Kathryn Bigelow: Queen of the World  Take THAT James Cameron! (The cruelest thrust of all.) For the first time in years, I loved the Oscars this year. Not so much the format -- I can always take or leave the hosts and the glitter and the music and the big production numbers. It was the content of the program that moved me last night. I’ll start with the most important: I always get a lump in my throat when the time comes to remember the people who passed since the last awards ceremony, but this year was especially meaningful for me; remembering my dear friend, Simon Channing Williams, the British Producer (Mike Leigh’s longtime producer- the Oscar nominated Topsy - Turvy,and Secrets and Lies, also Vera Drake, Naked, and my favorite, the unheralded Life is Sweet; and with Fernando Meirrelles, the Oscar winning The Constant Gardner.) Simon believed so much in my High Cotton script that he attached himself as producer and took the screenplay to Cannes and tried so very hard to get it made in the 90’s. Then there was my friend, the wise and wonderful David Brown, the producer of Deep Impact (he was in his 80’s when I met him on that film) who tried to help me with another of my projects involving Morgan Freeman. Then there was my good friend Natasha Richardson, whom I loved like a sister. We spent 6 glorious weeks together in 1994 with Jody Foster and Michael Apted and her soon-to-be new husband, Liam Neeson, in the mountains of North Carolina working on the picture, Nell. Naatasha died in a tragic skiing accident last year. There were several others who died last year, with whom I also had had the great pleasure of working with or for, even if I didn’t get to know them as well as these.
I never got to work with Jeff Bridges either, but I have known him for quite a few years. I had the wonderful pleasure of working with his father, Lloyd twice and his brother Beau (twice as well) and had met Jeff several times-- the last time on the set of Seinfeld when he came to see his father’s last performance before his death in 1997.
Lloyd Bridges photographed by O'Neal Compton on the set of Seinfeld in 1997 (episode: "The English Patient")
I think Jeff’s performance in Crazy Heart as Bad Blake was great (although Rip Torn did it better in the Saul Zaentz-produced film, Payday thirty-five years ago--better performance, better film-- ignored by everybody) but Jeff's performance was certainly no better than my friend Morgan Freeman's was in Invictus. But the Academy, as it often does, had decided that Jeff’s body of work and his four previous nominations added up to Oscar Gold this time and he wasn’t going to be denied. Of course Morgan’s marital and family troubles at home in Mississippi took some of the “god” luster off of his image and that hurt him badly with the voters. No doubt about it. It’s too bad, too, because it has nothing to do with his performance as the great Nelson Mandela, which was spot on and one for the ages. Like his directing partner, who went unseen and unspoken of last night, the great Clint Eastwood, my friend Morgan has not lost a thing despite his seventy-something years. He’ll be back for his Best Actor Oscar before he quits working.
Of course the thrill of the night for me was the near shut out of the over-hyped Avatar from all except the technical categories, such that we didn’t have to listen to a word of bombast from that insufferable boor, James Cameron, the ex-husband of the gracious and talented Kathryn Bigelow, who made a small independent film, The Hurt Locker, which swept it’s way past the biggest box office draw of all time to half a dozen statues, including Best Director honors for Ms. Bigelow (the first woman so honored in the history of the Academy) and Best Picture. Gotta love it. |
