César Awards – 2007 Winners
Perhaps there’s hope for this evening’s Oscar ceremony.
On Saturday, I watched (most of) the French Academy of Film Arts and Sciences‘ 32nd César du cinéma ceremony held last night (late morning/early afternoon Los Angeles time) at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris.
The event, hosted by actress Valérie Lemercier and dedicated to recently deceased French film icon Philippe Noiret, was apparently organized by former U.S. vice president Al Gore, who made sure that winners and presenters attended a class or two at the Greer Garson School of Speech Making. (For those who don’t know: At the 1943 Academy Award ceremony, best actress winner Garson supposedly gave the most long-winded acceptance speech in Oscar history.)
In other words, apart from a few spontaneous moments and despite Lemercier’s professionalism, the César ceremony felt embarrassingly stiff. Even naturalistic performers like Juliette Binoche and Claude Brasseur looked stilted despite (or perhaps because of) much too obvious attempts to act casually onstage. Additionally, the evening was filled with speeches — introductions, homages, thank-yous, calls for political action — that went on for considerably longer than necessary. Sabine Azéma, for instance, became so enamored of her overwrought introduction to the best actor award — "there’s the light of the projector; there’s the light of the sun …," in addition to reciting a line from Pierre Corneille’s poem Le Cid — that she forgot to give out the names of the nominees. (The same almost happened to best film presenter Nathalie Baye.)
But why then do I say there’s hope for the Oscars? First, because there was no clear-cut sweep this year — you never knew who was going to win the next award. Second, because unexpected winners made frequent trips to the stage to thank producers, directors, relatives, neighbors, favorite pets, et al.
Instead of Rachid Bouchareb’s socially conscious (and disappointingly pedestrian) war drama Indigènes / Days of Glory — The Film That Changed the Laws of France and a sizable box-office hit to boot (3.2 million admissions) — or Guillaume Canet’s well-respected and popular thriller Ne le dis à personne / Tell No One (2.8 million admissions), the best French film winner was Pascale Ferran’s new take on D. H. Lawrence’s scandalous novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover, the story of a married woman who has a hot-and-heavy affair with the hunky gamekeeper of her landowner husband, who happens to be a war invalid.
Renamed Lady Chatterley (above), the 168-minute period drama did only moderate business on French screens (200,000 admissions) but was quite well liked by the French Academy, winning a total of five Césars. In addition to the best film prize, Lady Chatterley received top honors for adapted screenplay (Ferran, Roger Bohbot, and Pierre Trividic), cinematography (Julien Hirsch), costume design (Marie-Claude Altot), and, surprisingly, actress (stage-trained Marina Hands, who beat favorite Cécile de France for both Fauteuils d’orchestre / Avenue Montaigne and Quand j’étais chanteur / The Singer).
Lady Chatterley is Pascale Ferran’s third feature film in 14 years. Her first, Petits arrangements avec les morts / Coming to Terms with the Dead, won the Caméra d’Or at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival. With her Lady Chatterley victory, Ferran has become only the fourth woman to direct a best film César winner. (For the record: The other three are Coline Serreau for 3 hommes et un couffin / Three Men and a Cradle [1985], Tonie Marshall for Vénus beauté (institut) / Venus Beauty Institute [1999], and Agnès Jaoui for Le Goût des autres / The Taste of Others [2000].)
After accepting the adapted screenplay award, Ferran read an overlong — even if beautifully written — document pleading for France’s low-paid show business workers, who have been fighting against reforms to their pension system in addition to other measures proposed by the business-oriented organization MEDEF. The workers have previously caused interruptions to the César ceremony, but this year they reportedly vowed to let the event proceed as long as their cause was heard.
Ferran, who wrote the piece herself, pointed out the growing gap between the financing of "rich" (commercial) films and "poor" (art) films as the result of a system "that betrays the heritage of the greatest French filmmakers." After six minutes, she wrapped things up with a call to arms, reminding audience members and TV viewers that "before the presidential elections there remain 55 days to dare mention the word ‘culture.’" Long and enthusiastic applause followed. Shortly thereafter, Juliette Binoche appeared onstage thanking Ferran for her "special" speech, and later in the evening, 79-year-old, raspy-voiced screen legend Jeanne Moreau remarked on the director’s "magnificent" eloquence.
The evening’s other major winner was Ne le dis à personne / Tell No One. The thriller, based on a novel by Harlan Coben, won a total of four awards: Best director for 33-year-old actor-turned-filmmaker Guillaume Canet (above), who became the youngest César recipient in the best director category — and who grabbed the lectern as if he were holding on to dear life; best actor François Cluzet, for his performance as a doctor who discovers that his long dead wife may not be all that dead after all; best music for Mathieu Chedid (aka "M"), who claimed he "improvised [the film's score] on the violin during one afternoon"; and best editing for Hervé de Luze, who was competing against himself for his work on Alain Resnais‘ Coeurs / Private Fears in Public Places.
I haven’t seen Ne le dis à personne, but I was disappointed that 84-year-old veteran Resnais didn’t get the best director award for his haunting Coeurs — which in fact failed to win a single César out of its 8 nominations. No one can accuse French Academy voters of being sentimental.
(In all fairness, the director of Hiroshima mon amour and Last Year in Marienbad has already won two best director Césars — for Providence [1977] and for Smoking/No Smoking [1993]. Both films also received the César for best film. Besides, Resnais’ On connaît la chanson / Same Old Song was voted best film of 1997, though that year the best director award went to Luc Besson for The Fifth Element.)
In spite of its nine nods, Indigènes was another sentimental favorite that failed to receive much love from French Academy members. The war drama won only one César — for best original screenplay (Rachid Bouchareb and Olivier Lorelle). Indigènes, about North African soldiers who fought for France during World War II, is up for a best foreign-language film Oscar. In addition, the war drama won an ensemble best actor award at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Karl Zéro and Michel Royer’s Dans la peau de Jacques Chirac / Inside the Skin of Jacques Chirac, a mockumentary about the opportunistic French president and his four-decade political life, became the first documentary feature to win a César in the newly created category.
Best supporting actor Kad Merad (for Je vais bien, ne t’en fais pas / Don’t Worry, I’m Fine) found himself incapable of getting off the stage. Each time it looked like his barrage of thank-yous and reminiscences was coming to an end, he’d take a breath and go on spitting out another endless stream of names.
Another odd César moment was the announcement of the best supporting actress award, with the evening’s maîtresse de cérémonie herself, Valérie Lemercier, as one of the five nominees. Lemercier saved herself from a potentially embarrassing situation by winning the trophy for her hilarious turn as a manic-depressive actress in Fauteuils d’orchestre. She claimed she had a good joke in store in case the award had gone to somebody else, and then went on to her thank-yous — while this César watcher wondered if her role as César hostess had somehow influenced the vote.
Apparently not. I later found out that Lemercier also acted as hostess last year but lost the best actress award to Nathalie Baye, while best actor nominee Gad Elmaleh hosted the ceremony in 2004 only to see the César go to Omar Sharif.
Lemercier’s 2007 victory was her second. She had previously won in the supporting actress category for the 1993 comedy Les Visiteurs / The Visitors. For the record: This year’s best supporting actress losers were Christine Citti, veterans Bernadette Lafont and Mylène Demongeot, and Lemercier’s fellow Fauteuils d’orchestre player (and veteran singer) Dani.
Jude Law’s Honorary César was another oddity, though through no fault of the actor. Had they so wished, the French Academy’s board of governors could surely have found someone with a more solid — and considerably more extensive — body of work. Olivia de Havilland, for one, has been living in Paris for decades and to this day remains César-less.
Law, however, behaved like a gentleman, making his acceptance speech — while reading from a piece of paper — in French. (At the 1992 ceremony, Sylvester Stallone behaved like a jerk when he pompously accepted his César d’Honneur without even bothering to say "thank you" in the language of his hosts. But then again, that’s what you get when you give an honorary award to someone whose body of work consists of a series of dumb boxers and dumber warriors.)
The other Honorary César winner was 63-year-old Marlène Jobert, whose heyday took place in the 1960s and 1970s, when she worked with the likes of Jean-Luc Godard, Louis Malle, and Philippe de Broca. In sharp contrast to most of the other women present — and to her screen self — Jobert showed up in a smart dark suit that covered most of her body. I usually don’t pay attention to that sort of stuff, but she did look different. (And so did fellow suit wearer Marie-France Pisier.) Now, in her film clips the pert, freckle-faced Jobert appeared quite underdressed, and in a couple of them she was garbed just as nature made her. In sum, the sort of homage you won’t see at the Oscars, lest the easily hot-and-bothered FCC censors suffer an apoplectic fit.
A charming Hilary Swank, after apologizing for being unable to speak French, read in English (with simultaneous French translation) the list of nominees in the best foreign film category. The winner was Little Miss Sunshine. A representative of the film’s French distributor accepted the award for directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. During his speech, the gentleman provoked — unintended — gales of laughter by nervously caressing his long, thick statuette in a manner that was more than a little suggestive. He has my vote for a future César d’Honneur for providing what is surely one of the greatest comedic moments in César history.
By the way, the makers of Babel, The Queen, Volver, and Brokeback Mountain were the ones denied the chance to stroke phallic-shaped statuettes. Someone, somewhere will now surely accuse the French Academy of being anti-gay. I mean, not only did Brokeback Mountain — once again — lose to a thoroughly mediocre effort, but openly gay director Pedro Almodóvar, whose comedy-drama Volver is one of the two or three best films of 2006, also went home empty-handed.
Almodóvar, at least, did make a welcome appearance onstage to introduce the best actress winner and to thank the French public for their warm reception to Volver. As a plus, the director’s Spanish-lilted French was a delight.
But in terms of sheer emotional pull, nothing could beat the minute-long standing ovation given to film legend Michèle Morgan, still looking great at almost 87 (born on Feb. 29, 1920). Morgan was present — at least in part — to witness the homage to director Gérard Oury, who died last year. Oury, one of the most popular filmmakers in France and the winner of an Honorary César in 1993, was the actress’ companion for half a century. Morgan never made it to the stage, but she did take a bow, along with Oury’s visibly moved daughter, Danièle Thompson, and grandson, Christopher Thompson, both of whom were nominated in the best original screenplay category for the charming Fauteuils d’orchestre.
Following the announcement of Lady Chatterley as the best French film of the year, Pascale Ferran explained that at the end of the shoot the company was so broke there was no money for a wrap-up party. She then invited the film’s technicians to "come join us onstage because the party is now."
Shortly thereafter, the evening’s winners were herded onto the stage. Jude Law told the crowd (in French) that going to the movies is sexy, and the homage to le cinéma français was incongruously over to the tune of "Hooray for Hollywood." Ah, bon? Well, after three-plus hours of speeches, things do get more than a little confusing.
According to a Reuters report, 2006 was a solid year for French cinema, with approximately 85 million tickets sold for locally made films, the highest figure in 22 years. Additionally, profitability was at its best in about a decade.
Full list of 2007 César winners and nominees
Full list of 2006 César winners and nominees
Full list of 2005 César winners and nominees
2007 Prix César Nominations – Article
WNYC’s Academy Award Marathons
Oscar Party at the American Cinematheque in Hollywood
American Society of Cinematographers Awards – 2007 Winners
American Cinema Editors Eddie Awards – 2007 Winners
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