( ) — The countdown is over: this Sunday is the 2023 Oscars.
The 95th edition of the Academy Awards takes place this March 12 at the already customary Dolby Theater in Hollywood
Among the Oscar nominees, there is Latino representation: the film “Argentina, 1985”, by Argentine filmmaker Santiago Mitre, is one of the candidates for best international film; Meanwhile, the version of “Pinocchio” by the Mexican Gullermo del Toro has a nomination for best animated film.
Likewise, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” is the film that will arrive as leader at the ceremony, since it has 11 nominations; They are followed by “All Quiet on the Western Front” and “The Banshees of Inisherin”, which tied with nine.
All the nominees aspire to have their name mentioned as the winner from the stage of the Dolby Theater and, with it, take home the highest award in Hollywood cinema: the Oscar statuette.
Have you ever wondered where this award comes from? Here we tell you his story.
The Oscar Awards statuette: everything you need to know
Statuettes of the 92nd edition of the Oscars in 2020. (Credit: Matt Petit – Handout/AMPAS via Getty Images)
1. Technical details
The Oscar statuette is made of solid bronze and is plated with 24-karat gold, according to the Academy Awards website.
It has a height of just over 34 centimeters and weighs almost 4 kilograms.
documented the process of creating the statuettes and noted that it takes about a week to finish an award, from the foundation to the final finish.
Now, the Oscars mention that Polich Tallix, the art foundry in charge of making the awards, can make 50 statuettes in a period of 3 months.
2. What does the figure of the Oscar mean, the statuette?
The Oscars website indicates that in 1927, the year the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was created, a dinner was organized in the Crystal Ballroom of the Baltimore Hotel in Los Angeles to define the goals of the organization.
Various topics were discussed there, including how to recognize the best achievements in cinema.
It was decided to give out an award annually and the Academy set out to create a “majestic trophy”. Specifically, the person in charge of creating the design that we know to this day was the then art director of MGM, Cedric Gibbons.
“MGM art director Cedric Gibbons designed a statuette of a knight standing on a film reel wielding the sword of a crusader warrior,” the Oscars mention.
Once the design was drawn up, “Los Angeles sculptor George Stanley was commissioned to render the design in three dimensions, and thus the world-renowned statuette was born.”
The first statuette was awarded in 1929 (in the first edition of the Oscars) to Emil Jannings, winner of the best actor category for his work in the films “The Last Command” and “The Way of All Flesh”.
The base of the award, which is the reel of film, has five spokes, which refers to the five divisions the Academy began with: actors, directors, producers, technicians and writers. This base had different sizes in its early years, but since 1945 it has the dimensions we know today.
3. Why is this award called “the oscar”?
The original name of the statuette was “Academy Award of Merit”. How is it then that now it is called “the oscar”?
The Academy acknowledges that this is not known for certain, but that there is a popular story that tells of its possible origin.
“A popular story goes that, upon seeing the trophy for the first time, Academy librarian (and future CEO), Margaret Herrick, remarked that it looked like her Uncle Oscar,” he says.
The name “the Oscar” was officially recognized by the Academy until 1939, but since 1934 it was already widely known.
4. How much is a statuette worth?
The Oscar that the winners receive is estimated to be worth around $400.
Does this mean that if someone sells a statuette, they will receive that amount? Or can they get more money? The answer: neither one nor the other.
The Academy regulations clearly indicate, in the point 10 of the section “COPYRIGHTS AND TRADEMARKS”that the statuette cannot be sold or disposed of by law “without first offering it to the Academy for the sum of 1 dollar.”
So, for commercial purposes and copyright and trademark protection, the oscar has a starting value of US$1.
Selling the statuette doesn’t seem like such a lucrative business now, do you think?
