Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film — and then quickly found out just where that ranks in the Hollywood pecking order.
Pawlikowski hurried up to the stage to accept the statue for his film, “Ida,” about a Catholic nun who discovers she is Jewish and her parents were killed in the Holocaust. He launched into his speech, only to find himself promptly drowned out by the orchestra, the Oscars equivalent of yanking you off the stage with a cane.
But Pawlikowski continued talking over the music, thanking his crew, and then his loved ones, including “my late wife.” That brought the orchestra up short. I mean, you can’t play over that. Even at the Oscars.
Pawlikowski kept going with his speech, finally wrapping it up as the orchestra again started playing. But by that point, he had had his say. Brandishing his Oscar, he walked off stage.
