Jean-Luc Godard, who'll turn 80 next December, is "missing," announces Juli Weiner in a clever Vanity Fair piece.
"So missing, in fact," explains Weiner, "that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been unable to inform Godard that he is the recipient of an Honorary Academy Award."
That's serious.
“We've been attempting to reach him since 7 o'clock Tuesday evening and we have as yet had no confirmation,” AMPAS executive director Bruce Davis told The Hollywood Reporter.
In other words, no one knows whether or not Godard will show up to pick up his Oscar statuette at the Nov. 13 Governors Awards ceremony to be held in Hollywood.
Being realistic here, the Academy probably shouldn't count on his presence.
As I mentioned in an article posted yesterday, the New Wave filmmaker was a no-show at the 2007 European Film Awards ceremony, in which he was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Also, last May he was absent from the premiere of his latest effort, Film Socialisme, at the Cannes Film Festival — for “no official reason, just that he’s not here,” according to a Cannes spokesperson.
Even if Godard is found — has anyone bothered to ask Jean-Paul Belmondo about his Breathless director's whereabouts? — and agrees to hobnob with Hollywoodites and sit through an all but inevitable hymn of praise by Quentin Tarantino at the Governors Awards, that doesn't mean he will be there when the time comes.
Godard had been expected to attend the European Film Awards ceremony, but eager expectations turned out to be just that.
And at the time of the Cannes film smorgasbord, the director declared: “I’d walk to the ends of the earth for the [Cannes] festival. But alas I will not be taking a single step further.”
Note the "Made in U.S.A." notice on the poster. That's the title of a 1966 Godard movie starring then-wife Anna Karina.