The Governors Awards are back, delivering seriously mixed messages on Saturday night at the Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel.
For one, the more than three-hour ceremony presented Honorary Academy Awards to directors Peter Weir and Euzhan Palcy and composer Diane Warren, as well as the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to actor and Parkinson’s disease activist Michael J. Fox. That part of the night was as much a celebration as it was a history lesson, drawing multiple standing ovations and a few tears.
On the other hand, the awards come at a time when preliminary voting for the Oscars will begin in about three weeks, and the lure of putting their top contenders in a room full of Academy voters and the press was enough to make studies will spend between the five. figures to fill the tables crowded together in a grand ballroom.
It was either a campaign event that also handed out Academy Awards, or an Oscars ceremony that doubled as a conveniently timed schmoozefest. The guests of honor were Weir, Palcy, Warren and Fox, and the people who honored them were Jeff Bridges, Viola Davis, Cher and Woody Harrelson, but beyond that, the room couldn’t help but focus on Cate Blanchett, Jessica Chastain, Damien Chazelle, Jennifer Connelly, Paul Dano, Guillermo del Toro, Laura Dern, Colin Farrell, Greta Gerwig, Tom Hanks, Rian Johnson, Zoe Kazan, Jennifer Lawrence, Baz Luhrmann, Carey Mulligan, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Florence Pugh, Eddie Redmayne , Margot Robbie, Adam Sandler, Jeremy Strong, Michelle Williams, Michelle Yeoh and many, many more.
The industry’s mixed feelings toward the Governors Awards were made quite clear in March of this year, when the pandemic caused the show to be moved to the Friday before the Oscars. By this time, all the Oscars votes had already been cast, and having no reason to show up and campaign, the stars and studios mostly didn’t show up at all. You could have counted the number of Oscar nominees in the room on one hand, and the studio heads present consisted of Michael Barker of Sony Pictures Classics and… well, I’m sure everyone else had important things to think about. do instead.
So when the ballroom at the Fairmont Century Plaza filled Saturday with the cast and creators of nearly every major film with Oscar nomination chances, it was hard to pretend that the would-be nominees, or the executives who premiered them . , they were all there to celebrate the art of Warren, Palcy and Weir, or the humanitarianism of Fox.
Still, the Governors Awards have always had a way of shifting attention away from the would-be nominees and onto the evening’s recipients. And it’s not like all those contenders are running an open campaign. At one point, “Babylon” director Damien Chazelle and “Armageddon Time” director James Gray were discussing the merits of Polish auteur Krzysztof Kieślowski, while in another “Last Film Show,” director Pan Nalin told him gave “The Fabelmans” star Gabriel LaBelle a rundown of the astonishing list of similarities between his film, India’s Oscar entry, and LaBelle’s film in which the young actor plays a version of teenager Steven Spielberg.
Elsewhere, Eddie Redmayne and Greta Gerwig discussed the joys and drawbacks of life in London (he lives there, while she spent nine months filming “Barbie” there), while Michelle Williams talked about being in the city with her new baby, less than two years old. months, while her “The Fabelmans” co-star Paul Dano and his wife, Zoe Kazan, were there with their own three-week-old baby. “It’s been each other’s first playdates,” she said.
The ceremony itself was hosted by Academy President Janet Yang and hosted by Mindy Kaling, whose brief opening monologue probably peaked with her comment that “A Dry White Season,” a remarkable film by honoree Euzhan Palcy, it was “until recently, as I was referring to awards season.”
Kaling then turned the proceedings over to Woody Harrelson, who got the biggest laughs at his lengthy introduction to Michael J. Fox. The friendship between Harrelson and Fox dates back to the 1980s, when they appeared on the popular sitcoms “Cheers” and “Family Ties”, respectively (they joked about being “80s famous”), and apparently involved a fair amount of partying. But Harrelson also turned serious when discussing Fox’s life after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at 29, calling him “someone whose immeasurable talent is only exceeded by the depth of his courage and his commitment to a cause.”
Fox, who arrived at the ceremony in a wheelchair, took the stage to receive his Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and immediately mocked himself and the audience who gave him the first of many standing ovations of the night. “Enough,” he said as his right hand fidgeted on the podium. You are making me tremble.
Fox called the Hersholt “a completely unexpected honour” and later spoke about a history teacher who dampened his ambition to be an actor. “He said, ‘Fox, you’re not going to be cute forever,’” he said. “I said, ‘Maybe long enough.’ Turns out we were both right.
Cher stepped out in a hot pink miniskirt and jacket to present an honorary Oscar to Diane Warren, the first female songwriter to receive that honor. Warren’s futility at the Academy Awards has been the stuff of legend: she’s been nominated 13 times, including seven times in the past eight years, but she’s never won, though few people have enjoyed being in the race as much as she did.
“Every song he writes, he calls me up and says, ‘This is the best song I’ve ever written,'” Cher said in a video about Warren’s career, and as the video ended, the singer shared one last memory of Warren. following me to an Al‑Anon meeting to play me a song.” She laughed and held up the Honorary Oscar. “I am very excited to present this to you. You’ve waited so long.”
Warren took the stage for another long standing ovation, looked at the Oscar and addressed his late mother. “Breast?” she said. “I finally found a man. I know you wanted him to be a nice Jewish boy, but it’s hard to tell. Then she smiled. “I have waited 34 years to say this: I would like to thank the Academy.”
The prolific songwriter broke down in tears during her speech when talking about her parents (her father encouraged her to write songs but her mother didn’t) and then ended by going back to “the words I never thought I would say but always hoped I would.” : I would like to thank the Academy.”
Jeff Bridges followed with a typically laconic and rambling introduction to Australian director Peter Weir, with whom he worked on “Fearless” in 2006. And Weir was just as rambling in his own speech, which included an anecdote about Robin Williams improvising a “missing chapter.” . ” from the Bible and also found the director explaining that he became known for cutting lines from his films because he did not like the excessive emotions of Australian actors.
He then pointed to the fact that his Oscar had been voted on by the Academy’s Board of Governors. “Board of Governors – it’s a sound I really like,” she said. “It has a bit of a medieval tinge to it.”
By choice, Weir hasn’t made a film in 12 years, but the final honoree, Martinique-born director Euzhan Palcy, hasn’t done one in 30 years, since the 1992 musical “Siméon.” She was the first black woman to direct a major studio film, with the apartheid drama “A Dry White Season” in 1989.
“As a black artist, I feel like I’m always standing up for my womanhood and my blackness,” Viola Davis said in introducing Palcy. “You said, ‘I’m not going to do that. I will wait for the work that is worthy of me.’”
Palcy, whose other films include his 1983 hit “Sugar Cane Alley,” told a similar story in his own comments. “I took a step back so I could really stand up and straighten up,” he said. “I was so tired of being told that she was a foreigner. I was tired of being told I was the first of many firsts, but denied the opportunity to do my job.”
Later, he returned to the point with more force. “Why did I keep my silence? He was tired of hearing those words, ‘The black is not bankable. Woman is not bankable. Black and female is not bankable.”
He paused and pointed at Davis. “Come on guys, look at my sister!” Davis raised her first. “Black it is bankable Female it is bankable black and female it is bankable.” And he ended with a cry for change: “Camera. Sound. Y…action.”
Crowds later gathered around the four honorees, while in the back of the room, “Glass Onion” director Rian Johnson spoke about how great the event had been. And up front, Diane Warren posed for photos with a long list of fans that included songwriters Justin Hurwitz and Carter Burwell.
Looking at the Oscar in her hand, which, unlike the competitive Oscars handed out during the Academy Awards show, was already engraved with her name, she shook her head. “Is this real?” she asked. “She already has my fucking name!”