AFTER the film festival in Dublin the next point of focus for movie enthusiasts is the annual Academy Awards ceremony which take place this month, on Monday 24th, in the Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles. Those who stay up late will expect a mixture of self congratulation, unbruisable ego and interminable lists of people who "made it all happen".
While some might think such rituals are reserved just for Tom Ranks, long experience shows that most winners indulge themselves in similar ways.
When the nominations were announced a few weeks ago there was discernible disappointment in this State at the omission of Michael Collins.
When Neil Jordan's creation, which now looks like being the country's biggest ever grossing film, was shown here, it was presumed it would feature heavily among the nominations.
That it did not has raised disappointed groans from that ever expanding sector of Irish life, the professional film industry acolyte, a strange species of human who seems permanently to read festival programmes and discuss Fellini late into the night in wine bars.
Irish Psyche
No doubt many of these people will aver that American Academy members do not understand the Irish psyche and do not appreciate the passion in Irish acting and directorial skills.
We would all do well to remember how often Irish people have been recognised in this star studded ceremony and how in one particular way we have contributed to the whole likeable farce.
How many people remember that one of the country's literary Nobel Prize winners also collected an Academy Award? George Bernard Shaw got his for the 1938 film version of Pygmalion. This made him a unique Irishman, but also unique worldwide as the only person in history to win both an Oscar and a Nobel prize.
True to his character, he did not accept the honour, which is a pity because he would surely have given an acceptance speech comprising his usual elements - bluff, sarcasm and irreverence.
He excused his non appearance to collect the award by saying that he had been offered "titles before" and they tended to "get one into disreputable company"!
Unfamiliar Name
Whatever about Shaw's distinctions, who is now familiar with the name Cedric Gibbons? Not many, which is surprising considering this Dublin born, man actually won 12 Academy Awards.
Admittedly his field of Art Direction may not have been one to put him in the immediate limelight, but his achievements were considerable.
The most obvious one is the creation of the Oscar itself.
In 1927 he sketched out the design for the Academy Award statuette, and his secretary immediately replied that it reminded her of her Uncle Oscar.
After the story had been swapped around a few times, the name just stuck. The final sculpture was done by American George Stanley. In the official history of the academy, and in a number of books about the awards, no reference is made to Gibbons's Irish origins and rarely to the reason the statuette acquired its name.
The bronze award, which has been copyrighted since, is 34.3 cm high (13.5 in) and weighs 8.5 lb (4 kg).
Most of the films which brought awards for Gibbons have now become classics, or at least of some nostalgic merit. His work is best seen in An American in Paris and Somebody Up There Likes Me.
Oscar Trail
Also on the Oscar trail a long time before the present troupe was the Co Down born actress, Greer Garson, who was nominated seven times, winning the Best Actress award for her role in William Wyler's Mrs Miniver, when she played the role of the steely English housewife who survives the second World War in a notable performance.
Others may remember her for her role as Mrs Chipping in the Sam Wood version of Goodbye Mr Chips.
Very serious and innovative Irish documentaries have also been recognise from time to time, often without much television exposure. Louis Marcus has been nominated twice, in 1974 and in 1976. The first was for his Paisti Ag Obair which was filmed for Gael Linn and the second two years later for Conquest of Light, about the making of Waterford Glass.
Like Michael Collins, there have, of course, been terrible miscarriages of justice perpetrated on some great Irish acting talent certainly Liam, Neeson has some cause to complain.
Rotten Luck
But the rotten luck of Mr Peter O'Toole would drive anybody to drink and may have driven that particular Galwegian in the direction of liquor houses around the world.
He has the unfortunate distinction of being the most nominated actor never to receive an award. Don't worry, Mr O'Toole, these are the budges who thought Alfred Hitchcock was unworthy of the award of Best Director. Maybe he had some Galway blood in him?
But not to have awarded O'Toole an Oscar for his role in, David Lean's masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia seems grossly unjust. And as if this wasn't bad enough they then went on to raise his expectations a further six times, only to let him down - with an inglorious bump on the night.
Recent years have obviously been a lot more fruitful, particularly for people involved in. My Left Foot in 1989, as actor Daniel Day Lewis became an honorary Irishman for a few days.
Thankfully, no Irish cinematic figure has yet disgraced the nation by delivering the usual string of non sequiturs and hysterical shouts of "hello to my agent who made it all hap pen". In fact, a short victory speech by Neil Jordan, for The Crying Game, was distinguished more for his gruffness and nonchalance about the whole occasion.
Not the kind of nonchalance of Woody Allen, who when he won an Oscar for his film, Annie Hall, did not turn up at all, deciding instead to attend a jazz session in his beloved New York.
The ceremony this year will be dominated by films such as Shine and The English Patient, but we watching in this country, considering the sizeable amount of bronze we have taken home before, should not feel we have suffered at the hands of American partisanship.