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Oscars 2017 live: Winners and highlights of the 89th Academy Awards

Karl Quinn

Oscars mix-up: La La Land producer, Emma Stone react

The 87th Academy Awards end with a major bungle as La La Land is wrongly announced as winning best picture instead of Moonlight. Vision courtesy A.M.P.A.S.

That's all for our live coverage of the 89th Academy Awards.

What an incredible way to end the 2017 Oscars. It is undoubtedly the biggest fiasco in Academy Awards history.

For the most part, it was a tame and timid affair. That almighty stuff-up, though, turned the ceremony into something special and one we'll be talking about for years to come.

Photo gallery
Oscars 2017: bungle names wrong film

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Mahershala Ali - who was earlier awarded the Oscar for best supporting actor for his performance in Moonlight - described the stuff-up as "pretty remarkable".

"When I did see security people coming onstage and their [La La Land's] moment was being disrupted in some way, I got really worried and then when they said 'Moonlight, you guys have won, it just threw me, more than a bit.

"I didn't want to go up there and take anything from somebody. It's very hard to feel joy in a moment like that."

More details have come to hand to explain how this mistake happened. It seems Beatty had been given the wrong envelope and no one realised until the La La Land producers were well into their speeches.

According to USA Today, one of two accountants from PricewaterhouseCoopers, who was watching in the wings, jumped up during the speeches and said "He [Beatty] took the wrong envelope".

Apparently he had taken a duplicate copy of the best actress envelope instead of the best picture envelope.

The final tally stands at six wins for La La Land and three for Moonlight. You can read the full - and correct - list of winners from the 89th Academy Awards here.

From left: <i>Moonlight</i> producers Jeremy Kleiner and Adele Romanski pose with director Barry Jenkins in the press room.
From left: Moonlight producers Jeremy Kleiner and Adele Romanski pose with director Barry Jenkins in the press room. Photo: Getty Images
Michael Idato

Best actress winner Emma Stone was as perplexed as the international media when it came to the on-stage gaffe that saw La La Land momentarily named best film before the error was spotted.

The glitch, as presenter Warren Beatty explained it, was that he was in fact holding Stone's best actress winner's card which is why, when he showed it to his co-presenter Faye Dunaway, she announded La La Land as the winner. But Stone revealed she was still holding her winner's card.

"I was also holding my best actress in a leading role card that entire time," she said backstage. "I'm not trying to start anything, but I'm not sure what happened."

In fact it is Oscar protocol to have two sets of winner announcement envelopes so it is possible the second envelope was somehow left on stage, or handed to Beatty in error.

"Is that the craziest Oscar moment of all time?" Stone said. "I guess we made history tonight. I think it's an incredible outcome but a very strange happening for Oscar history."

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And let's spare a moment for Jordan Horowitz, the producer (with Fred Berger and Marc Platt) of La la Land, and the guy who first announced there had been a mistake, presumably because he had read the engraving at the bottom of the statuette.

"I'm sorry, no, there's a mistake," he said, storming from stage left. Moonlight, you guys won best picture. This is not a joke."

"This is not a joke," echoed one of the other producers. "I'm afraid they read the wrong thing." 

This is not a joke," Horowitz continued. "Moonlight has won best picture."

At that, Beatty stepped up to the microphone, and opened the red envelope again. Or maybe for the first time. At which Horowitz snatched the card, leaving Beatty with a slightly bewildered expression on his face. 

Amazing.

<i>La La Land</i> producer Jordan Horowitz, left, hands over the best picture award to <i>Moonlight</i> writer-director ...
La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz, left, hands over the best picture award to Moonlight writer-director Barry Jenkins. Photo: Getty Images

The confusion here is in the explanation Beatty gave, in which he told Kimmel "I opened the envelope. And it said Emma Stone, La La Land. That's why I took such a long look at Faye [Dunaway] and at you. I wasn't trying to be funny."

It was Beatty who said introduced the award. 

"And the Academy Award..." pause ... fumble in envelope ... quizzical look at Dunaway ... "for best picture ..." pause.

"Come on," says Dunaway. 

He hands her the envelope. She says, "La La Land."

They both beam. 

My theory? Beatty was too vain to wear his glasses, and couldn't read what was written.

Actually, a correction. It was in fact Faye Dunaway who announced La La Land as the winner. Warren Beatty may yet have a get-out clause.

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In all this confusion and excitement over the stuff-up, it's easy to lose sight of what actually happened: Moonlight won best picture. That's quite incredible, on so many scores. 

This is a formally challenging movie about a young gay black man journeying from bullied child to troubled teen to gangsta. The character is played by three different actors at three different ages. It's structured a little like the play it was based on, In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, but it's totally filmic. It's taken a piddling $US29 million worldwide. 

This is a win for art cinema, for diversity, for recognition of moral complexity in storytelling. It's a bit special, really.

It's a huge win for Brad Pitt's Plan B, too. Though he's not one of the named producers on Moonlight, this is the fourth year in a row his boutique production company has had a best picture nominee, on the second time it has won (the first was 12 Years a Slave). You can read more about that side of Brad Pitt here.

The card showing Moonlight as the best picture winner.
The card showing Moonlight as the best picture winner. Photo: Getty Images

Poor Warren Beatty. The guy has had 14 Oscar nominations, won an Oscar for best director (for Reds, 1982), was once considered the sexiest man alive, and one of the most powerful in Hollywood. And now he's going to be remembered as the guy who read out the wrong name. 

It reminds me of a certain joke about a farmer and a goat.

No matter how many times you watch that, it doesn't get any easier. Poor Warren Beatty trying to explain it away. 

"I want to tell you what happened. I opened the envelope. And it said Emma Stone, La La Land. That's why I took 
such a long look at Faye [Dunaway] and at you. I wasn't trying to be funny."

"Well, you were funny," said Kimmel.

I'm not sure the guys from La La Land are laughing right now.

I tell you, if there's one person who knows how Warren Beatty must be feeling right now, it's Sarah Murdoch. Remember when she announced the wrong winner on Australia's Next Top Model back in 2010? She must be feeling a little vindicated right now. Well, maybe not vindicated, just not quite so alone.

But then, her stuff-up was broadcast to a couple of hundred thousand viewers on pay TV. This one has gone live to north of 30 million in the US and, if the Academy's own figures are to be believed, around 1 billion viewers worldwide. 

What would Basil Fawlty say? "I may have mentioned the wrong film, but I think I got away with it."

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"I have to say, and it is true, it is not fake," says director Barry Jenkins. "We have been 
on the road with these guys for so long and it was so gracious and so generous of them, my love to La La Land, my love to everybody. Man! "

Producer Adele Romanski chips in: "I don't know what to say. That was really – I'm not sure – I'm still not sure thisis real. But thank you to the Academy. And, um, it is so humbling to be standing up here with hopefully still the La La Land crew? No, OK, they are gone. But it is very humbling to be up here and I think I hope even more than that, that it's inspiring to people, little black boys an brown girls and other folks watching at home who feel marginalised."
Oscars

Best Picture: Moonlight

This is astonishing. Warren Beatty has totally stuffed it up. the best picture award hasn't gone to La La Land at all. It's gone to Moonlight. This is incredible. 

<i>La La Land</i> producer Jordan Horowitz holds up the card showing actual best picture winner <i>Moonlight</i>.
La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz holds up the card showing actual best picture winner Moonlight. Photo: Getty Images

So that's seven wins for La La Land. I love this film so think that's a pretty decent result, but this was an uncommonly strong year, in the best picture category particularly.
Oscars

Best Picture

Arrival
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

Winner: La La Land

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