César Awards 2010

Jacques Audiard's Un prophète (predictably) swept the Césars today, taking home nine awards including Meilleur film (Best Film), Réalisateur (Director) and Scénario original (Original Screenplay). Its heartthrob star Tahar Rahim, already quite the celebrity in France despite appearing in just one film, won two awards for Meilleur acteur (Best Actor) and Meilleur espoir masculin (Best Male Newcomer). Emmanuelle Devos, who starred in Audiard's last two films (and is easily one of the finest actresses in the business), won the Supporting Actress prize for Xavier Giannoli's À l'origine. Radu Mihăileanu's Le concert was the only other film to win in more than one category (for Music and Sound Design). Clint Eastwood was (again predictably) the winner in the Film étranger (Foreign Film) category for Gran Torino. The big winners are below; the full list of winners is here (in French); the nominees can be found here.

Meilleur film [Best Film]: Un prophète [A Prophet], d. Jacques Audiard
Meilleur réalisateur [Best Director]: Jacques Audiard, Un prophète
Meilleur premier film [Best First Film]: Les beaux gosses [The French Kissers], d. Riad Sattouf
Meilleur film étranger [Best Foreign Film]: Gran Torino, d. Clint Eastwood, USA
Meilleur film documentaire [Best Documentary]: L'enfer d'Henri-Georges Clouzot [Henri-George Clouzot's Inferno], d. Serge Bromberg, Ruxandra Medrea
Meilleur acteur [Best Actor]: Tahar Rahim, Un prophète
Meilleure actrice [Best Actress]: Isabelle Adjani, La journée de la jupe [Skirt Day]
Meilleur acteur dans un second rôle [Supporting Actor]: Niels Arestrup, Un prophète
Meilleure actrice dans un second rôle [Supporting Actress]: Emmanuelle Devos, À l'origine [In the Beginning]
Meilleur espoir masculin [Best Male Newcomer]: Tahar Rahim, Un prophète
Meilleur espoir féminin [Best Female Newcomer]: Mélanie Thierry, Le dernier pour la route [One for the Road]
Meilleur scénario original [Original Screenplay]: Un prophète - Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain, Abdel Raouf Dafri, Nicolas Peufaillit
Meilleur scénario adaptation [Adapted Screenplay]: Mademoiselle Chambon - Stéphane Brizé, Florence Vignon
Meilleure photographie [Best Cinematography]: Stéphane Fontaine, Un prophète

2008 List #4: 25 (or so) Great Performances

Acting will always be something that fascinates me from afar, and nothing I'd prefer to talk about at any length. There's something scary about the whole process of becoming someone else, something that's beautifully mirrored in Juliette Binoche's performance in Abel Ferrara's Mary. And then there's the whole Heath Ledger thing. I didn't include him on this list, partially because he's making everyone else's lists, and partially because that shit is scary. The following list of 25 (or really more, as I've included some multiple performances for the year) is in no special order and has minimal annotation (because writing about acting for any length of time is sure to induce a pretty bad headache).

Sally Hawkins - Happy-Go-Lucky

As successful a writer/director Mike Leigh often is, Happy-Go-Lucky hinged on her entire performance. No matter how worthwhile his screenplay was, Hawkins' believability made the film.

Rebecca Hall - Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Although the film didn't completely rest on her shoulders, Hall's performance worked in the same way Hawkins did, as she accepted the challenge of making "natural" what seemed so "fake." Her Vicky thrived upon a façade of happiness (I realize, for Hawkins, it wasn't a mask), and when everything fell out of place, it just made Hall that much more radiant.

Michael Shannon - Shotgun Stories; Revolutionary Road

Like J.K. Simmons in Burn After Reading, Shannon was the only thing to really fuck-start the whole fiasco that was Revolutionary Road (more on that later), and in Shotgun Stories, he made his untrained co-stars look all the more inexperienced.

Juliette Binoche - Flight of the Red Balloon [Le voyage du ballon rouge]

Binoche makes acting look effortless, and Flight of the Red Balloon is probably one of her most complex, nuanced endeavors in a career full of brilliance.

Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes - In Bruges

Rethink all the bad stigma you attach to Farrell (honestly, he wasn't the worst part of Alexander). All three actors are as good (or better) as they've ever been here.

Asia Argento - Boarding Gate

Yeah, she made a striking turn in The Last Mistress, but it was in Boarding Gate that Argento was given the best platform for astounding. More on this when I publish my best of the year.

Frank Langella - Frost/Nixon

It ended up not mattering much that Langella didn't resemble Tricky Dick physically or vocally, which is tremendous for playing someone ingrained so deeply in the public's eye.

Sean Penn, James Franco, Josh Brolin - Milk

If I had more space or time, each of these actors would deserve their own inclusion. Harvey Milk could end up being the role best associated with the often over-the-top Penn. The chemistry between Penn and Franco was intense (even if the film could have gone a little bit deeper), and Brolin, as I'm sure you've already heard or witnessed, gives remarkable shape to what could have been a one-dimensional, unsympathetic individual.

Inés Efron - XXY

In XXY, Efron is perfect, in both her demeanor and chilling despair. It’s the sort of performance you see, without knowing much about the actress, and assume, “Well, the director must have found her on the street and knew she was exactly what was needed for the role.” However, XXY is her fourth film, and not only is her role sizable in its challenges, Efron is both delicate and rough and handles the conflicting femininity and masculinity like an actress twice her senior. Fabulous stuff. (Taken from a post I wrote earlier this year)

Tilda Swinton - Julia; The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

In both leading and supporting roles, Swinton has the capacity to captivate no matter how long she's onscreen.

Richard Jenkins - The Visitor; Step Brothers

As excellent as he was in The Visitor, look for his "emotional" speech near the end of Step Brothers. Thanks to both films, Jenkins should no longer remain an untapped resource.

Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Devos - A Christmas Tale [Un conte de Noël]

As they did in Desplechin's Kings and Queen, Amalric and Devos again play lovers, this time in the present tense, and it's quite a compliment to stand out in a cast this impressive.

Béatrice Dalle - Inside

Perhaps inspired by the flesh-eating nymphomaniac she played in Claire Denis' Trouble Every Day, Inside flipped the coin on her usual persona of being sexy (but a little bit scary) in making her scary (but a little bit sexy) as the black-donning, scissors-holding home invader in Inside. It's probably one of the most frightening performances in a horror film that I've ever seen.

Anamaria Marinca - 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

As the roommate of the pregnant girl, Marinca was mesmerizing, devestating and even a little bit funny.

Emily Mortimer - Transsiberian

In looks, Mortimer might not have what it takes to pull off the former bad girl, but in Transsiberian, she's absolutely believable and utterly captivating.

Jason Patric - Expired

Hysterically rude, Patric was like the broken down version of his character in Your Friends & Neighbors.

Julianne Moore - Savage Grace

Taking on roles as difficult as that of Barbara Baekeland is what lifts Moore into the masterclass. Though Savage Grace is quite flawed, there's nothing at all wrong with her (you could say the same about Blindness, though she's more effective here), and, as I said before, I don’t think any actress today can utter the word “cunt” with as much ferocity as Moore, and after you see the film, try to think of another actress who would have even tried to pull of that scene.

Jürgen Vogel - The Free Will

Serving as co-writer as well, Vogel is shattering the film's serial rapist in one of the year's most troubling performances.

Michael Fassbender - Hunger

It would be too easy to applaud Fassbender for pulling a Christian Bale and losing an ungodly amount of weight for the second half of Hunger, so it certainly helps that he would have been commanding at any weight. I'll even forgive him for being in 300.

Rosemarie DeWitt - Rachel Getting Married

In the less showy performance, DeWitt is the rock of Rachel Getting Married. Again, more on this when my best films list rolls out.

Penélope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Cruz lights my F-I-R-E, as you probably know by now, but who knew she could be as savagely funny as she was in the role of Maria Elena? Cruz and Hall were so night-and-day that I had to include them separately.

Peter Mullan - Boy A

Though Andrew Garfield was also quite good in the title role, Mullan was Boy A's shining light as the social worker who assists Garfield's rehabilition in society.

Michelle Williams - Wendy and Lucy

You can see Wendy's entire world buckle under inside Williams' face. She's a revelation here, and one of the most promising actresses of her generation (surprising from a girl who rose to fame on Dawson's Creek and lasted the show's entire run).

Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler

No matter how you feel about The Wrestler (yes, more on that later), it's hard to resist Rourke's career-capping turn as a faded pro "wrestler." Whether this leads to a string of roles or not is unclear, but he definitely deserves all the accolades that have been thrown upon him thusfar.

Sigourney Weaver - Baby Mama

Too often (even in my case) does appreciation for dramatic work overshadow the great comedic performances of any year, which are (so I hear) a lot more difficult a task to pull off. Weaver, as the owner of the surrogate adoption agency, isn't just hilarious on her own, but she does what every lead actor wishes the supporting players would do and makes them even funnier. Tina Fey's reaction to finding her in the hospital with a set of twins is the highlight of the whole film.

Starfucker

I’ve always been opposed to the grading of films on any scale you can throw at me, whether it be on a star- or academic-scale. My mind changes too often, and frequently my grade/rating changes within the day or so. I can’t do the A/B/C/D/F scale, because technically an F is 69 out of 100 or lower, and most films fall under that category for me. I was only half-impressed with Breathless, so does it deserve the same rating as The Hills Have Eyes remake? I’d say no. With this said, I do rate films on my Netflix account, more to allow my friends to see what I’ve seen and whether it was shit or not. Often there, ratings are changed like crazy. Is The Departed a four- or three-star film? Can’t I have halves? However, since I rate the films I see on a five-star scale, I have begun to wonder about what is it that makes a five-star film for me? As my friend Tom has said, there are certain films that cannot fall between the 1 or 5 star, citing The Devil’s Rejects as one example. You could probably add Showgirls and Pink Flamingos to that list, though I may have rated Pink Flamingos three (whoops). So what is a five-star film and what does it mean for me?

My friend Mike rated the French Hitchcockian thriller La moustache, starring Vincent Lindon and Emmanuelle Devos, five stars the other day, which got me pumped to watch it. I did, and I was rather impressed… but was I five-star impressed? It’s thoroughly uncompromising and satisfyingly unsatisfying as only the French can do, yet I wonder. Will La moustache be sitting in my mind a year from now when the subject of Hitchcock comes up? Will I feel like I need to revisit the film in a year’s time? The answers are “probably not.” Does that make La moustache a shitty movie? Of course not, I rated it four out of five stars, but its significance to me appears, a day after viewing, to be fleeting. I encounter films like this all the time: exquisitely constructed, intellectually stimulating motion pictures that fade from memory like an aged Polaroid.

Take for instance The Science of Sleep (La science des rêves), Michel Gondry’s first credit as both writer and director. I found myself charmed, inspired, and beautifully frustrated with the film in all the right ways. After Dave Chappelle’s Block Party, I’ve gotten over my snobbish Gondry-hating, even finding a decent, if detached, appreciation for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. However, much of my appreciation for The Science of Sleep came from the exact time I viewed the film. My doctor has prescribed new medication, which has produced some of the most lucid dreams I’ve ever had, often blurring the lines of my own reality. I quickly snap out of these dream hallucinations, but that the main character of the film, Gael García Bernal, also has trouble with this distinction made me that more smitten with the film itself. Of course, it helps that Gondry has beautifully weaved his music video experimentation into a cinematic realm. It also helps that my romantic cynicism was perfectly matched with The Science of Sleep’s cryptic ending. So the question remains: will The Science of Sleep become for me what Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind has for slews of hip college kids? I want to say no; I want to say that my considerable appreciation for the film was because of the timing of its arrival in my life, not because it was of five-star quality.

With all this said, what qualifies as a five-star film for me? There’s the typical ones that everyone should rate five stars, like L’avventura, Double Indemnity, La dolce vita, Manhattan, Chinatown, The Passion of Joan of Arc, and that heap of garbage Citizen Kane (I kid). Then there’s the ones that, if you know me, are essential Joe Bowman classics: Showgirls, 3 Women, Blue Velvet, The Naked Kiss, Fat Girl, Freeway, and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. Then falls the tricky ones, the ones that I will never forget, even if they’ve already been forgotten by everyone else. Those would include Morvern Callar, My Summer of Love, Exotica, The Passion of Anna, Come Undone, Safe, and Before Sunset. For better or worse, these films also arrived at the opportune time in my life and have always stayed there. Some are hard to defend to others--I don’t even remember why I loved Exotica so much, but I still think about it a lot. I’m well-aware that these films in the third category are quality pictures, but they’ve become more than just films to me. Perhaps they serve as preserved memories of mine, or maybe I find something new every time I watch them. And maybe The Science of Sleep will fool me, as Morvern Callar once did. I dismissed Morvern’s hidden power over me just as I may be doing with The Science of Sleep. Only time will tell; the only thing you can be sure of is change… at least the change in my Netflix ratings.

And, by the way, if you want to be my Netflix friend to see what I’ve been watching and not writing about, or what Walerian Borowcyzk smut film I currently have at home, click this link to befriend me.