Cinema usher Tom Hughes tells us why he backs Lenny Abrahamson to win the Best Director gong at this year’s Oscars.
When I sealed the two envelopes labelled ‘2016 Oscar Nominations’ I felt confident that I’d voted fairly and objectively. I’d addressed them to HOME and The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and had almost reached the postbox when it struck me: I had in fact voted with prejudice, swayed by a private agenda. Lenny Abrahamson was the best director in the Academy’s list, having orchestrated the most heart-rending drama of the year, and probably the decade, in Room: a de-familiarisation; a making-strange of growing up; of the parent-child relationship; and of the most fundamental human experience – that of existing in and experiencing reality. But my real reason for picking him was to draw attention to his previous work, from the sweet insanity of Frank (2014) to the Beckettian tragicomedy of Adam & Paul (2004), to the captivating pathos and devastating poignancy of Garage (2007). Thus, I had voted politically without even meaning to. How many other such biases could be at work in this system? What if the awards don’t just reflect, but actually perpetuate these biases by encouraging the production of films that share them? But by now I’d posted the envelopes, so I just wandered off…
Click here to read more about Lenny Abrahamson’s Room and to find out about current screenings. Want to find out who else our ushers are backing at the Oscars? Click to read their choice for Best Actor, Best Picture and Best Actress.
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