Literary adaptations had a good night at the Academy Awards on Sunday, with four films based on books taking home the prizes for achievement in motion pictures.
All Quiet on the Western Front, the German-language adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s classic 1929 World War I novel, won four of the nine Oscars for which it had been nominated. The film won the international feature prize, along with trophies for cinematography (James Friend), original score (Volker Bertelmann), and production design (Christian M. Goldbeck and Ernestine Hipper).
Sarah Polley won the adapted screenplay award for Women Talking, her film based on the 2019 novel by Miriam Toews. In her acceptance speech, Polley said, “First of all, I just want to thank the Academy for not being mortally offended by the words ‘women’ and ‘talking’ put so close together like that. Cheers.”
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, based on Carlo Collodi’s classic children’s novel, was named the winner in the animated feature category. Del Toro thanked Netflix and his family in his speech accepting the award, and said, “Animation is cinema. Animation is not a genre. Animation is ready to be taken to the next step. We are all ready for it.”
Winning the animated short award was The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, an adaptation of Charlie Mackesy’s 2019 book. Mackesy, who co-wrote and co-directed the film, accepted the trophy with producer Matthew Freud, and said, “The people that I’ve worked with, they’ve tolerated me for two years, and they’re brave and kind.”
He went on to thank his family, as well as “my dog, who I’ve left behind, who’s actually in a hotel. I hate to say that. I wasn’t really meant to say that, I’m sorry.”
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
