‘Hacksaw Ridge’ Wins Two Oscars
February 26, 2017: Hacksaw Ridge won two Oscars at the 2017 Academy Awards on February 26.
Andy Wright, Peter Grace, Kevin O’Connel and Robert Mackenzie won the Oscar for Best Sound Mixing for Hacksaw Ridge.
John Gilbert, a film editor that works mainly out of New Zealand, won the film’s Oscar for Best Film Editing.
Hacksaw Ridge was nominated for six Oscars by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The Oscars for which the film was nominated but did not win were: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director and Best Sound Editing.
The World War II-based film about war hero and Adventist conscientious objector Desmond T. Doss was directed by Hollywood veteran Mel Gibson.
Speculation abounded before the 2017 Academy Awards about whether past allegations of anti-Semitic behavior on the part of Gibson would prevent the film from winning awards.
Although the film won nine awards from the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards, it won nothing at the Golden Globes despite having been nominated in several different categories.
Hacksaw Ridge was of particular interest to Adventists. Church leaders warned members about high levels of violence and some brief nudity in the film, but acknowledged that the production constituted a serious attempt by Hollywood veteran Gibson to tell the story of Doss.
The film, which was released in the United States on November 4, 2016, told the story of Doss, an Adventist World War II army medic who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for saving the lives of 75 men as a conscientious objector in the Battle of Okinawa during World War II.
