Welcome back to Book Break. In this video, we are bringing you our alternative Oscars
list. There has been a lot of chat around the Oscars, but as usual, a lot of the conversation
has centred around the fact the Oscars are still not very diverse. Once again, there
were no female directors nominated, and the nominees once again in all categories are
still very white.
So we really wanted to join in with this conversation, but we also wanted to talk about our favourite
thing to talk about, which is books.
And so, in this video, we are going to go back through the years and celebrate those
Oscar-winning films that were based on books by women and people of colour.
And did you know that two thirds of the Best Picture winners were adapted from literary
sources? Which just proves once and for all what we already knew: books are just the best.
So I'm starting with one honourable mention which is Room, based on the book Room by Emma
Donoghue. And this is the only film in this video that didn't win the Best Picture Oscar,
but Brie Larson did win Best Actress, and Emma Donoghue did win the Oscar for Best Adapted
Screenplay.
So Room by Emma Donoghue is a brilliant book, and the film is also brilliant. It's told
from the perspective of a young boy, who only knows this one room, that's his entire world.
He lives there with his Ma, who has taught him that there is no other world outside this
room, and slowly as the book goes on, it starts to become clear to us why they're there, and
why his Ma is teaching him this.
You do by now probably know what the situation is, but it's a book that's really fun to go
into without actually knowing what's going to happen, so I'm going to leave it there
and just really recommend that you pick this one up and then go and see the brilliant film.
But now, going into our Best Picture winners through the years.
So in 2017, despite an initial mix up, the winner for Best Picture was... Moonlight.
So Moonlight was actually based on a semi-autobiographical and never-published play by Tarell Alvin McCraney,
called In Moonlight, Black Boys Look Blue. And then, Tarell Alvin McCraney did go on
to win the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay along with Barry Jenkins.
So Moonlight follows three stages through the life of a young, gay, Black man, coming
to terms with his sexuality and his identity. And Moonlight was actually the first ever
Best Picture winner to star an all Black cast, as well as the first ever LGBTQIA+ film to
win Best Picture. And on top of that, Mahershala Ali, who won Best Supporting Actor, was the
first ever Muslim to win an acting Oscar, and Joi McMillion, the editor, was the first
Black woman to be nominated for an editing Oscar. So more of that please, Oscars!
OK, in 2014, the Best Picture award went to... 12 Years a Slave, which made the producer
Steve McQueen the first ever Black British producer to win this award, as well as the
first ever Black British director to direct a Best Picture-winning film. So this film
was an adaptation of the book Twelve Years a Slave, which is a slave memoir by Solomon
Northup, who was born free in New York, but then as an adult was tricked into being sold
into slavery, and then was a slave for 12 years, until he was able to secretly get information
to his friends and family in New York and secure his release.
In 2009, the Best Picture award went to... Slumdog Millionaire, which was loosely adapted
from the back Q&A by Vikas Swarup. So Q&A is the story of a young waiter who becomes
the biggest quiz show winner in history, only to be jailed and accused of cheating. So he
then has to prove his innocence by recounting stories of his life and travels through India,
that explain how he knew each answer. So it's a very similar story structure to the film,
but the film invented new characters and had a slightly different backstory for the main
character.
In 2003, the Best Picture award went to... Chicago, which was based on a play written
by a journalist called Maurine Dallas Watkins, based on two court cases that she'd covered
as a reporter, both involving women who were suspected of murder but later acquitted. So
one of them was Belva Gaertner, who was the inspiration for Velma Kelly, and the other
was Beulah Anan, who provided the inspiration for Roxy Hart. And even did say the infamous
line, 'We both reached for the gun'.
And Watkins actually never sold the rights to her play while she was alive. Some speculate
it's because she later regretted the glamorisation of these women in her play, who she probably
believed were guilty, so it was only after her death that it was turned into the stage
musical, and then the film.
In 1988, the Best Picture award went to... The Last Emperor, which is about Puyi, the
last emperor of China. And the screenplay for the film was actually adapted from his
own autobiography, From Emperor to Citizen.
So Puyi was selected as the emperor as a toddler, taken away from his family in this rather
traumatic ordeal, and then spent his childhood distanced from any family or anyone who would
discipline him, being told he had this divine power, and basically by his own admission
in his autobiography, becoming rather cruel and sadistic, because he realised that he
had the power to have his subjects beaten. But then after a few years, China became a
republic, and Puyi was forced to abdicate, still at this point a very very young child.
So his memoir is this absolutely fascinating account of this bizarre childhood, his attempts
to regain power afterwards, then being captured by the Soviet Union, held in prison for ten
years, and then becoming a sort of puppet for communist propaganda. His whole life is
a real case of life being stranger than fiction.
In 1981, the Best Picture award went to... Ordinary People, which is obviously a very
different book from the Diana Evans book which was on the Womens Prize shortlist last year.
This film was adapted from a much older book called Ordinary People by Judith Guest from
the 70s, which tells the story of this wealthy suburban family, struggling to cope with the
aftermath of two very traumatic events. And this is one of the books that the American
Library Association listed as one of their most frequently challenged books in school
libraries during the 90s, which always makes me want to read a book even more.
In 1950, the Best Picture Award went to... All About Eve, which is still the only film
in Oscars history to receive four female acting nominations, two for Best Actress and two
for Best Supporting Actress. And All About Eve is based on a short story called The Wisdom
of Eve written by Mary Orr who never got any screen credit for this. And Mary Orr actually
expanded her short story into a play, also called The Wisdom of Eve, which is definitely
worth a read. And just like the film, it's about an aspiring actress called Eve, who
manages to become the personal assistant to this Broadway assistant called Margo Channing,
who is totally unaware that Eve is actually planning to take over her parts and steal
her fame for herself.
And finally, all the way back in 1941, the Best Picture Award went to... Rebecca, which
interestingly was the only film directed by Alfred Hitchcock to win Best Picture. And
both Alfred Hitchcock and the lead actor Laurence Olivier treated the lead actress Joan Fontaine
terribly, throughout the making of this film, so serious props to her that she was actually
nominated for Best Actress despite their bullying.
And of course, this is based on the book Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier, which is this absolutely
excellent gothic novel, about a young woman who marries a widower, only to find that his
household is constantly haunted by the presence of his first wife Rebecca, and we never actually
learn his new wife's name, she's only ever referred to as the new Mrs De Winter. Whereas
Rebecca is just felt everywhere throughout the house. So it's this brilliant, sinister
novel that in 2017 was actually voted the UK's favourite book of the last 225 years.
So even beating out classics like Pride and Prejudice and 1984.
So that's our alternative Oscars list, we would love to know what are your favourite
films based on books. Do leave us a comment below, and of course give this video a thumbs
up if you enjoyed it, and hit that subscribe button below for new videos every week.