For the artists
It was great to see Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova win the Oscar for Best Song tonight. They were nominated for 'Falling Slowly,' the infectious main song from "Once," a low-budget Irish film written and directed by John Carney. I saw it at the Midtown in Harrisburg, Pa., last year and couldn't stop humming that song. You can listen to it here. "Once" is about a struggling street musician, Hansard, who insists on playing his own songs. He meets Irglova one day and it turns out she is an accomplished pianist. He bets everything he has on producing a great CD of songs, and she is with him all the way. The ending isn't quite what you expect, but it is real.
Hansard, front man for the band, The Frames, and Irglova, who is Czech (neither are trained actors), dedicated their award to struggling artists everywhere. You just know they haven't had an easy time of it. The music business these days is almost as troubled as journalism, and with no fewer trolls who don't care a whit about what is good and right, only what is perceived to sell. "Once" is the antithesis of that kind of thinking, and Hansard and Irglova couldn't have looked happier to be up on stage.