If Denis Villeneuve wins a Golden Globe on Sunday for his achievement of Dune, will its price be worth anything?
The 79e The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) awards ceremony will take place as usual live from the Beverly Hilton Hotel, but without a host, no winners, no audience and, most importantly, no television broadcast. The winners will be announced in real time on the Golden Globes website and social media. And it won’t be because of the Omicron variant.
The event that traditionally kicked off the “galas season” has lost its feathers and much of its luster over the past year. Last February, an investigation by Los Angeles Times revealed serious ethical lapses, questionable financial practices and a lack of diversity among its 87 voting members.
The Golden Globes are not out of the quagmire. The changes proposed in May – update of the code of conduct, reshuffle of the board of directors, addition of 21 members, including six black journalists – by the HFPA did not have the good fortune to reassure the film industry, who boycotted the ceremony of January 9. No Hollywood star has agreed to present an award, even virtually.
Bribery charges have plagued the Golden Globe finalist selection process for several years.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, made up of a few dozen scribes more or less active in their respective international media, is considered a private picnic club likely to exchange a favorable vote for an invitation to a luxury hotel and on a film set in Paris.
This latest scandal, revealed by the LA Times and implicating the series Emily in Paris, seems to have been the straw that broke the camel’s back of the HFPA’s tolerance for unprofessionalism. That, and the fact that the Association did not count in its ranks, a year ago, any black journalist … but a nonagenarian officially deaf and blind. Suddenly it was too much for Hollywood. In the process, even Tom Cruise decided to return his three statuettes.
PHOTO PAUL DRINKWATER, REUTERS ARCHIVES
British comedian Ricky Gervais has hosted the Golden Globes on several occasions.
The opportunism and lack of credibility of certain pseudo-journalists of the HFPA have been known for a long time. The stripper animator Ricky Gervais alluded to it 12 years ago, in full gala. Other surveys were carried out before that of the LA Times, at least one devastating documentary has been devoted to it (The Golden Globes: Hollywood’s Dirty Little Secret, in 2004), but no one seemed to give it too much importance until last year. Other times, other manners…
Against all odds, it must be said that the Golden Globes have always remained very popular.
While the ratings of other galas declined steadily, that of the Globes has been maintained year after year at 20 million viewers. The NBC network renewed the gala broadcast contract for $ 60 million per year in 2018. Money talks, as they say in Santa Monica. As long as there is something for everyone, right?
Some will no doubt claim that it was the “woke” movement that got the better of the Golden Globes. Why on earth should an association that represents journalists around the world be forced to include black colleagues? Another coup from the political correctness dictatorship. (Ironically, for those whose radar doesn’t go to second degree.)
Still, there will be no red carpet, no stars, no squeaky opening monologue, no overly long presentations or thank you speeches drunk on Sunday night on TV. In short, everything that made the Golden Globes one of the most popular social events in Hollywood. An unstuck awards ceremony, bringing together stars from both the small and the big screen in a relaxed atmosphere, much less staid than that of the Oscars.
Should we be sorry?
A casual evening like this might have been welcome in the current pandemic context. We change our ideas with what we can.
For some, it’s the extravagant evening dresses. For others, the eco-muddy speeches of Joaquin Phoenix or the deliciously inappropriate jokes of Ricky Gervais.
However, I have always found that too much importance was placed on the results of the Golden Globes. They are not, as it is claimed, reliable indicators of the Oscars, the Super Bowl of Hollywood cinema (whose importance, in the grand scheme of things, is itself quite relative).
Moreover, it is in a way a fair return of things that its finalists were unveiled with a certain indifference in mid-December. I haven’t heard anyone take offense at the fact that CODA, the American remake of the French film The Aries family, either in the running for the best dramatic film, in the company of The Power of the Dog, King richard, Belfast and Dune. Barely two years ago, some would have plagued.
Which brings me back to the question I asked at the beginning of the column: if Denis Villeneuve wins Sunday the award for best director with the beard of his mentor Steven Spielberg, the great Jane Campion, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Kenneth Branagh, his prize will it be worth anything? The answer is yes …
Because if the Golden Globes have bad press, that they have suffered for years from a credibility deficit, and that they are like the very American and Anglocentric Oscars, their record is not shameful. On the contrary, it is in phase with criticism in general.
The favorites of this 79e ceremony, The Power of the Dog (cited seven times) and Succession (five times), are respectively my favorite film and my TV series of 2021. They are rather consensual choices among mainstream critics, with which I usually agree. Which is not very original.
In the category of best film in a language other than English, we find quite logically Parallel mothers by Pedro Almodóvar, God’s hand by Paolo Sorrentino, A hero by Asghar Farhadi, Drive my Car by Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Compartment no 6 by Juho Kuosmanen, films that I had the opportunity to see (except the last one) and that I really enjoyed.
Winning a Golden Globe, for almost 80 years, has placed well on a resume. Until recently, the ceremony remained an important part of the campaign to promote a film. Those who aspire to prizes often take the bill at the end or the beginning of the year. It is a prize which, despite everything, had an aura of prestige. Whether it is overrated or not.
Should we rejoice if Denis Villeneuve wins a prize? In this matter, as in many others, chauvinism risks dictating the course to be followed.