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February 27, 2007
The Dominant Festival
In the entry about Johnny Depp, a few discussions have started up that I see as bait for new entries. So, sorry to be talking awards at all right now, but I think these general issues are worth discussion.
One was the question of my description of the race's markers. I wrote (in a comment):
The end of Cannes marks the end of the first eighth mile. Toronto gets us to the quarter mile. First week of November is the half mile. December 12 or so will be the three-quarter mile marker. Nomination morning is the mile. And the finish line is just a quarter mile from there.
A reader responded that, "The number of Cannes winners to get even a nomination at the Academy Awards in any category was so negligible that I had to also search Toronto and Venice to see how Foreign Language films fared just to make the time I wasted looking at Cannes worth some of the effort."
This is accurate factually. No film that's won Sundance has ever even been nominated for Best Picture either. Brokeback Mountain is the first film since Atlantic City to win Venice and get nominated (none has ever won). Berlin has a few more nominated winners, but they also “cheat” by having the films in competition after they have been set in the Academy race.
That said, the reader is dead wrong about Cannes and festivals in principle. The significance of Cannes in the American award season has not been its award, but the launches that happen there. Here are some details:
Babel, Lost In Translation, Mystic River, The Pianist, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Moulin Rouge! have all launched at Cannes since 2000.
Crash, Capote, Ray, Sideways, and American Beauty launched at Toronto.
In The Bedroom and Little Miss Sunshine are the only Best Picture nominated films that launched at Sundance in that period.
Good Night, And Good Luck is the only title that launched in this period at the New York Film Festival and made it to Best Picture.
Of all these films, only two Sundance titles (Little Miss Sunshine and In The Bedroom), Toronto-acquired Crash, and Cannes-acquired The Pianist were festival acquisitions. But these fests are the launching pads, however significant we may or may not think those launches are.
A lot of Toronto’s power is its date. The only Toronto acquisition in this period to get a BP nod, Crash, waited to launch theatrically for eight months. While the fest is a good launching pad to market an awards hopeful, it is considered too close to year-end to push a freshly acquired film into the race. That is why Away From Her from last year’s fest is sitting and waiting for release.
The only Sundance films that figure in next year’s Oscar race, it seems, are John Cusack’s performance in Grace Is Gone (acquired by The Weinstein Co) and Fox Searchlight’s The Savages, which arrived with the distributor, a release plan, and a lead performance by last year’s Oscar winner.
Cannes is almost 3 months away. Let’s hope there is something unexpected, significant, and accessible to American tastes there... whether it is awards bait or not. That doesn’t mean I don’t want great foreign stuff.
One film that came off the foreign boards at Berlin was Picturehouse’s acquisition, La Vie En Rose, featuring Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf. You can expect Bob Berney to take the Pan’s Labyrinth experience to the next level as he tries harder and earlier to position this foreign language film with great appeal to adult audiences to a nomination.
But that’s another column that I really don’t want to write yet…
Posted by poland at February 27, 2007 03:21 PM
Comments
That title since changed to La Mome.
Posted by: Kristopher Tapley ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/nav-commenters.gif)
at February 27, 2007 04:21 PM
You sure, Kris? I believe that's the French release title. And yes, it is odd to have the American and French releases both with different French titles.
Posted by: EDouglas at February 27, 2007 04:36 PM
I'm watching ABC right now.
If Rick Nicita or Paula Wagner are reading this, buy the rights to Bob Woodruff's story, cast Tom Cruise, he wins an Oscar.
Posted by: mutinyco at February 27, 2007 07:31 PM
This is a little off-topic, but does anyone know the runtime to Zodiac? I plan on seeing it and black Snake Moan on Friday, and I want to strategize my plan of attack in regards to which film I see first in order to sneak into the other. I read BSM came in at 115 min. What was final runtime on Zodiac?
Posted by: Jimmy the Gent at February 27, 2007 08:20 PM
Zodiac is about 2 hours and 35 minutes and worth every second.
Posted by: EDouglas at February 27, 2007 09:36 PM
Indeed, "La Vie En Rose" has been changed to "La Mome" (Edith Piaf's nickname) for a while now! Can someone confirm what it will be when released in the US? Just so I don't go confusing people with mixed-up titles when I write about it! I guess "La Vie En Rose" might click more with a non-French audience (as the title of one of her most recognisable songs).
I hate title translations... in both directions!!! I kept having trouble writing "Days of Glory" instead of "Indigènes", and when I read about a movie here, sometimes its title in French or Spanish has nothing to do with the original either! Very confusing...
Posted by: crazycris at February 28, 2007 12:44 AM
The movie is playing at Rendezvous with French Cinema as La Vie en Rose (tonight as a matter of fact) though they tend to include the foreign title:
http://www.filmlinc.com/wrt/onsale/rendezvous07/lavieenrose.html
This is the real teller in that the official site still says "La Vie En Rose" with no mention of "La Mome":
http://www.edithpiafmovie.com/
Americans won't know who "La Mome" is, which is why it's stuck as the French title. (It's the same case as Avenue Montaigne)
Posted by: EDouglas at February 28, 2007 04:42 AM
Isn't La Vie end Rose a Hollywood musical biopic, but in French? I don't think I've read one good word about it.
Dave, what about Venice? I believe The Queen launched there didn't it?
Posted by: KamikazeCamelV2.0 at February 28, 2007 05:40 AM
"Dave, what about Venice? I believe The Queen launched there didn't it?"
I'm not Dave but yes, The Queen did launch there as did Good Night and Good Luck the year before.
The funny thing is that this year's winner THe Departed completely avoided the festival circuit as have plenty of other winners...Braveheart, Lord of the Rings, A Beautiful Mind. It just goes to show if you're a big studio, you have more money to spend at getting your movie seen... the funny thing is that I don't remember seeing nearly as many Oscar push ads for Departed as the other movies, maybe because it wasn't as big a player at the GGs
Posted by: EDouglas at February 28, 2007 06:29 AM
The Queen launched in Venice. And the same goes to Brokeback Mountain, Good Night and Good Luck and Lost in Translation (Coppola's other two films launched at Cannes, but LiT was not ready in time).
BTW, this year was a very strong year for Cannes launched films with 16 nods and 5 wins between Babel, Pan's, Marie Antoniette, Volver and Indigines (2005 had just History of violence two nods and 2004 had 4 between Motorcycle Diaries, Fahrenheit 9/11 and Shrek 2).
Posted by: Filipe at February 28, 2007 06:45 AM
"The funny thing is that this year's winner THe Departed completely avoided the festival circuit as have plenty of other winners...Braveheart, Lord of the Rings, A Beautiful Mind. It just goes to show if you're a big studio, you have more money to spend at getting your movie seen... the funny thing is that I don't remember seeing nearly as many Oscar push ads for Departed as the other movies, maybe because it wasn't as big a player at the GGs"
Their non-campaign WAS their campaign. I am not sure they knew what they had. I knew what they had but when I saw the screening on the lot I ended up in an elevator with one of the WB publicists and I said, "wow, I just saw Departed - that is the best film of the year," or something like that. And she said, "well, you should see Blood Diamond; that's the one we're hearing a lot about." LOL. They had to keep quiet because of Scorsese. They knew the movie would sell itself because it was that good. But I bet they didn't think it had that much awards potential. They really launched Blood Diamond in a much bigger way - they undersold all of their actors big time; that was their only really big mistake.
The Departed and Flags and big studio movies like that really don't need, nor do they have any place, on the festival circuit - why would they?
Posted by: bipedalist at February 28, 2007 10:27 AM
Since this comes from some of the comments I made, let's clarify...
13 award winning films from Cannes, Toronto and Venice in how many years? Since I was going back 28 years for my research, and there is at least 25 movies nominated for Oscars every years, 13 of out approximately 600 plus nominated films is indeed quite negligible to be considered any kind of factor.
Posted by: Edward Havens at February 28, 2007 10:36 AM
I have a feeling WB were pushing Blood Diamond more because I expect they invested more money into it while movies like The Departed and Letters probably had financing from other sources as well. (As would be expected when you have Scorsese and Eastwood directing)
Posted by: EDouglas at February 28, 2007 10:50 AM
An odd renaming: ages ago, Diane Kurys' "Coup de foudre" (Love at first sight) was retitled a different french title for the us: "Entre nous" (Between Us).
Posted by: prideray at February 28, 2007 11:16 AM
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