Top Dogs and Underdogs Take Gothams

There were some spurts of confusion at Brooklyn’s Steiner Studios late Tuesday night, as the 17th annual Gotham Awards once again kicked off the year’s awards season in contentious fashion. But there were also a few moments of invigorating consensus, when the more established names in attendance pulled for the underdogs, and where the true purpose, and impact, of the Gothams — still an event positioned somewhere between the independent fringe of the studio system and the true independent filmmaker struggling to find funding and distribution — could be felt in an immediate way. Late in the evening, as the award for Best Feature was about to be announced, all one had to do was look in the direction of the table seating Pat Healy, Kene Holliday, and Craig Zobel — the stars and creator, respectively, of “Great World of Sound” — to appreciate the profound effect the Gothams can have. An hour earlier, Mr. Zobel had taken the stage to accept the award for Breakthrough Director. Here was a relatively unknown filmmaker, celebrated for a movie that few have seen, thanking a room filled with major stars. From that point forward, the stream of those offering congratulations to the “Great World” table, and seemingly talking business with Mr. Zobel, was steady.