In ‘Green Book’ Victory, Oscar Critics See an Old Hollywood Tale

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Spike Lee, left, won an Oscar on Sunday for best adapted screenplay for “BlacKkKlansman,” and Mahershala Ali won best supporting actor for “Green Book.”CreditCreditMonica Almeida for The New York Times

By Brooks Barnes

Feb. 25, 2019

LOS ANGELES — Something seismic was happening during the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday night. The Hollywood establishment, excoriated for its longtime exclusion of women and minorities, recognized African-American production design and costume virtuosos for the first time. Asian-American filmmakers were honored. A movie about a gay rock star collected four trophies.

“I want to thank the academy for recognizing a film centered around an indigenous woman,” Alfonso Cuarón said as he accepted the award for best director for “Roma,” about a domestic worker in Mexico City.

But then came “Green Book.”

In a choice that prompted immediate blowback — from, among others, the director Spike Lee, who threw up his hands in frustration and started to walk out of the theater — the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave the best-picture Oscar to a segregation-era buddy film. While admired by some as a feel-good depiction of people uniting against the odds, the movie was criticized by others as a simplistic take on race relations, both woefully retrograde and borderline bigoted.

It was the ultimate Lucy-pulling-away-the-football moment for those who had hoped the film academy was going to reveal itself as a definitively progressive organization. That the 2017 selection of “Moonlight” as best picture wasn’t a fluke. That the efforts to diversify its membership — albeit still 69 percent male and 84 percent white — had been transformational.

Adding to the anger over “Green Book” were the other choices available. Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther” was a cultural and commercial phenomenon, shattering a myth about the overseas viability of movies with Afrocentric story lines. “Roma,” a nuanced examination of class that was made by an almost entirely Latino cast and crew, had been showered with honors at the pre-Oscars award shows.

And Mr. Lee’s “BlacKkKlansman,” about an African-American police officer who infiltrates the Ku Klux Klan with the help of a Jewish surrogate, was a chance for the academy to recognize one of cinema’s singular, groundbreaking filmmakers — one who had been repeatedly overlooked in the past.

“A lot of people may have allowed their expectations of the academy to become too great,” said Todd Boyd, a cinema and media studies professor at the University of Southern California who focuses on popular culture and race. “We can see some signs of changes, but there has not been a full transformation.”

“Green Book” was made by a team that was predominantly white, including its director and writers.CreditNoel West for The New York Times

“Green Book,” based on a true story, focuses on a working-class Italian-American man (Viggo Mortensen, nominated for best actor) who gets a job as a chauffeur and bodyguard for a gay African-American pianist (Mahershala Ali, who won the Oscar for best supporting actor). As they drive through the South in 1962, the mismatched men begin to realize they have common ground. At one point, they bond over fried chicken.

“The whole story is about love,” Peter Farrelly, the film’s director and one of its writers, said in his best-picture acceptance speech. “It’s about loving each other despite our differences and finding the truth about who we are. We’re the same people.”

That message resonated with many people, including black cinema standouts like the writer-director John Singleton (“Boyz in the Hood”) and Octavia Spencer, an Oscar winner in 2012 for “The Help,” who served as a “Green Book” executive producer. Luminaries like Harry Belafonte and Quincy Jones also endorsed Mr. Farrelly’s film in recent months. Representative John Lewis of Georgia, a revered figure in the civil rights movement, introduced a montage of the movie on Sunday.

“Green Book” received an A-plus grade from ticket buyers in CinemaScore exit polls and has become a modest hit, collecting $144 million worldwide for Universal Pictures and Participant Media.

Frustration over the celebration of “Green Book” was intensified by the racial makeup of the people who made it. The filmmaking team was predominantly white — director, writers, lead producers.

“Green Book is an inspirational tale of how we can end racism if everyone, regardless of background, just works together,” Jason O. Gilbert, a television writer and an author, said on Twitter. “So please welcome the stage the producers of Green Book: 1000 white guys who were all born in 1961.”

Despite pre-Oscars backing for “Green Book,” vocal supporters were hard to find after it won. A half-dozen academy members declined to be interviewed on Monday morning about the film’s victory, including several who supported “Green Book.” One explained that he did not want to attract “the Twitter mob.” Several lamented that the Oscars were no longer about movies but rather about advocacy.

Mr. Farrelly did not respond to a request for comment.

Others in Hollywood spent the day scratching their heads and wondering if “Green Book” had won simply because it was a studio-backed film. “Roma” was released by Netflix — largely skipping theaters — and some voters seemed unready to crown the streaming service.

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Mr. Lee jumped into Samuel L. Jackson’s arms after Mr. Jackson announced his screenplay award.CreditNoel West for The New York Times

It was also possible that “Green Book” benefited from the academy’s complicated “preferential” voting system for best picture, in which nominees are ranked 1 through 8, and the second- and third-place positions can carry as much weight as first place.

Cries of foul, however, were plentiful.

Dr. Boyd, the U.S.C. professor, said that, in part, he saw the selection of “Green Book” as pushback by older, more conservative voters.

“There are inherently people in the academy who think the organization’s diversity efforts are going too far,” he said by phone on Monday.

Justin Chang, a film critic for The Los Angeles Times, blasted “Green Book” in an article that was posted online minutes after the film won.

“‘Green Book’ is an embarrassment; the film industry’s unquestioning embrace of it is another,” Mr. Chang wrote. He said the film “reduces the long, barbaric and ongoing history of American racism to a problem, a formula, a dramatic equation that can be balanced and solved.”

There were also comparisons to “Crash,” which won best picture in 2006, beating “Brokeback Mountain,” and drew similar outrage for its depiction of race relations. “Green Book,” for instance, has the lowest score on Metacritic, the review-aggregation site, of any best-picture winner since “Crash.”

The contrasting emotions during Sunday’s ceremony could be seen in Samuel L. Jackson’s presentation of the two awards for screenwriting.

Standing onstage with Brie Larson, Mr. Jackson opened the red envelope containing the winning names for original screenplay and made a slight grimace, initially seeming reluctant to even announce that Mr. Farrelly, Nick Vallelonga and Brian Curie had won for “Green Book.” (Mr. Vallelonga, whose father was the model for the character portrayed by Mr. Mortensen, came under attack in January for making an anti-Muslim comment on Twitter in 2015. He apologized.)

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From left, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott and Charlie Wachtel also won best adapted screenplay awards for “BlacKkKlansman.”CreditMonica Almeida for The New York Times

After the three men accepted the prize, Mr. Jackson and Ms. Larson stepped back to the microphone to open the adapted screenplay envelope. A euphoric Mr. Jackson shouted Mr. Lee’s name for “BlacKkKlansman,” and the director jumped into his buddy’s arms when he got to the stage.

It was Mr. Lee’s first Oscar win. He shared the prize with his fellow writers Kevin Willmott, who is black, and Charlie Wachtel and David Rabinowitz, who are both white.

Speaking to reporters backstage after the ceremony, Mr. Lee at first declined to comment on his film’s losing best picture to “Green Book.” Then he compared “Green Book” to “Driving Miss Daisy,” the racial reconciliation fantasy that won for best picture in 1990, when Mr. Lee’s groundbreaking “Do the Right Thing” was not even nominated.

“I’m snakebit,” he said. “I mean, every time somebody is driving somebody, I lose.”

Mr. Lee also compared the best-picture win by “Green Book” to his beloved New York Knicks’ losing a close game.

“I thought I was courtside at the Garden, and the ref made a bad call,” he said.

Mr. Lee added, however, that the academy was changing, noting the organization’s aggressive efforts to diversify its membership after the #OscarsSoWhite outcries of 2015 and 2016. At least “BlacKkKlansman” was nominated this time, he said, so it wasn’t a complete example of history’s repeating itself.

“They opened up the academy to make the academy look more like America,” Mr. Lee said. “So that’s why three black women, if I’m counting correctly, won Oscars.” He was correct: Regina King won the supporting-actress award for “If Beale Street Could Talk,” while two “Black Panther” department heads, Hannah Beachler (production design) and Ruth E. Carter (costumes), became the first African-Americans to receive Oscars in their categories.

Mr. Willmott, who got his start in Hollywood two decades ago, summed up both the euphoria and disappointment.

“Tonight is a huge step forward, I think, in many different ways,” he said. “It’s still frustrating at times.”

A version of this article appears in print on of the New York edition with the headline: Looking More Like America? Racial Accord Eludes Oscars. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe