The IFP Spirit Awards, where members of the Independent Film Project (myself included) get to vote for their films deemed the best that premiered at film festivals, with some having a successful theatrical run and recognition by mainstream audience and film critics. The voting ends on Friday, February 17 and Awards night takes place on a beach in Malibu Saturday, February 25, the night before the Oscars will be given out at the Academy Awards.
So who’s up for the recognition? And who to vote for? I tried to see the films that premiered during last year’s film festivals, watched the screeners sent and screenings arranged by the IFP at the NYIT screening room in New York City. It’s a lot to consider and I try not to be swayed by an overload of PR media and opinions by persons who get swept away by a tsunami of Awards dumped on certain films influencing everyone else to go join the bandwagon and go along for the ride.
The Artist is one example and not uncommon when people universally want to be united on one front with one voice. Funny, it purports to be a silent film, yet it really is only a nod to the early days of Hollywood– it’s plot, music, camera style, exaggerated mime and the dog are simple and superficial, yet charming enough to overcome most film criticism. Film historian Richard Koszarski, noted that the cinematography did not come close to what was the film shooting protocol at the time and instead emulated films from the 1950s rather than the silent era.
David Nugent, Director of Programming for the Hamptons Film Festival, saw the The Artist at Cannes and brought it over to this past October’s film festival. After a DGA Theatre screening in November, 2011 and during a panel discussion hosted by Nugent, the filmmaker and actors were equally surprised and delighted by the attention the film was getting. At recent Awards events, the lead actor was showered with accolades that was almost embarrassing even for the actors themselves. The director, Michel Hazanavicius, acknowledged his love for early Hollywood films but as noted by film historian and silent film lovers, The Artist fancies itself akin to Citizen Kane and Sunset Boulevard rather than the silent films that were created in, around and beyond 1912 in Fort Lee, New Jersey, the birthplace of the motion picture industry.
A real silent film actor, John Barrymore, was honored on Wednesday, February 15 by a small group of silent film aficionados on a corner marked John Barrymore Way in Fort Lee. Tom Meyers, Executive Director of the Fort Lee Film Commission addressed the group gathered at an empty parking lot, the site of the Buckheister’s Hotel where in 1900, the then 18-year-old John Barrymore made his stage debut in a Fort Lee Fire House fundraiser directed by his father Maurice Barrymore in the play A Man of the World. From that time, Barrymore (grandfather to Drew Barrymore) delivered some of the most critically acclaimed performances in theater and film history and was widely regarded as the screen’s greatest performer during a movie career spanning 25 years as a leading man in more than 60 films (most early silent films are lost).
February 15 marks the 130th anniversary of John Barrymore’s birthday and as the early evening darkness sent the group into the restaurant for a toast, Tom read his supposed dying words and I quote “Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him.” Here, here, a toast to John Barrymore, silent film star extraordinaire.
02/16/2012
Film Review