The last weekend in February saw an event celebrating the art and spirit of the film industry. It was a smoothly run presentation and some of Holly-wood’s finest actors, directors, writers and producers were on hand (as usual) for the event.
Oh, yeah, and the 77th Annual Academy Awards Ceremony – the Oscars – was held as well.
The former event was the 20th annual Independent Spirit Awards held, as always, the afternoon before the Oscar ceremony. It is, how shall we say, a somewhat less formal – but no less formidable – event. Held under a huge tent, the ISA ceremony is far more relaxed than Oscar night. Dress is casual and cutaway shots of the attendees reveal the folks eating lunch, having a few laughs and a few drinks. Gasp! Adrien Brody is drinking a beer ... straight from the bottle!
But the honored films – and the people who worked on them – are among the finest of the year. So it has been for the past 20 years since an organization called The Independent Film Project organized the event to celebrate “independent” filmmaking. While this term can sometimes mean low-budget, keep in mind that many nominees at the Spirit Awards have also been Oscar contenders.
The first year’s winners included Martin Scorsese, the Coen Brothers, and Horton Foote and Geraldine Page for their work in “The Trip to Bountiful.” Over the years, many big-time Hollywood players – Robert Altman, Oliver Stone, Mike Leigh, Nia Vardalos (“My Big Fat Greek Wedding”) – have been nominated and honored.
Though most of the films are decidedly less expensive than your average Hollywood fare, the IFP press release states, “The Independent Spirit Awards is a celebration honoring films made by filmmakers who embody independence and who dare to challenge the status quo.”
This year’s big winner was the critically acclaimed “Sideways” (also popular at the box office), which took home awards for best feature, male lead, supporting male, supporting female, direction and screenplay. “Maria Full of Grace,” “The Motorcycle Diaries,” “Garden State” and the Metallica documentary “Some Kind of Monster” also were among the winners.
The ceremony itself, hosted by Samuel L. Jackson, was loose and a mere two hours. The down side was the utterly sappy pre-show and the parody songs sung about the five nominees for best film. Look out Independent Spirit Awards, you may catch whatever Oscar is infected with.
Then came Oscar night. The “night” was actually an all-day affair with coverage from E! Entertainment, various cable news networks, even Chicago’s WGN. Most unbearable was TV Guide Channel’s Joan and Melissa Rivers’ coverage. Retire, ladies – we’re begging you.
When host Chris Rock took the stage, things got off to a promising start. Rock raised the ire of the conservatives who can’t say “Hollywood” without adding “elite” with his skewering of George Bush (“If you had a job at The Gap and came up $70 trillion short, you WOULD lose your job ...”) and his statements about the war. But he didn’t spare Hollywood either. Admonishing the studios that there are only a few real “stars” he said, “Just wait! You want Tom Cruise but can only get Jude Law? Wait!”
The formula of the presentations was changed somewhat this year with many presenters and nominees lining up on side stages. It made things go somewhat faster. But to a snail, a turtle is a speed demon.
There weren’t too many surprises this year. They should have just handed the best actor statue to Jamie Foxx and moved on. He did give a nice speech, though.
As pointed out by the red state crowd, (elitist) Hollywood is out of touch since “The Passion of the Christ” was snubbed. It got a mere three nominations – cinematography, makeup and original score – and didn’t win any of the three. I honestly thought the Hollywood (elite) would throw the film some sort of bone but it wasn’t to be.
The big wild card was the competition between Martin Scorsese’s “The Aviator” and Clint Eastwood’s “Million Dollar Baby.”
In the end “Baby” was the millionaire, scoring best picture, director, actress and supporting actor. It was great to see Morgan Freeman finally being recognized for what a fine talent he is for his work in “Million Dollar Baby.”
“The Aviator” outscored “Million Dollar Baby” by one statue, but outside of Cate Blanchett winning best supporting actress, the other four were lower profile, though certainly important, awards: cinematography, editing, art direction and costume design.
Only in the screenplay categories did the more “independent” works come to the fore.
Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondry and Pierre Bismuth won for original screenplay with “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” and “Sideways” writers Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor won for adapted screenplay. Both are great pieces of writing and two of my top five films for 2004.
When awards time rolls around next year, keep in mind IFP’s Independent Spirit Awards and get a different view of the film industry.
The organization has a great Web site, www.ifp.org, which features a history of the group, information about joining, a list of resources and a comprehensive list of all past nominees and winners.
Jim Wunderle owns Wunderle Sound Services and is a Springfield freelance writer and musician.
