Rebecca Wang Attends The 83rd Academy Awards & Vanity Fair Oscars after party
The evening of Sunday 27th February 2011 included perhaps the two most influential events in the Oscars fortnight: The 83rd Academy Awards presentation ceremony itself, and the high point of all the social events over the two weeks: the Vanity Fair Oscars after party.
The Academy Awards honor the best in US films for 2010 and hold an international significance as an indicator of excellence in the film and cinema industry. The ceremony is presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and was held this year at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, where hosts for the evening were actors James Franco and Anne Hathaway.
Awards are made in 24 competitive categories, and this year saw four of them go The King’s Speech. Colin Firth won best actor for his portrayal of George VI, and the film also took Best Film, Best Director (Tom Hooper), and Best Screenplay. Natalie Portman won Best Actress for her taut and tortured performance of psychological fragility in The Black Swan, and the films The Fighter, True Grit, The Social Network, Inception and Alice in Wonderland also received multiple nominations and awards. Honorary Awards were made to Kevin Brownlow, Eli Wallach and Jean-Luc Godard.
Meanwhile over at the Sunset Tower Hotel in West Hollywood architect Basil Walter and the special operations team had created an Art Deco fantasy world in which Vanity Fair Editor Grayden Carter and his wife Anne could welcome their guests to the annual Vanity Fair after party.
The party’s reputation as a glittering celebrity celebration and as one of the toughest invites in world (invitations for this party are so highly exclusive that many A-listers regularly miss selection) meant that fierce security was in efficient operation. Outside the hotel, a wall of photographers kept meticulous note of each arrival, while guests themselves, having obeyed instructions to leave all pens, notebooks and social media devices behind, held fast to their RFIDs- radio frequency identity cards-which would transmit and confirm the guest’s arrival by name.
The party itself began while the Awards ceremony was still running- at 5pm, with a dinner for 150 hand-picked guests who included JJ Abrams, designers Tom Ford and Diane von Furstenburg and founder of the Huffington Post Arianna Huffington.
As the Awards ceremony and the dinner came to their ends, stars, award winners and other significant members of Hollywood society including Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, executive producer Rebecca Wang, award winners Colin Firth and Natalie Portman and director and screenwriter Quentin Tarantino moved on over to the Sunset Tower venue to join the dinner guests. The party moved up into full gear, and continued in its legendary high-octane mode all the way through to the early hours of the morning.