But let’s face it, the scene was also comedy gold – the most priceless Oscar fuck-up ever, and the greatest heist Bonnie and Clyde ever pulled. It was a touching moment of artists looking out for each other, responding to an unimaginable sticky gaffe with adult courtesy and heart, acting like true artists on a night when movie people can often seem like squabbling prom queens. Everyone involved came out looking cooler and more majestic. Horowitz looked happy for Moonlight, just as Barry Jenkins gave his respects to La La Land. The biggest shock was how the La La Land and Moonlight teams showed such valiant grace under pressure, displaying mutual respect and admiration, salvaging what could have been a miserable scene. You could picture Howard Beale from Network emerging onstage to rant, “I want you to get up right now, open your windows, stick your head out and yell: ‘ 20th Century Women wasn’t even nominated?'” Should we blame Price Waterhouse? Faye? Warren? Why not chalk it up to the Magic of the Movies™ that we kept hearing about all night? Because this instant-classic moment seemed to mash up decades of Hollywood history, given the illustrious legacy on display. The La La Land crew made their acceptance speeches, a guy with an earpiece holding the red envelope came around whispering in ears, then La La producer Jordan Horowitz made the announcement that an unprecedented pooch-grope just happened. This was a Lana Del Rey song of an Oscar night, except with a tragic final verse that rhymes “Faye Dunaway” with “baby, put your smoking gun away,” or maybe “ Bonni e and Clyde” with “spritzer spiked with cyanide.” No matter how many times you re-watch that final 10-minute meltdown, it’s still hard to believe, like a lost outtake from The Bodyguard. If you didn’t savor every second of that moment, maybe you just don’t like movies. The Best Picture screw-up was a magnificent triumph of live TV, starring two of the greatest movie stars ever – the kind of beautiful disaster only the Oscars could deliver. The only thing missing was some sad banjo music. It was just like the end of Bonnie and Clyde: Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway bask in each others’ glow, there’s suddenly an awkward silence, they share a moment of doomed erotic eye contact … and then oh, the carnage. What a glorious only-in-Hollywood fiasco, and what a sublimely insane ending to an Oscar night for the ages.
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