In 1939, the Gone with the Wind screenwriter Sidney Howard was crushed to death in a freak tractor accident on his farm. A year later, he won the inaugural posthumous Oscar. It was the first of surprisingly many deceased winners and nominees, from James Dean and Spencer Tracy to Chadwick Boseman and Walt Disney.
For obvious reasons, there is always a surge of goodwill at the Oscars towards the recently dead. This year, the Canadian musician Robbie Robertson is up for an Oscar for his work on Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, his pared-down, mournful score giving the film its lurking menace. Robertson died last summer at the age of 80, three months after the film’s world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. He was one of Scorsese’s closest friends and one of his most trusted collaborators, the filmmaker describing his music as having “come from the deepest place at the heart of this continent, its traditions and tragedies and joys”. With an endorsement like that from Scorsese, it would be no surprise at all if he wins.
