Mark Goldblatt in the house!
Here’s the link to the presentations from some folks…
Too bad there’s no highlight reel of Godard’s stuff. It would have been interesting to see how they presented his work…
http://www.oscars.org/video/watch/ga_2010_07_robinson.html
Sean D Young
Godard was honored last night at the AMPAS Governors Awards with an Honorary Oscar.
Despite the controversy over his attendance and the recent “anti” meme, the focus was on his artistic achievements and contribution to cinema.
Video highlights will be here when they are uploaded:
http://www.oscars.org/awards/governors/index.html
Here’s an excerpt from the Hollywood Reporter from last nights proceedings:
“The Academy turned to several of its past and present governors to testify to Godard’s influential contributions as a director. Cinematographer Haskell Wexler said “for Godard, there’s no separating images from ideas or style from content.” Film editor Mark Goldblatt added, “he freed us from conventions so we could take cinema to a higher place.” Godard also taught Hollywood that directors like John Ford, Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock “were every bit the artists as everyone else we revered from abroad. He opened up my cinematic horizons,” observed producer Mark Johnson. Composer Bruce Broughton noted, “No one had ever used music the way he had.”
But it remained for documentary filmmaker Lynn Littman and writer/director Phil Robinson, who had nominated Godard for the honorary Oscar, to acknowledge the elephant in the room.
“There is no question,” Littman said. “Godard has been an irreverent provocateur for his entire career, but he never used his art to promote bigotry, and that’s the key distinction that I had to understand so I could honor him tonight.”
Introducing a toast, Robinson offered, “Mr. Godard, in your long career as a filmmaker and provocateur, let’s be honest, you have said things that have offended pretty much everyone in this room at least once. You’ve also said really snarky things about Hollywood and the Oscars, but then again so has everyone in this room at least once. None of that has deterred this board of governors from bestowing upon you the highest honor we can for artistic achievement. Let’s be clear — this ain’t the Hersholt Humitarian Award.”
As the room exploded with laughter and applause, Robinson concluded, with “your brilliance, your innovation and your unapologetic orneriness, you have enriched our art form immeasurably. It’s impossible to imagine contemporary cinema without your influence. And for that and all the great films, we say, thank you Mr. Godard, wherever you are.”
It remained for Sherak to accept the Oscar on Godard’s behalf, as several members of the Academy, including executive director Bruce Davis, congratulated Robinson for how he handled the issue."