Do you know this man? If so, why? Whether you do or not, go on and check out The Auteurs' for some Topics that'll have an equally galvanic effect on you. Maybe. Probably not. But, you know…
And then my mind split open…
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Hey, I think Topics are your best entertainment value — always look forward to them.
Although, Glenn, you should toggle back there and fix “Point Blank” to “Point Break” — the kind of typo/synaptic cockup we all do sometimes, but people tend to overreact to.
Although, I don’t know. I kind of LIKE the idea of Lee Marvin as a bank-robbing surfer…
Pssst…I believe you mean Bigelow’s Point Break, not Point Blank.
I loved Olivier’s speech because I always assumed it was intentional BS. It’s too brilliant an exercise in saying nothing at great length to be anything other than piss-taking on an epic scale.
Stephen, I was also going to say that Bigelow would have remade Point Blank a lot better than Brian Helgeland did.
SIren, John Boorman likes to tell the story of how he and Lee Marvin threw the original script of “Point Blank” out of a hotel window because it was such garbage…and then joke that said script must have landed on Brian Helgeland’s head, because that’s what “Payback” turned out to be…
What… the… hell?
Nothing will ever top Chaplin’s honorary Oscar. It’s not that the standing ovation lasts for so long, but that all these people are yelling out stuff like “Bravo!” as well. I’ve never seen such rousing adulation at any event like this. And his speech, unlike Olivier’s, seems unscripted and appropriately humble from a man who more than anyone had a right to proudly bask in the glory.
I could watch it ten times in a row and get choked up with each viewing.
Second would be Stanwyck’s honorary award the year after William Holden gave her major props during a co-presentation at the ceremony, and Holden had died since.
Third, oddly enough, would probably be when Muhummad Ali was brought up on stage after When We Were Kings won Best Documentary.
Mark E. Smith has much to say to Mr. White:
His heart organ was where it should be
His brain was in his arse
His hand was well out of his pocket
His psyche’s in the hearth
——————————–
Became a recluse
And bought a computer
Set it up in the home
Elusive big one
On the screen
Saw the Holy Ghost, I swear
On the screen
Where’s the cursor?
Where’s the eraser?
Where’s the cursor?
Where’s the eraser?
———————————–
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umKEj_fFNBw
Lazarus, indeed those were all intensely moving, Chaplin because he had been hounded out of a country and industry he once loved, and Stanwyck all the more so because Holden’s death had been so tragic. Others I can still remember were Satyajit Ray, clutching his award on his death bed, and the incredible montage of his films; Miep Gies going up to the dais with the documentary director and being too overcome to speak; and Stanley Donen’s little soft-shoe.
Agree with all of those, Siren.
And then there were the complicated awards — like the unspoken annoyance that Orson Welles seemed to evidence, as he was given a “career achievement” prize for a career he obviously felt was still in full roar.
And if that award and Paul Newman’s were clearly honors given too early, there’s the problem with awards given too late — as in, for example, the Oscar to the very frail Mary Pickford…
You’re right about the “too late” thing, and in addition to the Pickford award (which has a rather creepy vibe, like a combination of Kane’s Xanadu and Grey Gardens), it’s a shame that an unrecognizable Myrna Loy had to accept hers via satellite (and with a one-line speech), or that Jean Renoir wasn’t there to see Ingrid Bergman’s touching tribute in person.
I also think that Fiedler was quoting from Melville’s review of Hawthorne’s Mosses from the Old Manse, not from Moby-Dick. Strike two on that quote?
Given that so many of us have vivid memories of honorary awards, it makes the Academy’s decision to move those to a separate dinner all the more bone-headed, I have to say. I suppose it’s that old bugaboo “relevance” again. Christ I hate relevance. But you knew that…
Joel: Or was it a letter to Hawthorne? In which case I’d call it a foul. White, on the other hand, whiffed completely. But it’s good to be fallible.
I’ve been harping on this all over town, but it incenses me that those honorary awards were taken off-the-air only to make room for things like a special tribute to John Hughes, who wouldn’t even be worthy of an honorary award himself had he lived long enough.
(insert pic of Macaulay Culkin from Home Alone poster)
I guess I just whiffed on strike three. The line before–“There is a grand truth about Nathaniel Hawthorne”–always makes me think it’s in the “Hawthorne and His Mosses” review, but I guess it’s in a letter to NH, referring to Hawthorne in the third person. I’ve just dishonored my half-finished American Lit dissertation. Anyway, White is correct about the lameness of the Oscars, and I think he’s also correct that Hurt Locker is unexceptional in the context of Bigelow’s awesome career. Most of the essay, though, was just the usual “too many people care about something, so I’m going to write a long essay to show you how much I don’t care about something” routine. I’ve heard worse. Today I listened to Ben Lyons on NPR talking about the Oscars. That was much worse.
@ Joel: I bet it was.
Apropos of little else, I had the great privilege of seeing Fiedler speak, and then having a brief conversation with him, at my old school back in 1980. What a delightful fellow. We talked about Roger Sale’s assertion that John Hawkes had a “contemptible imagination,” which Fiedler of course considered ridiculous on many levels. Oh, for fun…
@TheSiren: I completely agree, the honorary awards were one of the highlights of the show for me. I’ll miss them this year.
It’s also “Kathryn,” not “Katherine” Bigelow.
The firmament! The firmament!