When the nominations for the César Awards — known in glib terms as the French Oscars — were announced last month, I wrote that I anticipated a tight race between Roman Polanski’s widely acclaimed Euro thriller “The Ghost Writer” and Xavier Beauvois’s lofty Cannes prizewinner “Of Gods and Men,” with the latter just winning out.
As it turned out, I was right. Beauvois’s film (the French Oscar submission, which surprised many by failing to make the Academy’s shortlist) took the top prize, but it was “The Ghost Writer” that netted the most wins, with four — including two for Polanski himself (Best Director and Adapted Screenplay), plus honors for editing and Alexandre Desplat’s score.
Given that combination of awards, it’s tempting to call Polanski’s film the “Social Network” of the French awards circuit — except that title goes to, well, “The Social Network.” David Fincher’s one-time Oscar frontrunner beat a rum bunch of mismatched nominees, including “Bright Star,” “Inception” and “Invictus,” to be named Best Foreign Film.
In other categories with some distant Oscar overlap, “The Illusionist” obviously took Best Animated Feature, while “Logorama” (remember that?) took Best Short Film honors a whole year after its 2009 Oscar triumph. Finally, always nice to see some recognition for electrifying “Carlos” star Edgar Ramirez, even if Most Promising Actor seems a paltry reward for his work. (Promising? You think?) Full list of winners below.
Best Film: “Of Gods and Men”
Best Director: Roman Polanski, “The Ghost Writer”
Best Actor: Eric Elmosnino, “Gainsbourg”
Best Actress: Sara Forestier, “The Names of Love”
Best Supporting Actor: Michael Lonsdale, “Of Gods and Men”
Best Supporting Actress: Anne Alvaro, “The Clink of Ice”
Most Promising Actor: Edgar Ramirez, “Carlos”
Most Promising Actress: Leïla Bekhti, “Tout ce qui brille”
Best Original Screenplay: Baya Kasmi and Michel Leclerc, “The Names of Love”
Best Adapted Screenplay: Robert Harris and Roman Polanski, “The Ghost Writer”
Best Foreign Film: “The Social Network”
Best Animated Feature: “The Illusionist”
Best Documentary: “Oceans”
Best First Film: “Gainsbourg”
Best Cinematography: Caroline Champetier, “Of Gods and Men”
Best Art Direction: Hugues Tissandier, “The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec”
Best Costume Design: Caroline de Vivaise, “The Princess of Montpensier”
Best Film Editing: Hervé de Luze, “The Ghost Writer”
Best Sound: “Gainsbourg”
Best Short Film: “Logorama”
[Photo: Yahoo! Movies]
Comments
7 responses to “Césars for Polanski, ‘Gods,’ ‘Illusionist’… and Fincher”
Ever since seeing “The Social Network” I’ve wondered how it’s subtitled for foreign countries. The dialogue is so thick, rapid, and pervasive I can’t imagine the work that would have to be done to create the subtitles, not to mention how difficult it must be to read them. Seeing as it won as best foreign film here, however, I suppose it wasn’t much of an issue?
Yeah, how ever did they make TSN work in subtitles? I guess I have to check my DVD.
Congrats to Edgar Ramirez!
^
I can only speak about Germany, but in my country foreign language movies are not subtitled, but synchronized. So you don´t have to read subtitles, you simply listen to Jesse Eisenberg speaking fluent german! ;-)
Seeing as it won as best foreign film here, however, I suppose it wasn’t much of an issue?
Most urban French audiences (and certainly most Cesar voters) would speak English, so I wouldn’t use this as a litmus test. And in France, major English-language films are shown in both subtitled and dubbed versions.
Great to see Polanski win a couple of more awards here at the end of the season. A Silver Bear, 3 European Film Awards, 3 Lumiere Awards, 2 César Awards and a Fipresci Grand Prix award for The Ghost Writer. Not too bad.
But I really find it weird that The Ghost Writer didn’t catch on outside of the european awards. Not even at the Baftas. But of course, that is more of an international award these days.
I still think it’s on of the very best films of the year and it deserved some Oscar nods.
Always happy to see Desplat take home award for his best score of last year, and for The Ghost Writer to be recognized in general.
If only more awards bodies thought that Eric Elmosnino’s electric performance in Gainsbourg was one of the best of the year…