The Oscars 2013 - Part 3: The Ceremony

Our seats were amazing: first row of the first balcony, a place with a view on the entire parterre of stars. One couldn’t ask for more (well… maybe a seat close to Daniel Day Lewis, or directly on his lap, but ok…). The stage was pretty amazing too: an arch of lights, a round big platform in the middle and two others, smaller, on the right and on the left side.
The stars were taking their seats: it was funny to watch and trying to recognize each of them. Everybody was being very polite: it was a question of greetings, kisses and embraces. I was wondering how many of them were sincere, but I guess you had the same percentage in real life at no-matter-what kind of mundane event. 

When the lights got out and a voice announced that the Oscars 2013 night was about to begin, I had one of those stupid thoughts I always have in these occasions. I thought: How is it possible that Zazie from Paris, coming in reality not at all from the French capital but from the most obscure little village of the Pianura Padana, is here at the Oscars night? I held my breath for a second, praying that no beam of light would be pointed directly at me to ask about my incongruous presence... luckily enough, Seth MacFarlane was already on stage, and the big show was about to begin! 

Standing Ovation for Shirley Bassey

I have to make a confession: I was convinced I would have found the ceremony a bit boring. 
I mean: it is long, and there are all those musical breaks, I was really afraid to reach the point of saturation. Well, it wasn’t the case: I was so excited that the almost three hours looked like 30 minutes.

I was particularly lucky, though: the musical breaks were kindly provided by appointment to their majesties Shirley Bassey, Adele and Barbra Streisand, among others. 
The awards started immediately to rain, and the first moment of joy, for me, was the Oscar to the short animation film Paperman by John Kahrs, a super sweet love story involving a lot of paper planes that, to my surprise, started to fly also from the balcony. If you don’t know this movie, you should absolutely see it, here it is:

Paperman - Short Film by John Kahrs par Flixgr
The other Oscar I was incredibly happy about, was the one for Best Documentary, given to the magnificent Searching for Sugar Man by Malik Bendjelloul. When, during his speech, the film maker said that Rodriguez (the singer the documentary is about) didn't come to the ceremony not to steal the scene to him, I really thought how amazing a human being could be. If you missed it, run to see this pure gem:


Have you ever wondered what happened in the theatre during the commercials? I was always curious to know that and I finally had the answer: the people seated on the balconies get out and have a drink at the bar, while the stars get up and talk to each other. The parterre is an ever changing place: actors and actresses are moving around a lot because they can introduce awards or take part into some musical piece. When they have an Oscar they simply disappear... I guess they're stuck in the pictures+interviews machine. 

The stars during the commercials

If you go to the bar for a drink, you have to be very careful: it is essential to be back in the theatre before the commercials are over, otherwise you'll be left outside. I didn't know about this rule, so when I saw my door closing I rushed, but the man in front of it was absolutely inflexible: no, I couldn't go inside. 
I was panicking, because we were almost at the end and I was afraid to miss some important awards. I was complaining about this with Susanna in Italian when a woman approached us: Which beautiful language are you talking in? Italian, we said. Oh, that sounds lovely even when you're unnerved! On a screen placed just outside the door we could see the images but without sound. What's the matter? the woman asked. We explained. Oh, don't worry, there is still time for the big ones. It was like this that we met Doris, a very nice woman who was an Oscar habituée (it was her 15th time at the ceremony!), and with whom we talked and laughed until the end of the commercials.
I wasn't lucky enough to escape the Oscar for Best Foreign Picture to Amour by Michael Haneke, though. As everybody knows, I'm a huge fan of the man. I think he has made the dullest speech ever (surprise, surprise!) and while the others were clapping hands, I remained perfectly still on my seat. Ta gueule! I just wanted to shout at him (but I didn't).

Then, finally, it was time for the one and only Oscar I was really waiting for, the one for Best Actor.

I remembered a day of many months before, probably almost one year, when I saw for the first time a picture of DDL as Lincoln: he was eating something in a cafeteria, dressed in modern clothes, but with the make-up transforming him in the President. I immediately posted the picture on my Facebook page, writing: I can already see an Oscar (the third) in his hands. Well, it wans't difficult to imagine it but, still, I was right. This is the picture:

And this is Daniel Day Lewis receiving his third Oscar at the Dolby Theatre on February 24 (from the hands of Meryl Streep):

And if you want to hear his funny and moving speech:

After Daniel, just two more Oscars were left: the one for Best Director (won by Ang Lee) and the one for best picture (won by Argo). 
Once the ceremony was over, we left our seats but not the theatre: we had in our hands the tickets to go to the Governors Ball... the funniest part of the night was about to start...

As time goes by

Here we are again: the last post of the year.

I have been to the movies 83 times in 2012 (yes, I know, it’s a sickness!) and I have seen many interesting things. I’ll let you know about the ones I liked most next February, as usual, at the time of the Zazie D’Or.

Many cinematographic things happened as well, from the glass of champagne with Meryl Streep in a fancy Paris restaurant, to the dinner in New York with Norah Ephron (few months before she sadly passed away), to the meetings with some great film-makers: the master class of Francis Ford Coppola at the Gaumont Parnasse, the meeting with Emanuele Crialese and Donatella Finocchiaro for the avant-première of Terraferma, the one with Thomas Vinterberg for the avant-première of his Jagten (both in one of my favourite cinema in town, Le Cinéma des Cinéastes). 

And it was nice to bump by chance into French film-maker Christophe Honoré outside a theatre in Abbesses where we just saw Hiroshima, Mon Amour (ah, serendipity!).

I hope 2013 will be plenty of great movies and great things for you all, dear readers.

Let’s wish that all our dreams come true… or, at least, that all our dreams come true… in a movie.  

Happy New Year!!!

Sincerely yours,

Zazie

The (Golden) Iron Lady

 A couple of weeks ago, something incredible happened to me.
The reason why I have waited so long to write about it is that, immediately after, I went away for my job and I didn't have much time to dedicate to the blog. Nevertheless, this event couldn't get out of my mind, and I actually think it will stay there for ever: I had a glass of champagne with Meryl Streep! 
Yes, I know, it sounds unreal, but I swear: it is the truth.
On January 6, Ms. Streep was in Paris for the French avant-première of The Iron Lady, the film about former UK Prime-Minister Margaret Thatcher, together with the director of the movie, Phyllida Lloyd. I had an invitation for the event through my friends at Pathé (Véronique, je t'aime!), and so I had the chance to see the movie and the Master Class following the screening, where the actress and the director talked about their experience.

I have to confess I was quite disappointed by the film: I didn't like the structure of it, there was something fake about the whole construction of the scenes and I thought this was a burden to the fruition of the story. One can only admire the persistence of Ms. Thatcher, who clearly struggled every day as a woman in a world of men, but her reasons, the things she has done, the decisions she has made, what kind of person she was, well, that's another whole story, and I didn't clearly understand which was the movie's point of view. This was particularly sad for me because I greatly admire the work of Abi Morgan, the screenplayer, who previously wrote the BBC tv series The Hour and, together with Steve McQueen, the movie Shame. Anyway, there was one thing I absolutely admired and adored in the movie, and that was Meryl Streep's performance. I mean, she doesn't play Margaret Thatcher, SHE IS Margaret Thatcher, and there are no adjectives to describe her work on this. I guess the audience in the cinema agreed with me, because when Meryl Streep appeared after the movie, there was a spontaneous and very long standing ovation. Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert and Louis Garrel were part of our team (I saw them!).

For a series of circumstances too complicated and a bit private to explain, few minutes after all this was over, I found myself seated at the same table with Meryl Streep and Isabelle Huppert at the bar of a very fancy parisian hotel, drinking champagne. Well, my boss was with me, and this is actually the only reason why I was there and I had this incredible chance (Grazie, Capo!). As it happens often to me in this kind of situations, I completely loose any sense of reality (something I am lacking of even in my every day life)  and I keep looking around, asking myself: Is this real? Is this really happening? It is also one of those few, very few circumstances, where I become shy and I am not able to speak a single word. I gaze upon people in disbelief, as if they were still on a screen instead of being seated close to me. And last, but not least, I have the bad habit to think about all the questions I am dying to ask and I know I can't, because it is just not possible in a situation like that, where people talk about everything but cinema. As a result, I didn't hear about a single word they were saying, I simply stared at Ms. Streep thinking about how gorgeous, gentle, intelligent, nice, curious, talented, and perfect, she looked. 
Then I heard my boss saying something about me and my passion for cinema. Ms. Streep looked at me and said: Oh, really? This is great. At that point, I confessed I was a cinema blogger. When she heard about it, Ms. Streep gently put her hand on my knees and said, with the sweetest voice: Then, when you write about actors in your blog, please, try to be not too severe with us! 
I was totally amazed by this. Don't you think it is the most incredible thing to hear from the mouth of the best actress in the world? 
On the screen she is an Iron Lady, but in real life, believe me, she is a Golden one.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

 

 Having a soft spot for Wes Anderson, I was ready to love his new movie Fantastic Mr. Fox, but I wasn’t prepared to adore it.

Based upon a children novel by English writer Roald Dahl (the very first book that Anderson received as a gift when he was 7 years old), the movie has been made in a very sophisticated yet very sweet stop-motion animated technique. 

Mr. Fox, his wife Felicity and their son Ash live a decent life in a decent hole but Mr. Fox, who promised to his wife two years earlier to give up stealing poultry as a job, is dreaming big dreams and he decides (against his lawyer’s advise) to buy a new home inside a lovely tree.

Once settled down, Mr. Fox (now a journalist) is unable to resist to the temptation of stealing from his new neighbours, the awful farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean. Helped by his friend, the opossum Kylie, and by the sweet and smart Kristofferson (Mr. Fox’s nephew), they managed to steal many products from the three bad guys, but then they have to face their terrible revenge. To escape from it, Mr. Fox and his family dig a deep tunnel under the three farms, finding a bunch of other animals whose houses have been destroyed by the fury of Boggis, Bunce and Bean. After many adventures (more stealing, a flooding, a starvation problem, and various attacks), Mr. Fox and his friends will be able to outflank the enemies and be happy again (with great news coming along…).

I’ve always loved obsessive filmmakers.

Artists that, no matter how many movies their career is made of, will always talk about the same few things.

Let’s say no more than three themes per film, and Anderson is definitely one of them.

What he has created, film after film (6 in total), is a very personal world, parallel to the real one, where you can recognise the same characters, the same kind of situations, the same sense of humour, the same difficulties to face, the same happiness to look for. The fact that Anderson often uses the same actors to play in his movies just magnifies this sensation: Jason Schwartzman, the Wilson brothers, Bill Murray and Anjelica Huston, to name few of them, are part of the Anderson family. The filmmaker even writes his stories with the same people, especially with his friends Noah Baumbach and Owen Wilson.

In his cinema, the complexity of family's ties is central. As well as the difficulties of growing up. Very often, there is a character that feels at odd with the rest of humanity: usually a hyper-sensitive, hyper-intelligent, not very sporty, totally nerd, funny and romantic guy who is in trouble to find his place into his family and into the real world (my favourite one is still Max Fischer from Rushmore, but little Ash from Fantastic Mr. Fox is another good example of it).

In this last movie, it is incredible to see how much andersonian looks the world imagined by Dahl.

 

 And somehow, having animated puppets instead of human beings, gives to Anderson's world a deeper resonance, a lighter breath and a heightened sensibility. For sure, the "voices" chosen were pivotal in creating these great effects: George Clooney as Mr. Fox, Meryl Streep as Mrs. Fox, Jason Schwartzman as Ash, Willem Dafoe as Rat, Bill Murray as Badger... they're all more than perfect, but the little miracle here is the adorable Kristofferson's voice (courtesy of Wes Anderson's younger brother, Eric).

A last word about the music, that in Anderson's cinema always plays a very important role and it is amazingly used.

In Fantastic Mr. Fox, I was happily surprised by a song written and performed by Jarvis Cocker (now that I think about it, he is SO perfect for Anderson's universe!) but even more delighted to hear a couple of scores by Georges Delerue taken from two different Truffaut’s movies: Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent and La Nuit Américaine.

This last one is actually the same used by Zazie for her tribute to Truffaut in one of her first posts for this blog.

Well, Mr. Anderson, it looks like we have faith in the same God...

Festival del Cinema di Roma - A night to remember

La vostra Zazie è appena tornata da Roma, dove è stata in missione cinematografica neanche tanto segreta.
Ho infatti assistito, la sera di giovedi 22 Ottobre, a due eventi della quarta edizione del Festival del Cinema: l'incontro con il pubblico di Meryl Streep (che ha vinto quest'anno il Marc'Aurelio d'Oro alla carriera) e l'anteprima europea del nuovo film dei fratelli Coen, A Serious Man.
Come si dice da queste parti: pas mal, se poi ci aggiungete un simpatico fuori programma, consistito in due amabili chiacchiere con Joel Coen e sua moglie Frances McDormand nel giardino dell'Hotel de Russie davanti a un bicchiere di vino bianco, allora ci scappa pure un YABADABADUUUU!!!!!
Ma veniamo ai fatti.

Di Meryl Streep non penso ci sia bisogno di dire molto: considerata, a ragione, la più grande attrice vivente, è stata accolta e poi congedata dal pubblico con due lunghe standing ovation. Ho provato a pensare ad un'altra attrice che le possa stare al passo, ho capito che non c'è. Forse Dame Judy Dench, ma non nella carriera cinematografica. La verità è che rivedendo gli spezzoni tratti dai suoi film che lei ha scelto di proporre, si rimane soggiogati dalla sua bravura: Manhattan, La scelta di Sophie, Il Cacciatore, I ponti di Madison County, Kramer contro Kramer, Innamorarsi, Il Diavolo veste Prada... la Streep cambia accento ad ogni film, eccelle nel dramma come nella commedia, sa cantare, ballare, essere dolcissima, essere stronza, disperarsi, farci ridere. E il tutto in modo così naturale da farci credere che sia un gioco da ragazzi, ma non lo è, altrimenti ci sarebbero in giro più attrici come lei. 

Comunque, con il pubblico, la Streep è perfetta: elegantissima, sobriamente truccata, sembra una diva ma è estremamente alla mano. Scherza sui suoi problemi con la tecnologia, racconta di quanto sia taciturno ma carismatico Robert De Niro, lascia cadere una battuta su Woody Allen al momento giusto o fa una riflessione sul cinema che cattura subito l'attenzione. Insomma, chapeau! Prima del suo incontro, una bellissima sorpresa, da lei stessa richiesta: la programmazione di un breve documentario sull'attore americano John Cazale, morto giovanissimo (a 42 anni, di un cancro ai polmoni), con solo 5 film all'attivo che sono però rimasti nell'immaginario collettivo: Il Padrino parte I e II, La Conversazione, Quel pomeriggio di un giorno da cani e Il Cacciatore. 

I knew it was you: Rediscovering John Cazale, è ricco di interviste a persone del cinema che l'hanno conosciuto e hanno lavorato con lui. Tra gli altri: Francis Ford Coppola, Sidney Lumet, Al Pacino, Steve Buscemi, Gene Hackman, Robert De Niro e la stessa Meryl Streep, che è stata la sua compagna per due anni, dal 1976 fino alla sua morte nel 1978 (avvenuta appena terminate le riprese del Cacciatore). Cazale dimostra ampliamente che, nel cinema, non esistono piccole parti, ma solo piccoli attori.

A seguire, il nuovo film dei Coen che, se ce ne fosse mai stato bisogno, arriva a riconfermare il talento sfacciato di questi due fratelli del Minnesota. E proprio nella loro città natale, St. Louis Park, si svolgono le avventure tragicomiche del professore universitario Larry Gopnik, assalito da una serie di sventure che lascerebbero senza fede anche il più ortodosso degli ebrei. La moglie lo scarica per un altro uomo, uno studente lo coinvolge suo malgrado in un losco affare, i figli si preoccupano più di come si prende la TV o di come andare ad una festa piuttosto che dei suoi guai, il fratello semi-demente e/o mezzo-genio gli procura solo grattacapi, i rabbini a cui si rivolge in cerca di risposte sembrano in preda ad uno stato confusionale peggiore, se possibile, del suo. Insomma, il povero Gopnik se la vede bruttissima, e vi toccherà andare al cinema per sapere come tutto questo andrà a finire. 

A me sembra che i Coen, come alcuni altri grandi registi che ho avuto la fortuna di seguire dagli esordi ai giorni nostri (penso, per fare un altro esempio, ad Almodovar), sono diventati dei "classici", e intendo classico nel senso meraviglioso del termine. Se ci si pensa bene, non sono tanti i registi che hanno saputo evolversi nel tempo rimanendo fedeli a loro stessi. Da Blood Simple in poi, i Coen hanno sviluppato un loro discorso, un loro modo di fare cinema, di raccontare le storie, di usare le atmosfere a loro care (penso ai tanti film che hanno ambientato nell'America degli anni '30-'40), di condividere il loro sense of humor (no, dico, siamo o non siamo ancora qua ad utilizzare le battute di Drugo del Grande Lebowski?) e di riflettere sulla realtà che ci circonda (sfido chiunque a non essere uscito angosciato dalla visione di No country for old men). Insomma, i Coen nel tempo si sono raffinati, ma non sono cambiati, sono migliorati. In questo film ci sono un prologo fulminante, un paio di momenti da antologia (il bar mitzvah del figlio di Gopnik che si è appena fatto una canna è da urlo) e la mia scena finale preferita degli ultimi anni. Gli attori sono, tutti, piuttosto sconosciuti. E bravissimi. Nessun nome di grido o di richiamo. Ai Coen non serve più. Il protagonista, comunque, è un attore di teatro (e si vede) che non mi stupirei di vedere nel prossimo Woody Allen.

Dell'incredibile fuori programma (Antonio Monda, Santo Subito!!!), posso raccontarvi che Frances MacDormand è una delle persone più adorabili che mi sia mai capitato di incontrare (gentile, sorridente, disponibile e interessata a quanto le si dice... che volete di più?) e che finalmente ho avuto modo di scusarmi con Joel Coen. Sì, perché dovete sapere che lo avevo già incontrato a NY lo scorso maggio, ma era la stessa sera in cui mi ero attaccata a ventosa a Jeremy Irons, e quindi lo avevo totalmente snobbato. Lo so, capisco, è brutto da ammettere, ma nella vita ci sono delle priorità. E comuque Joel, sono felice di annunciarvelo, mi ha perdonato.
Insomma, mancava solo Gregory Peck ad aspettarmi fuori in vespa, e stavamo a posto.