The Film Experience

Nathaniel R

In the matter of one of the "smaller awards" (haha) like Best Picture, the Oscars chose to go very big and noteworthy indeed. Screen star and EGOT legend Rita Moreno (whose classics include The King and I, Singin' in the Rain, West Side Story, and Carnal Knowledge... though Hollywood obviously never did right by her denying her the lead roles she clearly would have aced) did the honors. She was a perfect choice both for her all-generations appeal, and her estimable comic gift. In introducing the Best Picture category she memorably joked that the most important award was "Best Supporting Actress" and her winning role came in a movie that won some other 'smaller awards,' too. She remains a reliable energetic funny delight at 89. Sadly, this great great moment didn't come at the end of the broadcast (argh!) but a couple of prizes too early. To understand how big a deal it is that Rita Moreno presented you have to also understand the history a bit...

Rita with her daughter on the red carpet

In the 93 year history of the Academy Awards, this honor has usually been reserved for men. It took Oscar twenty years until they let a woman do the honors, despite 3 of the original 36 founding members being women and one of them a huge movie star and true power player in town (Mary Pickford). At the 21st ceremony honoring Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948) the Academy's then-current Best Supporting Actress OBSESSION Ethel Barrymore presented, becoming the first woman to do so. The Academy loosened up a bit on their 'boys club' routine shortly after that (round about the time the Oscars started being televised in the early 50s) and actresses semi-regularly popped up. All but two of them they chose, marked with an asterisk, were Best Lead Actress winners: Mary Pickford, Audrey Hepburn, Janet Gaynor, Ingrid Bergman, Audrey again, Olivia de Havilland, Audrey again, Julie Andrews, Elizabeth Taylor, Liz again, Audrey again, Lillian Gish*, Loretta Young, Carol Burnett*, Cher, and Barbra Streisand who presented to Dances with Wolves.

Curiously, the Oscars retreated back into their "Men Only!" stance just as the 1990s (the era of "girlpower!") kicked off. Women were occasionally invited to duet with a man to present the biggest award, but NONE solo for 28 years. You read that right. Between the 63rd Oscars honoring Dances with Wolves (1990) and the 91st Oscars honoring Green Book (2018), no women were invited to present Best Picture solo.

Perhaps hearing our collective decades-long agonized cries of "WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU FOR NOT VALUEING ACTRESSES?!?", they finally let women present the biggest award again (solo) starting with Julia Roberts for Green Book. Then Jane Fonda for Parasite. And now Rita Moreno for Nomadland.

Rita Moreno giving one of the most sensational performances in cinema history

Didn't mean to focus so much on Oscar trivia in this post ("Too late!") even though it's a kink we embrace and celebrate on the regular. But it's a way of underlining how rare and wonderful this Rita Moreno moment was. West Side Story is my personal movie of all time so any chance to celebrate Rita Moreno, we should.

The beauty of this moment wasn't just that the Oscars were finally embracing one of Hollywood's living elderly legends (which they've been weirdly reticent to do these past couple of decades and Best Picture presentation is a perfect place to do so!). It's also that it was a Best Supporting Actress winner and a woman of color! In fact, she's the first woman of color to ever present Best Picture solo (multiple men of color have done it), though we should note that Michelle Obama did it in tandem with Jack Nicholson for Argo (2012), and is the only non-actress to have done so though men who are not actors have occassionally done so (usually directors).

Was Rita Moreno's appearance also a publicity stunt? Sure! It always helps to have something to promote and this year could be a very big year in terms of communal love headed Moreno's way. A new doc on Rita Moreno that's been on the festival circuit, Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It hits theaters on June 18th.

And then six months later on December 10th, the day before Rita's 90th birthday, Steven Spielberg's remake of West Side Story hits theaters.

This time Ariana DeBose (The Prom) will be playing "Anita" and Rita Moreno herself will be playing the role that used to be "Doc"... only she's named Valentina in a gender and racial swapped choice. Theoretically Rita could be back at the Oscars in the Best Supporting Actress race again and even up against a younger version of her most iconic role (but that's getting WAY too far ahead of ourselves).

Or is it? This teaser trailer is clearly meant to play off of the idea that this is the prestige musical to end all musicals. It looks very self-consciously huge and prestigiously photographed (like a moving FYC ad) while also paying respect to the original with that graffiti text and the whistling to kick it off. Will next year's Oscar race be two huge Latin-American musicals up against each other with The Heights and West Side Story both arriving?

No. no. Let's save these questions til the "April Foolish Oscar Predictions"... in... um... mid May this year since the Oscars were so late. We'll get to it soon!