A History of The BAFTA Awards

A History of the BAFTAs

The British Academy Awards (BAFTA) are prizes awarded to movies, actors, actresses et all every February. The British public don't really go for the over the top celebratory, expensive vibe of the Oscars - in general the BBC, who usually show the BAFTAs ceremony are too cheap for that. It is a state owned public service station afterall,l so it wouldn't do to go spending all its money on feeding and 'watering' lots of stars with lots of money.

But the BAFTAs are worth the night in front of the TV, it is our chance to do some star watching and thankfully, over the past few years, stars from other parts of the world have decided that being seen at the Baftas is worth the effort.

In the past, the British Academy had something of a reputation for lots of nominating in line with the Oscars but then still giving the prize to a British movie. Now I'm a Brit and even I think that's a bit wrong - the best movie should win wherever in the world it comes from. If we deserve to win it we should, if not, we shouldn't.

As you will see from my rundown of nominations and winners, we have been very greedy at times but I'm pleased to say that over the last decade, things seem to have changed for the better.

This may explain why big stars are now willing to attend?

So without further ado - here is my history of the BAFTAs since its inception in 1948 to the nominations in 2012. I will start with the current cohort and work backwards.

2012 BAFTA Nominees

Best Film

The Artist - also recognised at the Golden Globes and Oscars, the Artist may well sweep the boards at all of the major awards ceremonies in 2012. French movies have not done too badly at the BAFTAs, where Gallic film-making is held in high-esteem.

The Descendants - Arguably George Clooney's best movie to date. Will it land the big prize East of the Atlantic?

Drive - A movie which has taken the award ceremonies by surprise. It was released without fuss but has become a great word of mouth success over here. Ryan Gosling is getting noticed in all of the right places.

The Help - the racial unrest in 1950s Mississippi as seen through the eyes of a white graduate returning home with a new outlook on her life and upbringing and of how she takes 'the help's' story to the wider public with nothing but the truth.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - the film version of the John Le Carre novel which was a successful TV series in the 1980s.

In previous years, I think the prize would definitely gone to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy but I am not sure it will get the top prize this year. If it were up to me, The Help would win hands down, I think it was one of the most enjoyable, entertaining movies of 2011 but I'm not a movie judge.

The awards are taking place on Sunday so we'll all know who has walked away with the prize on Monday morning. Will it be The Descendants, will Drive astonish everyone and steal the award from under the others' noses? Will The Artist sneak away silently with the gold mask?Time will tell.

BAFTAs in the 2000s

The 2000s represents a real sea-change for the BAFTAs with a realignment with the Oscars.

This was good news for the BAFTAs because people started to talk about Oscar 'buzz' in association with the BAFTAs.

In the early 2000s the BAFTA awards were presented by Stephen Fry and he certainly added intelligent and astute commentary to the proceedings. Not for him the close to the edge comedy displayed by Ricky Gervais as the Golden Globes. Fry made the BAFTAs seem more serious that they had previously been regarded.

In 2000, American Beauty swept the boards at all 3 of the awards ceremonies I have included in this article. At the BAFTAs, it was up against 4 great movies, East Is East (there's that British movie again!), The End of The Affair, The Sixth Sense and The Talented Mr Ripley.

At the 2001 Baftas, Oscars and Golden Globes, Gladiator won across the board but apart from Lord of The Rings in 2004 and Slumdog Millionaire's slam dunk in 2009, the rest of the decade sees some matching and mismatching between the three awards.

2003 was one of those weird years where 3 different movies won a Best Film award each, though Polanski won the Best Director prize at the Oscars but did not win with Best Film (Chicago). His movie, The Pianist picked up the best movie and director prize at the BAFTAs. It had also won the Palme D'Or at Cannes.

There is, however, a lot of 2 Awards for the same movie, either the BAFTA plus the OScar or the BAFTA plus the Golden Globe so the BAFTA Award can, I think, rightly claim to offer clues as to what might happen at the Oscars.

BAFTAs in the 1990s

The 1990s is a bit of a mixed bag for the BAFTAs with still a smidgeon of British movies included in the Best Movie prize.

In the past, there were always 2 awards, one for Best Movie 'From Any Source' and Best British Movie. The transition from one set of awards to the other led to some sympathetic inclusions of British movies amongst the other Best Movie films.

For example, 1992, 93, 95 and 98 were all won by British movies which had also been big box office hits, The Commitments, Howards, End, Four Weddings and A Funeral and The Full Monty all got the nod over other movies which went onto win Oscars. Most shamefully, The Full Monty won at the BAFTAs in the year which saw Titanic win everything everywhere. Now whilst I quite like The Full Monty, it is no Titanic. It is an engaging British moral tale of unemployment, fatherhood and love - it was a wordwide hit but I think Titanic should have won the BAFTA.

Only in 1994 and 1997 did the same movie sweep the boards at all 3 ceremonies for Schindlers List and The English Patient respectively.

In 1990, 1992, 1993 saw 3 different movies win the Best Movie.

1990 BAFTA went to Dead Poet’s Society, which was nominated at the other awards with some success. 1990 was another year where British movies were given the nod over bigger U.S. movies. The nominees for BAFTAs best film in 1990 included My Left Foot and Shirley Valentine but disregarded Dangerous Liaisons which won Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress BAFTAs for Glenn Close and Michelle Pfeiffer. This is just another example of ‘keeping it at home’ and Dangerous Liaisons is an incredible movie.

1992 The Commitments won over bigger movies because it had been huge at the box office and was, in many respects, like a breath of fresh air in British film, a real shot in the arm movie which was a worldwide box office hit.

1993’s BAFTA Best Film, Howard’s End was nominated at a number of other awards and had 2 outstanding performances from Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson so it was a ‘Brit’ success on a number of fronts. The BAFTA could not really ignore this and so the gong went to the movie. It is worth noting that Unforgiven won the 1993 Oscar and was nominated for a number of BAFTAs. Scent of A Woman picked up the Golden Globe and was roundly ignored at the BAFTAs, go figure!

BAFTAs in the 1980s

The 1980s saw the Oscars and Golden Globes much closer in terms of choices for prizes. Indeed, 1980, 81, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88 and 89 had the Oscars and Golden Globes in complete agreement.

The BAFTAs went to more radical choices like Woody Allens Purple Rose of Cairo in 1986 when Out of Africa won at the Globes and the Oscars. I remember well the news headlines the day after the 1988 Best Film BAFTA went to Jean de Florette, a French movie about a hunchback farmer, new to the village who is brought down by the cruelty and spite of 2 men in the village who want his land.

The British press were all saying “Jean de Who?” and there was an outcry as it won over movies like Cry Freedom (directed by a Brit, Richard Attenbrough), Hope and Glory (directed by a Brit, John Boorman) and Radio Days (Woody Allen).

Well if you haven’t seen Jean de Florette, I recommend you do – even with subtitles, it is an amazing, moving, astonishingly good movie, made all the better by a stand out performance by Gerard Depardieu as the eponymous hunchback. The BAFTAs got it right in 1988 – they even ignored other British movies to do so.

BAFTAs in the 1970s

In the 1970s, the BATFAs, Oscars and Golden Globes agreed to disagree for most of the decade with 1970,74, 75 and 79 all having 3 different films winning the prize.

The BAFTAs honoured Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid in 1971, whilst Patton and Love Story picked up the prize for best film at the Oscars and Golden Globes respectively.

In 1974, Day For Night directed by Francois Truffaut won at the BAFTAs. Roger Ebert has described it as “the best movie ever made about the movies” and the BAFTAs have never been afraid of honouring French movies. That this one also starred a British actress, Jacqueline Bisset probably didn’t do it any harm.

1975 the French were honoured again with Lacombe Lucien, Louis Malle’s art house movie about the French Resistance.

Whilst honoured at the BAFTAs, the movie was widely criticised by the French media for its portrayal of the French Resistance. Louis Malle based the movie on his own experiences during the second world war. Malle had such a difficult time with the movie in France that he emigrated to the USA shortly after it was released.

Malle would be honoured with a BAFTA Fellowship which is a lifetime achievement award in 1991. The first recipient of the Fellowship was Alfred Hitchcock and this year, Martin Scorsese is honoured.

In 1979, Julia was honoured over The Deer Hunter and Midnight Express, possibly because it starred a British actress, Vanessa Redgrave. Redgrave won the Oscar for the movie at the Oscars for Best Supporting Actress and was roundly boo’d for her speech which included claims that she and Fonda were making a stand in the movie against radical Zionists etc, etc. Paddy Chayevski, a Jewish director also honoured at the Oscars made a speech telling Redgrave that her collection of the Oscar would not be a "pivotal moment in history" and that a simple "thank you" would have sufficed.

Redgrave is very good in the movie though and she is an incredible actress.

BAFTAs in the 1960s

1960 and 1963 sees all 3 of the major awards going to what are now considered classic movies, Ben Hur and Lawrence of Arabia.

The rest of the 60s sees the usual agreement and disagreement across all 3.

The BAFTAs in the 60s tended to stick to movie which were either directed by or starred British actors and actresses, though they ended the decade by honouring The Graduate, a U.S. success, pretty much devoid of Brits and in the early 1960s The Apartment was honoured.

Looking through the list of BAFTA winners in the 60s, one is astonished at the longevity of some of these movies; Tom Jones, A Man For All Seasons, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Dr Strangelove and The Hustler were all honoured in that decade and all are, arguably, still revered as great movies now. 1962 represents the only year in which the BAFTAs could not make their mind up and 2 movies co-shared the top prize, The Hustler and Ballad of A Soldier.

Ballad of A Soldier was a Russian art-house movie about a young Russian soldier’s way through life, seeking liberty. It was subtitled and was also well-received in the USA but as you might expect, it is largely unheard of by mainstream cinema audiences now. The BAFTAs were never afraid to honour foreign movies though it is surprising that they could not separate it from The Hustler at the final vote.

BAFTAs in the 40s and 50s

How wonderful to see that the first movie ever to pick up a BAFTA for best film was ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’ which is one of my favourite William Wyler movies and also won at the Oscars.

The BAFTAs had its first awards ceremony in 1948. Hamlet won the gong in 1949 at both the Oscars and BAFTAs – Olivier was brave to bring Shakespeare’s play to the screen an abridged forma as this was always likely to have Shakespeare purists and scholars up in arms (and it did) and although its not a movie I would watch again and again, it works as a play brought to the screen. Olivier did this successfully with Henry V and later with Richard III and he brought his acting knowledge and stagecraft to his directorial skills to give us 3 excellent adaptations.

In the 1950s,4 of the Best Movie BAFTAs were foreign movies. 1950s winner, Bicycle Thieves is still considered a classic of Italian cinema and is a neo-realist movie which used lots of outdoor shooting, actors working with non-actors and the simplest imaginable story about a man losing the bicycle he needs to enable him to do his work. He goes looking for the stolen bike with his son and the relationship is investigated through the situations they find themselves in and the people they meet along the way. It is a film about post-war Italy and people picking up the pieces.

It was also honoured at the Oscars, several years before a Best Foreign Language Movie Award existed.

The other foreign movies honoured, La Ronde, Forbidden Games and Gervaise were French movies, though La Ronde was directed by a German, Max Ophuls.

Other movies honoured in the BAFTAs in the 50s include the British stalwarts, Room At The Top and Bridge On The River Kwai. My favourite BAFTA winner of the 50s is All About Eve, a movie with one of the best screenplays ever written. It was also honoured at the Oscars in a number of categories and it is a movie which has stood the time on both sides of the Atlantic.

And of course it has one of the most famous lines of dialogue ever heard in a movie delivered by one of the queens of cinema, Bette Davis , “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”

So the BAFTAs have a good track record in terms of identifying what might happen at the Oscars but I hope this article shows that in many respects the British Academy has stayed true to its sensibilities - they have shown respect for the art of movie-making in any language even when this seemed to be out of step with the Oscars and Golden Globes. For that reason, I will be tuned in tonight with many other millions of Britons to see who will win out in the battle for the 2012 honour of Best Film.

Thank you for reading.