Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan was the big winner at last night’s Spirit Awards ceremony, where his ballet drama won each of the honors for which is was nominated. The evening was reminiscent of the 2009 ceremonies, where Aronofsky’s selected feature (that year it was The Wrestler) won Best Feature, Best Lead (though male – not female) and Best Cinematography, but this year the independent community also bestowed the Best Director award on the adored auteur. While it’s likely Aronofsky will be shut out in the corresponding category at Oscar’s this evening, it was great to see him garner his well-deserved props at last night’s celebration.
One of the surprises of the ceremony was that Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone, an early favorite having scored the most nominations, only yielded two of the seven, winning well-deserved Supporting honors for Dale Dickey, who was cruelly snubbed from the Oscar proceedings, and John Hawkes, who while nominated for the Oscar is sadly being relegated to long-shot status. Similarly shut out, Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right, which was a five-time nominee last night, only took home one honor – Best Screenplay, an award it’s also up for at the Oscars.
While I’m generally happy with how the Awards shook out (I predicted 10 out of 13 categories correctly!), I was definitely surprised that the early frontrunners only snagged wins in the less-prestigious categories. Will this be a trend that follows through on Oscar night? We’ll see.
BEST FEATURE
Black Swan
BEST DIRECTOR
Darren Aronfosky (Black Swan)
BEST FIRST FEATURE
Get Low
JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD
(Given to the best feature made for under $500,000)
Daddy Longlegs
BEST SCREENPLAY
The Kids Are All Right
BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY
Tiny Furniture
BEST FEMALE LEAD
Natalie Portman (Black Swan)
BEST MALE LEAD
James Franco (127 Hours)
BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE
Dale Dickey (Winter’s Bone)
BEST SUPPORTING MALE
John Hawkes (Winter’s Bone)
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Black Swan
BEST DOCUMENTARY
Exit Through The Gift Shop
BEST FOREIGN FILM
The King’s Speech
—
Categories Not Voted on by IFP Voters
—
ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD
Please Give
PIAGET PRODUCERS AWARD
Anish Savjani ( Meek’s Cutoff )
SOMEONE TO WATCH AWARD
Mike Ott ( Little Rock )
TRUER THAN FICTION AWARD
Jeff Malmberg ( Marwencol )
What are your thoughts on the Spirit winners?