Celebration of Hollywood

The Oscars may not reflect the actual state and the pulse of contemporary cinema. But they are there to remind us of the incredible abilities of film to excite us and to make life sunnier.

After a month and a half of speculation, gossip and gambling, the 85th annual awards of the Film Academy of Hollywood took place on Sunday, including jewelry, haute couture, glamour and pageantry paraphernalia. I tend to distrust those who always see Hollywood as the incarnation of evil, the cause of all the banalities in the films we see on our screens.

This industry that generates so many images reminds me of a glorious past. It was those same environments that hosted the exiles Lang, Murnau, Renoir and Wilder. It was in Hollywood that Hitchcock made the most popular works of his career. It was there that Ford made his Westerns and Hawks his comedies. It was in Hollywood that sound films were developed, color film, special effects. That machine produced a constellation of stars that adorned the California skies and spurred fans to dream when there was little reason to do so.

And on Sunday night were the actors who came after: Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Daniel Day-Lewis. Pure talent. There was the master Michael Haneke awaiting his prize. In this same event, we fondly remember those who are gone forever from the previous year (including a film critic: the great Andrew Sarris). We celebrate 50 years of the James Bond series and we congratulate ourselves with the tribute offered to film music.

Are these awards self-congratulatory? Do the lobbies and interests rule? And is it all a publicity machine disguised as a gala? Probably. But that does not diminish the aura of high-level performance and happy celebration of an art that, despite all, is still alive, showing that it is reborn in each film and with each new director who pops up. How do you think a man as young and talented as Benh Zeitlin feels, learning that he was nominated for best director alongside Spielberg and Haneke? How do you think Affleck and Clooney feel to learn that their joint project entered history? The careers of both men as actors are being overtaken by their careers as directors. That message was clear on Sunday.

Perhaps the Oscars do not reflect the actual state and the pulse of contemporary cinema. That task is left to the big festivals (Cannes, above all). But they are there to remind us of the incredible abilities of film to excite us and to make life sunnier.