Hey folks, Harry here... Tonight I begin my yearly OSCAR blow by blow and I'm going into it with a bit of a yawn - there just really doesn't seem to be anything I'm thrilled to tears for. If Scorsese kicks it, I'll be happy, if Cheadle wins I'll cheer... But I'll be pissed if Eastwood sweeps, simply because I felt MILLION DOLLAR BABY was a tenth of the film that HOTEL RWANDA was. Anyways - things got screwy at the French CESARS - and it would rule if things got crazy at the Oscars tonight... ya never know...
YOU DON’T KNOW ABDELLATIF KECHICHE? YOU WILL. HE’S JUST CONQUERED THE FRENCH OSCARS, SAYS BOBBY DUPEA
Hi Harry, the night before your Oscars, the French handed out their Cesars - and nothing went as planned.
The rise of the independent French cinema (at last a new New Wave!) caused a major upset at Saturday’s 30th edition of the French Oscars, the Cesars – when the film with 2004’s lowest budget, L’Esquive – about life and love in the projects – won four of its five nominations, including the biggies: Best Director, Best Script and, ultimately, Best Film, leaving A Very Long Engagement and The Chorus gasping on the floor like beached whales.
The night’s big battle was all set for these two heavyweight hits. Instead, they managed a mere seven trophies between them. Engagement taking five (from 12 nominations), to two (from eight) for The Chorus. Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Audrey Tautou got zip.
The winning director Abdellatif Kechiche sat stoney-faced while his actress, gorgeous Sara Forestier, won Best Female Newcomer and praised him to the skies. Something about we have Mozart for music, Elvis for rock and now Abdellatif for cinema. Looks that way as top Paris producer Claude Berri (part of the old New Wave) is backing Abdel’s next venture.
He still looked miserable (the real word is probably timid) when sharing his script prize with Ghalia Lacroix. By the time he beat favourite Jeunet for Director and Film, Abdel’s granite features exploded into non-stop smiles.
Helluva achievement for a film that cost less than $500,000, was shot in digital and has everyone speaking a Franco-Arab street slanguage that is totally incomprehensible without sub-titles – even for the French.
Imagine Hotel Rwanda grabbing all the Oscars...
How could such an unknown outsider take all the glory? Well, in France, everything is political. Everyone here seems to know how everyone else votes (particularly stars) and not just at presidential election time. And the Cesar Awards have become notoriously left-wing in recent years.
Moral: If you have commercial success, you don’t get no Cesar!
Obviously, The Chorus and A Very Long Engagement could only manage seven awards (camera, decor, costumes, music, etc.) because as far as the voters of the Academie des Arts et Techniques du Cinema voters were concerned, they were too triumphant for their own good, needed to be taken down a peg or two. Hey, you don’t reward success with more success. (It’s endemic in French life –in French schools, office, factories, politics, sport, too!)
The Chorus, for example, was No.1 at the French box-office in 2004. Yeah, you heard! No. 1. That meant this little movie about a school choir stomped the shit out of Shrek 2, Harry Potter 3, Spidey 2 and The Incredibles, forcing them into 2nd, 3rd, 4th,, 5tth places. A Very Long Engagement was the second highest French success in sixth slot.
You can’t argue with French box-office positions. They are the most correct in the world. They’re computed not on (fluctuating) ticket money but on the number of tickets sold. Or, quite, simply, the number of bums on seats. No less than 8,5809,093 asses have parked for Chorus, for example, and 7,141,375 for Shrek 2.
As good as I’m told it is, the movie voted as the Best Film was No. 132 for the year,.. scoring 283,578 tickets sold!
Worse, The Chorus had already won Best Film at the 10th Lumieres, or French Golden Globes. (The more than 200 foreign reporters also gave Best Director to Jeunet. Of course).
Gerard Jugnot - the heart, soul and, indeed, co-producer of The Chorus - didn’t have a chance to be Best Actor. His success was stacked against him, Hell, he was already on every magazine cover, due on a TV show nearly all Sunday afternoon, and unpardonable of all, he was the highest paid French actor of 2004 (5.45million Euros)... more than Jean Reno (3.55million Euros) or the mighty Depardieu (3.35 million Euros)... due to Jugnot’s co-producer share (34%) of the Chorus profits, still flying in from all over Europe and now, so we’re told, from the US, as well now.
So, hey, why acknowledge he was pretty damned good in the movie!
Instead, they gave the acting Cesar to Mathieu Amalric (he looks like he could be Roman Polanski’s son) in the fascinating tragicomedy, Kings And Queen (he also won this title at the Lumieres) and Audrey Tautou (highest paid French actress at 900,000 Euros, who must stop making hit films!) lost out to bulky Yolande Moreau (best described as a Bette Milder gone to seed) in Quand la mer monte... No. 150 for the year with just 221,052 tickets sold.
The made-in-Belgium Yolande had one of he numerous character roles in Jeunet’s Amelie masterpiece, She also co-wrote and co-directed her Quand la mer monte... with Gilles Porte – and they collected the Best First Film trophy. She said she’d hack off a portion of her Cesar for her co-star!
I bet she will be filming opposite Gerard Depardieu before the end of the year. (By the way, Gerard Jugnot, has just directed Depardieu in Boudou, a modernised re-tread of the 1932 Jean Renoir classic, last re-made in Hollywood in 1986 by Nick Nolte and Richard Dreyfuss as Down And Out In Beverly Hills).
Everything looked good for A Very Long Engagement when the missing soldier boyfriend, Gaspard Ulliel, - in his new, spikey-haired look - picked up the first trophy of a very long evening as Best Male Newcomer.
Then, immediately, voting went pear-shaped as the Best Euro Film was a tie between Ken Loach’s Just A Kiss and Life Is a Miracle from Emir Kusturica who – just by coincidence, I’m sure! - just happens to be the Head of the Cannes jury in May.
Monica Bellucci, recently voted the world’s most beautiful woman (you arguing?!) presented Will Smith with a Cesar for his career. (Next year: Dakota Fanning?).
At least, Will had the good grace to (a) express his gratitude in French and (b) never mentioned the Hitch film he’s promoting here for its March 16 opening. Oh and keep returning to Monica for more kisses
He switched to English to tell how his job felt unimportant upon first meeting Mandela - “my friend, my hero.” Mandela told him how the one film a year he was allowed to see while sentenced to waste his life away in jail, was important to him and how “films show how the world was, how the world should be and most important, how the world could be.”
Another career Cesar went to local favorite, the usually ultra cool Jacques Dutronc, hiding, as always, behind his trademark Raybans and Clintonesqe cigar. More embarrassing than cool, he said almost nothing other than asking if Jean Rochefort (Terry Gilliam’s Don Quixote) was in the theatre.
Dutronc should have stayed at home in Corsica. Except, if you don’t turn up for a career Cesar, you don’t get one. A few years back, a veteran French actor had to literally get off his deathbed to collect his well-deserved trophy and – inevitable – standing ovation... when he could hardly stand up, himself,
Real nice folks at the French Academy.
Best Foreign film was a fucking impossible Mexican Standoff: 21 Grams, The Motorcycle Diaries, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Fahrenheit 9/11 and Lost in Translation. And the Cesar went to Sofia Coppola who – another coincidence, I’m positive! - just happens to be in Paris working on her Marie Antoinette film.
The one genuine surprise was the Support Actor nod going to chunky Clovis Cornillac in Mensonges et trahisons et plus si affinités. Marion Cotillard was the Support Actress winner for A Very Long Engagement. You guys will know her better for her bit in Tim Burton’s Big Fish.
As all this was in Paris, you can be sure that the babes were great... Marion (and Audrey) looked sensational. As did other nominees liked Julie Depardieu and even 68-year-old Mylène Demongeot (a rival to Brigitte Bardot in sex-kitten days of the 60s) and presenters like Diane Kruger, Asia Argento, Claire Keim, Sandrine Bonnaire,
Oh and the Kings and Queen actress nominee Emmanuelle Devos had the lowest neckline. Every time she leaned forward – just a leetle! - people moved aside to escape being engulfed in if case she Janet Jacksoned. And that would have been like micro sunami. As someone (me, I think) once said about Pammy Anderson: If she left one breast at home, she’d still have a great rack.
I just wonder what poor Will Smith (and his Mom, or Grandma – she certainly wasn’t Jada) made of it all. They dutifully applauded in all the right places but they must have thought it was an awards show on Venus. There’s not even the basic five nominations in each category. For example, there’s five movies up for Best Film, but only three cinematographers, three musicians or three decor and costume designers. Really insane!
Plus there’s not enough Cesars to go around. Abdellatif Kechiche and Ghalia Lacroix got one each for Best Script, but Loach and Kusturica have to share one award for Best Euro Film. Totally irrational!
The ceremonials also need a kick in the derriere (or if you prefer, in the butt).
Time was that the Cesars (like the opening/closing nights at Cannes) were sad ‘n’ sorry spectacles on TV until Michel Denisot began producing them for the Canal Plus pay-TV channel. Saturday’s show had less star power than usual, lame comedy, little music, no excitement. Depardieu suddenly strolling on in a stage for a gag referring to his explosive interruption last year as daughter Julie won an award just did not gell. It was obviously not rehearsed, much less scripted and we were left with the sight of one of history’s finest actors wandering the stage of the Theatre Chatelet bemoaning: “What do you want me to do?”
He still got a laugh when his cell-phone rang... He has the world’s busiest cell.
The Engagement and Chorus teams left the After Party early, to get their jets to LA and go through the tuxedo circus all over again for the Oscars... and for Harry’s TV set.
OK, this is Bobby Dupea in Paris saying: Over to you, Harry... and willya pass the bloody popcorn!
PS on the British Oscars – the Baftas. Some talkbacker moaned there was nothing for Clint’s Baby. Due to its UK release dates, it will only be eligible in next year’s awards.
