Four years ago, Barry Jenkins experienced one of the best and strangest nights of his life. The filmmaker behind the Oscar-winning film, “Moonlight,” was awarded Best Picture but the situation involved a huge mess-up on the part of the presenters of the award falsely claiming that “La La Land” won instead. It’s still a situation that gets brought up every year when the Oscars are being awarded and will likely continue to be mentioned for decades to come just for how strange it is. And according to Barry Jenkins, the publicity the film received from that weird Oscar win definitely made people more aware of “Moonlight,” but it also added controversy to a victory that might sully the win in the eyes of some people.
Speaking on the Jemele Hill is Unbothered podcast (via IndieWire), Jenkins went into detail about the “Moonlight” Best Picture win at the 2017 Oscars and why he has mixed feelings about the way his film took home the trophy. While he’s obviously happy to have won the Best Picture Oscar, Jenkins doesn’t believe the attention brought from the “fuck-up” on stage actually helped the legacy of the film. If anything, the filmmaker thinks the drama brought doubt to a win that was well deserved.
“In a slightly sinister way, the fuck-up confirms or affirms some people’s unsavory thoughts about why the film was awarded Best Picture,” the filmmaker said. “If you did the blind taste test of films and wrote down all the accolades this particular film achieved that year, whether it be the ratings, the reviews, all of these things, [then ‘Moonlight’ wins]. If we were at the NFL Combine, and I tell you, ‘This player has these measures and was drafted number one,’ you wouldn’t doubt it at all. And yet, when you get into ‘Oh, it’s because it was the Black film’…it’s like no, motherfucker. We ran a [4.2-second 40-yard dash], and we ran it barefoot because we didn’t have the benefits of all that private school Academy training.”
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That said, even Jenkins understands the impact of the clip of the Oscars mix up and the fact that “Moonlight” was given the award under such strange circumstances will probably be one of the most defining moments of his career.
“Because we were awarded Best Picture in that way, that clip was shown so many places,” Jenkins explained. “I have no doubt in my mind, out of anything I ever do in my life, and who knows what’s to come ahead, but that particular moment is going to be the most visible thing that’s ever associated with me, for better or for worse. The good thing is there were maybe people who had never heard of the film or who had seen it but did not know who I was or what I looked like. This movie played in a lot of small places… because of how loud [the Oscars] was, they did see it.”
Barry Jenkins’ new project, “The Underground Railroad,” debuts on Amazon Prime Video on May 14.
You can relive the Oscars win below: