fashion house's press release for the Autumn/Winter 2010 collection, gives you an idea…).
Yet there were a few things that struck me at this year’s Academy Award ceremony and they weren’t the dresses.
The first nice thing was Michael Giacchino’s acceptance speech after receiving his Oscar for the Original Score for Up.
Giacchino told the audience how, as a child, he was always encouraged to be as creative as he could, and reassuringly closed his speech adding, “If you want to be creative, get out there and do it. It’s not a waste of time”, a rather positive message for all the creative people out there boycotted by their own families, friends and funding boards, but still dreaming of making it one day.
It was also moving to hear Mauro Fiore, winner of the Oscar for Avatar’s cinematography, thanking his parents Lorenzo and Romilda who left Italy with four suitcases and a dream, and costume designer Sandy Powell, winner for her work on The Young Victoria, dedicating her award to “the costume designers that don't do movies about dead monarchs or glittery musicals. The designers that do the contemporary films and the low-budget ones and don't get as recognized as they should do.”
It was inspirational to hear Giacchino, Fiore and Powell touching upon themes such as creativity, dreams and the passion that leads people to work on a project, as much as low-budget as it may be, because they believe in it.
It would be simply amazing if the media would stop creating great hype around actors and actresses, divert their gaze from the red carpet and maybe help us discovering other figures revolving around the film industry (what about more interviews with talented cinematographers?) and it would be even better if fashion design students could be stirred towards creative jobs in the film industry by studying the inspiring work of proper costume designers (note: I said costume designers, not costume ‘stylists’ à la Pat Field).
It's also time to take inspiration from the nominees and not only from the winners: Italy has produced throughout the decades many talented hairstylists and make up artists who have worked in the film industry, among them Maria Grazia and Giannetto De Rossi, Manlio Rocchetti, Franco Corrodoni, Otello Sisi and Fabrizio Sforza.
This year Aldo Signoretti and Vittorio Sodano were nominated for their make up work in Il Divo, the story of controversial Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti. They didn’t win, but they undoubtedly did a great job in transforming Toni Servillo into one of the most enigmatic figures of Italian politics.
It’s silly to think that a film is a just a pile of haute couture dresses worn by beautiful actresses sashaying down the red carpet.
Cinema is in fact much more than just a "strapless dress with a voluminous skirt with original embroidery and flower-shaped crystals", as one of the press releases I've just got more or less states, nor it’s about vapid love affairs à la Elisabetta Canalis and George Clooney. As much as it may sound trite, cinema is an emotion that by exciting, moving and overwhelming us with its power, can inspire our creativity, imagination, talent and vision.
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