In Contention

Tag: Cesar Awards

  • Césars for Polanski, ‘Gods,’ ‘Illusionist’… and Fincher

    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.

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  • ‘Of Gods and Men,’ ‘Ghost Writer’ lead César nominations

    The film may be smarting from its widely (if not, ahem, entirely) unexpected omission from the Oscar foreign-language shortlist earlier this week, but Xavier Beauvois’s sombre religious drama “Of Gods and Men” found more love in its home country, where it scooped a leading 11 nominations for the César Awards.

    The so-called “French Oscars” also unsurprisingly took a shine to Roman Polanski’s “The Ghost Writer,” which has dominated the European awards circuit and is angling for a surprise Oscar nod or two on Tuesday. Expect these two films to battle it out for the gold; I’d bet on the weighty prestige veneer of Beauvois’s film winning out, but sentimental loyalty to Polanski shouldn’t be underestimated — he is, after all, a previous winner for both “Tess” and  “The Pianist.”

    Beyond those two frontrunners, I’m pleased to see a strong showing for Mathieu Amalric’s scrappy burlesque comedy “On Tour,” though their other choices suggest the Césars can be as frustratingly MOR as their US counterpart.

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  • ‘A Prophet’ takes nine César Awards

    Tahar Rahim in A ProphetI know, I know … quelle surprise. One week after taking the BAFTA, Jacques Audiard’s “A Prophet” obliterated the competition at its home awards ceremony, the Césars. The foreign-language Oscar nominee took a massive nine awards, including honors for Best Film, Director, Screenplay, Actor and Supporting Actor.

    Tahar Rahim was a double winner, in fact, adding a breakthrough award to his Best Actor win. (Well, obviously.) Benefitting from the fact that “A Prophet” had no lead actress was veteran star Isabelle Adjani. It’s nice to see a documentary win for the excellent “Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno,” but a Best Foreign Film win for “Gran Torino” is really pushing the Gallic adoration for Clint Eastwood a bit far.

    “A Prophet,” of course, opened Stateside yesterday — if you haven’t seen it yet, rectify that. Read our interview with Audiard here. Full list of winners after the cut.

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: Guild awards, pre-nomination jitters

    A scene from Inglourious Basterds• In the biggest upset of the season so far, “The Hurt Locker” came up trumps at the PGA Awards.

    • “Inglourious Basterds” took the top prize at the SAG Awards, which also gave another boost to Sandra Bullock.

    • With Oscar nominations out next week, we listed some of the greatest nominee fields in Oscar history.

    • Off the Carpet took stock following the weekend’s precursors, and Kris revised his winner predictions.

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  • ‘A Prophet’ tops César nominations

    Kristin Scott Thomas in LeavingWhat a shocker, right? In the nominations for France’s premier film awards, Jacques Audiard’s Oscar contender leads the field with a massive 13 bids. (Look out for my interview with Audiard, coming soon.)

    It’s nice to finally see some love for Niels Arestrup’s astonishing work in the film, but when a contemporary prison drama can nail down a nomination for Best Costume Design, a sweep is afoot.

    That said, the Césars don’t always go to plan: last year saw heavyweights like “The Class” and “I’ve Loved You So Long” upset by “Séraphine,” the film that went on to take Best Actress awards from two of America’s most prestigious critics’ circles. It’s always worth keeping an eye on titles that do well here.

    I’m surprised that Alain Resnais’s “Wild Grass” didn’t do better here: the New Wave veteran’s critically beloved new effort scored a Best Film nomination, but little else, with Resnais himself snubbed in the Best Director race.

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  • EDINBURGH: “35 Shots of Rum,” “Séraphine,” “The Maid”

    35 Shots of RumTuesday was a day of mellower pleasures at the Edinburgh Film Festival, from an idle sun-soaked writing break in the park, to a chance conversation with Paddy Considine and Shane Meadows (both as smart and affably bloke-ish as you’d expect) outside the theater, to, most importantly, a trio of quietly impressive, character-oriented foreign-language titles.

    Two of them — France’s “Séraphine” and Chile’s “The Maid” — were decorated earlier this year with glittering prizes from the Césars and Sundance, respectively. Typically, the strongest of the three (and one of the best of the festival, not to mention the year) comes with no such accolades, having played inexplicably out of competition at Venice last year.

    35 SHOTS OF RUM (***1/2)

    Call it coincidence, but the finest films of this year’s festival have all come from the hands of female filmmakers. However, if Andrea Arnold’s and Kathryn Bigelow’s new efforts found them substantially broadening their canvases to knockout effect, “35 Shots of Rum” (which also played last night at the LA Film Fest across the pond) is an immaculate miniature from a master filmmaker; wispy at first glance, the film deftly accumulates tiny environmental and character details to create a richly satisfying tableau of restless lives.

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  • Better late…

    Last week’s server switch-induced hiatus prevented me from commenting on the César Awards — perhaps the ceremony I was eyeing most keenly this year given the prominence of my personal favourites in their rich pool of nominees. (I’ll say it again: France ruled 2008. End of story.)

    You’ve probably read the winners elsewhere by now. Nonetheless, I would like to offer a quick shout-out to the delightful IC interviewee Elsa Zylberstein, who deservedly took Best Supporting Actress honors for “I’ve Loved You So Long” (which also grabbed the Best First Film award). One of my many disappointments last season was watching Zylberstein enter the derby with a measure of dark-horse buzz, only to fall by the wayside at every single opportunity — I was thrilled to see her finally take home some hardware for a mighty career breakthrough.

    Zylberstein’s magnificent co-star, on the other hand, was just one of many frontrunners derailed by a surprising sweep for “Séraphine,” a modest biopic of historically neglected painter Séraphine de Senlis that garnered some warm notices at Toronto, but has otherwise been below the radar outside its home country. (It missed Oscar eligibility by a single day, though perhaps we should bear it in mind for next year.)

    I look forward to seeing it when it drops in the UK this summer. If it honestly deserved to beat the likes of “The Class” (which finally got some notice for its extraordinary screenplay), “A Christmas Tale” or “I’ve Loved You So Long,” it must be one hell of a picture. Full list of winners below the cut.

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