Any readers of this blog who already assume that I’m a pretentious asshole won’t be surprised by the fact that I’m a big fan of Swiss-French film auteur Jean-Luc Godard. My friend sent me the link to this story that’s been developing this week, which I feel demonstrates how out of touch the American film industry is with the history of their medium, and that they just don’t seem to have a clue who their dealing with when it comes to Godard. Apparently the Motion Picture Academy has decided that they’ll be giving Godard an honorary Oscar. Since Tuesday, they’ve been trying to get a hold of him and he hasn’t returned any of their calls, faxes, emails, and they’ve heard nothing.
"We've been attempting to reach him since 7 o'clock Tuesday evening and we have as yet had no confirmation," Bruce Davis, the Academy's executive director, said late Wednesday afternoon. "We have tried by telephone, by fax, by emails to various friends and associates. We have sent a formal letter by FedEx. But we have certainly not been told he will show up at this point."
Davis said that possibility played no factor when the Academy's board determined recipients of the honorary Oscars, which will be presented in November at the second annual Governors Awards. Other recipients will be Eli Wallach, Francis Ford Coppola and Kevin Brownlow.
It’s kind of ridiculous that Hollywood didn’t take into account the possibility that Godard wouldn’t show up for the awards, given that he’s got a long-established reputation for being a social Marxist filmmaker with contempt (unintentional film pun…) for the studio film system. In 1995, when the New York Film Critics Circle named him their first-ever career achievement award recipient, he failed to show up and responded with this letter, as published by the Village Voice:
(Photo cred: C'est a chier)
Now all the American entertainment blogs are covering this story as though he’s just missing, off being an eccentric European somewhere, instead of intentionally blowing them off. Maybe I’m wrong and he will show up on the red carpet, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Hollywood Reporter: Jean-Luc Godard doesn’t know he’ll win Oscar
2 comments:
Thanks for the info. This is quite fascinating.
And I don't think you are pretentious, I think you are an interesting person.
Nice pun there at the end of your blog post ;-)
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