Results BBC News: The Baftas

Hello and welcome back to London's oil Albert Hall where the British

Academy film awards are just concluding another ceremony for

another year. In the presence of a host of celebrities and the Duke and

Duchess of Cambridge. La La Land has done pretty well tonight. It was a

love letter to Los Angeles, not perhaps the clean sweep we expected.

Jason Solomons has been watching with me. It garnered so many

nominations, it has performed well but not swept the board. 11

nominations, it was led to believe it might be going for a record,

eight or nine would have put it up there with the highest ever Bafta

awards, but early on it was performing very well. By the end it

did, it won five Baftas. Emma Stone for best actress, best director for

Damien Chouly El, and best actor. It is an escapist musical? It is the

film at the moment that is giving people a lift, a bit of sunshine in

an ever darkening world is how it has been pitched. And that is

interesting because for people who haven't seen it, it is so Los

Angeles, so Hollywood, steeped in that world, and I think we were

interested to see whether the British Academy, a different set of

voters from the Academy Awards in the states, from the Golden Globe

is, might not be quite as in thrall to that as an American judge might

be. Indeed, but it turns out that the charm of the leads, Ryan Gosling

and Emma Stone, and the craft of it all, it won for cinematography,

those memorable shots of dancing on the freeware, the levitating people

in the Griffith Observatory, the texture of the film, it has kind of

one people over, and also the music which is rather an interesting

score, because it is not an old-fashioned musical. People think

they are seeing singing in the rain, but it isn't that, it is a modern

musical, young indyref2 and that happens to have singing and dancing.

Yes if you go expecting an outer night musical, might be

disappointed. And let's talk about Ben Affleck's brother Casey, he was

so well known, but that is becoming turned around. Yes, maybe now Ben

Affleck will be known as the less well-known older brother. He is this

frozen janitor from Boston who has to gently thought as he read the --

reintegrate himself into his all live in Manchester By The Sea. This

was a very moving speech, and he said this is why he acts, he isn't

as talented as the guys doing animation or the acrobats, if I was

more talented, I might do that, but I act. And that was a very well

delivered speech, and I think it warned people to him, because it is

not a warm performance, rather chilling one. He is not a likeable

character in it. It is one of those films that you really appreciate and

the script is good and the cinematography, but you don't warm

to his character at all. It is the opposite to La La Land, it is grim

and frozen and cold, but the screenwriter and director, Kenneth

Lonergan, won for original screenplay as well. And we might see

those screen awards repeated at the Oscars. It is almost literary in its

execution, it has different phases. The real action of the film is

buried in the past, and we find that out halfway through the film what

that was, so it is very well structured and it might almost be

French. That is a good way of putting it. You mentioned it picked

up the award for original screenplay, adapted screenplay went

to Lion, possibly some surprise but it is picked up a couple of awards

and is a popular choice when Dev Patel picked up the acting award in

a strong category. Absolutely, you can see the people filing out now,

the ceremony is over. Lion picked up two awards, that is currently out in

UK cinemas, and it is a global story about a kid from Calcutta who is

taken off the streets and adopted by Nicole Kidman in Tasmania, he grows

up to become Dev Patel, and this was a very well received win. Bafta feel

some ownership over him, he is the boy who grew up in British TV, he is

just from down the road, and we kind of feel that we own him in some way.

He said it is a film about family, and his family were here in the

audience, and it was a very warm moment, and sometimes you realise

that the Baftas is quite a small club, and I think he is the poster

boy tonight. It means a big British star is born with Dev Patel, he has

been around a long time but he is only 25, a lot of good performances

to come. Even younger than I thought! And what is so striking,

Luke Davis picking up that award for the screenplay for Lion. And also

the little boy who is in the first half of the film, who plays the

young Dev Patel, and the film you could argue is worth seeing just

him, it is quite extraordinary what they achieve with someone so young.

He was six when they first put him in the film. He was cast off the

streets in India, they saw 2500 children and they found a gem. Not

nominated, possibly unfairly, because if he had been, it would

have been unfair not to give it to him. A few years ago at the Baftas

when Jamie bell, little Billy Elliot, Peter Russell Crowe to the

best actor prize. But the film did very well, it is a tear-jerker about

people trying to find their family and find their sense of belonging,

so it takes many boxes for many people, but able cry in different

places, in the start, at the end. I think I cried at all of it! One of

the things that sets the British Academy Awards parties we have a

separate category for Best British film, and I should not the fact that

most of your predictions are coming tonight, and indeed, the Ken Loach

film, I Daniel Blake took the award, an extraordinary film maker still

working at the age of 80. Yes, he won outstanding British film for I

Daniel Blake. I should have put some money on this! The very first award

they give out here is outstanding British film, and it went to Ken

Loach who has been doing this for 50 years, 50 years, such a titan of the

British film industry, and Cathy Come Home was a famous TV movie, so

it is extraordinary that he is still doing it, it is still relevant, and

that is the point. It is relevant and hard-hitting, and a shocking

film, as Cathy Come Home was, sad because the politics of the country

have not moved on enough. All of the award ceremonies in America have

been making speeches against Donald Trump and stuff, have we been

thinking that we might get that here? Ken Loach gave a searing

indictment of the divide that separates the country between the

haves and the have nots. And he said the film-makers in this room,

despite the glitz and glamour, they know that they have to be on the

side of the people, and that is very important for film-makers to tell

stories that are relevant, and he is right, because if audiences don't

come, the film makers don't make the money, so they have to go for it. It

did hit home. So it thoroughly deserves that, and it is the

outstanding British film of the year, it won in Cannes last year.

I'm delighted that award, sorry for the others that were up against it,

but it is a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon in. We talked a lot about

the winners, but interesting to just pick-up on what we were discussing

out on the red carpet a couple of hours ago. Nothing at all for

Moonlight, which surely is one of the best films of the season, but

sadly nothing tonight. One of the stories to emerge from tonight is a

complete shutout for Moonlight, which I think was one of my

favourite film is going in, and many people's favourites to come out of

the UK yet. It is a favourite at the Oscars and here. And I really

thought it would get some. There was a point when it seemed every film

that was nominated were getting something, 15 films had got

something, and I said, but not Moonlight yet, and I realised it was

going to be the film that suffered. Nothing to Naomi Harris, nothing for

the texture of the performances. It was shutout, and I feel that that is

going to create some waves. I think it is a real shame because it is

such a beautiful film. Bafta had a chance to reward it somewhere and it

seems to have missed that opportunity, and people will be

noting that in America, they might accuse Bafta of some kind of

institutional racism, I'm not saying that that is true, because of course

via the Davis and Dev Patel won, but it was seen as a real flag bearer

for the diversity debate which is occupied the British can and the

Oscar academy. And you mentioned Viola Davis, she has won for Fences

by Denzel Washington, a fabulous actress, always gives a great

performance, but there were others in that category we might have

thought might come through, Naomi Harris possibly Haley Squires, a

searing performance again in the Ken Loach film. Yes, and I always think

the Bafta audience tend to go for the homegirl the homeboy, they tend

to vote for the person closer to home, it is unusual for them to go

for an American actress ahead of them. Perhaps the most interesting

category out there, Haley Squires is terrific in I Daniel Blake, you feel

the cold and hunger affecting her. And Naomi Harris in such a short

time in that film, Moonlight, gives a beautiful performance as a mother

struggling with crack addiction and trying to love her child, but Viola

Davis, you see the picture of her crying, she does snotty crying

better than any other actress on the planet. I am fond of Fences, people

said it was theatrical and it is a adaptation of a performance that

already won her a Tony award. It is almost a film record of that

performance, but there is something with the cameras, doing the

close-up, doing the performance again, and it is hard to argue with

except you might have thought, we are Bafta, we should have awarded it

to a Brit, but that is me being parochial. Oney of the other things

that Bafta does a little differently, the category of rising

star, and that is voted for by the public, a panel chooses the short

list but then the public are able to vote for who they want. And when Tom

Holland stood up and accepted the award, I thought, my goodness, are

you only 20? With that poise and confidence. He has played Billy

Elliot on the London West End stage, maybe that is partly where that

comes from, but what did you make of that? I said on the red carpet

earlier that it is the person who always ends up in the biggest film,

always ends up winning, because the public vote, they haven't seen this,

he is Spiderman in the forthcoming Spiderman movie, we had a taster of

him in the Captain America movie earlier this year, last year, and so

those Spiderman fan boys are voting away on their phones saying, Tom

Holland, he is a great little actor, only 20, seemed kind of think, are

you allowed up at this time? Shouldn't you be in bed? But he is

20. He is the son of Radio 4 comic and pundit Dominic Holland, and he

has been around acting on the London stage, but Spiderman as a whole

other level. These things are not easy to do, and he owns a massive

blockbuster like that, and I think he could be Spiderman 434 films,

which would make him one of the biggest stars on the planet, so he

probably is a rising star that we will hear much more than next

decade. And by then he will still only be 30! On the stage giving the

Curzon chain, she said I got a Bafta award in 1978 for promising

newcomer, who knew I would be back so soon, she said sometimes it takes

a while to repay that. It is getting very noisy here, but let's have a

quick thought about the fellowship, because this is awarded this year by

Prince William, presented by Prince William, to someone you particularly

revere, I know. Yes, I am a massive fan of tonight's recipient, Mel

books, with films like the Producers and Young Frankenstein and tap back

blazing Saddles, the zany comic films, Young Frankenstein played by

Marty Feldman and the wonderful Gene Wilder and his performances, the

ultimate showbiz show in the Producers, which then became a

musical and then a film of the musical. We forget Mel Brooks made

the Elephant Man, he produced that. He has been a Titan for many years,

grew up in 50s stand that American Jewish humour and was great to see

him on the Bafta stage tonight, he has still got it, that Brooklyn

twang going on, and it was great to see that gruffness, but also

elegance. I think on a night when the Baftas were not the most

exciting, a little bit of zaniness and humour was brought by him, it is

a fantastic award for him, and him receiving it from Prince William,

when he satirises royals many times in his history of the world films,

to see him getting an award from one is something he probably never dream

of. Jason Solomons, many thanks as ever. The Baftas are over for

another year, but awards ceremony season is not. We are still a couple

of weeks away from the Oscars, so let's see whether voters at the

Academy reflect the sort of results we have seen here tonight at the

British Academy film awards. You can find the full list of all the

winners on the BBC website of course, and lots of photos from the

red carpet as well. But from a very noisy well but Hall in London, phone

app, for this year, it is goodbye. -- from a very noisy while Albert

Hall in London, for now, goodbye. America and Japan have strongly

condemned North Korea, for test-firing a ballistic missile,

the first since Donald Trump