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In the end, the Oscars ran more or less the way people thought they would. Everything old was new again, silence was golden, and a batch of shiny statuettes will soon have first-class passage on Air France.
"The Artist" was named the Best Picture because it charmed Academy voters in a way nothing else did, because box-office figures no longer mean much to the Academy, and because no other film was ever able to establish itself as the alternative for the voters who didn't want the black-and-white silent film to win.