Edgar Wright names the greatest Oscar injustice of all time
It’s admirable that Edgar Wright is more than 20 years removed from his breakthrough movie as a director, and has so far manage to resist the lure of expensive and effects-heavy blockbusters to maintain his creative and artistic autonomy.
Obviously, he’s been credited on a couple of them in the past after retaining a story and executive producer credit on the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Ant-Man after vacating the director’s chair, in order to collaborate with Steven Moffat and Joe Cornish writing the script for Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin.
He even worked with a major studio on a decent-sized production on a certified box office bonanza, but Sony’s Baby Driver was positively thrifty by comparison at a cost of $34 million, and the propulsive action thriller couldn’t have been made by anyone other than Wright.
The seamless integration of music and spectacle was reflective of his sensibilities as an auteur, and it became the first entry in his filmography to receive Academy Awards recognition when it was shortlisted for ‘Best Film Editing’, ‘Best Sound Editing’, and ‘Best Sound Mixing’, all of which were richly deserved.
That’s the closest the co-creator of the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy has come to flirting with the Oscars, but he didn’t give it a second thought when pressed to comment on the ceremony’s most egregious affront. In fact, he even went one step further, and named it as “the world’s greatest injustice” when asked to name history’s most notable offender by Spaced Out.
In Wright’s estimation, there has never been a greater injustice to have ever occurred than the time “that Robin Williams won ‘Best Supporting Actor’ over Burt Reynolds at the Oscars.” That’s not to say he thinks the winner was undeserving, but he’s adamant that the latter’s career-best turn as Jack Horner in Paul Thomas Anderson’s classic porno drama was superior.
Of course, Wright is a huge fan of both Anderson and Boogie Nights, which comfortably sits among his favourite-ever movies, so there is an element of bias at play. Then again, it’s not insane to suggest that nobody would have batted an eyelid were Reynolds to trump Williams, such is the power of his performance.
The moustachioed veteran may have scooped the Golden Globe in the corresponding category, but Williams was nonetheless the overwhelming favourite going in having hoovered up the lion’s share of trophies heading into the Oscars. No offence to Jackie Brown‘s Robert Forster, Amistad‘s Anthony Hopkins, or As Good As It Gets‘ Greg Kinnear – making for a supremely stacked field – but it was definitely a two-horse race.
As far as Wright is concerned, though, the Academy made the wrong call for failing to recognise Reynolds for his tremendous turn. In typical Wright style, Reynolds made charm look easy while anchoring an entirely unique plot, so his backing is unsurprising.
