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The Parti Socialiste At Prayer
Someone (presumably long ago) said that the Church of England was "the Conservative Party at prayer." If that was ever so, it's fair to say that the Césars - the French equivalent of the Oscars ceremony - gathers the Parti Socialiste to prayer.
The annual ritual is the closest France's luvvies get to a cult gathering. Whether or not there's any magic left is debatable. Your correspondent has watched six ceremonies, and a familiar routine has emerged, as sacred to the left-leaning cultural elite as the stations of the cross are to any medieval pilgrim.
First and foremost, the top awards rarely go to any film that substantial numbers of people bother going to see. It's not that France has a shortage of popular films: Carry On-style comedies like Les Bronzées III regularly top the box office charts, while even serious home-grown fare like Les Indigenes can put 3.1 million bums on seats. While Les Indigenes was awarded for best original screenplay, the biggest gong, the "best film" award, went to a French adaptation of Lady Chatterly's Lover, which only 200,000 people have seen.
It's a familiar pattern.
There's always an international guest star, either up for an award or as a guest presenter. This year had two: Hillary Swank presented, while Brit Jude Law received an honorary César. Despite the fact that the event is always trumpeted as a celebration of French cinema, the camera team, who film the ceremony for broadcaster Canal Plus, know what the audience wants better than the judges: One cameraman spent the entire spectacle with his camera poked up Law's nose.
And don't you think the organisers could either find an American star who can say more than "Bonjour" to present an award - or failing that, one who could go to the trouble of learning a few phrases? Law, who spoke French, came across quite well; Swank seemed gormless.
Next, politics. Cabinet ministers know better than to attend César ceremonies: Few prizewinners can resist the opportunity to demonstrate their devotion to left-wing principles. The day's causes are duly recited on stage, in case anyone in the bien pensant, le Monde-reading audience had forgotten about them. A few years ago, the culture minister was haranged by one presenter for failing to increase arts funding. Others have had to sit through tiresomely predictable "stage invasions" by "Intermittents" - part-time arts workers who used to be able to claim the dole all-year-round, even if they only worked for a few months in the summer festival season.
Indeed, it's quite a navel-gazing ceremony. Not because French films dominate - there is nothing wrong with a celebration of national cinema. Instead, it's the nature of the films that win awards that makes the Césars seem so small-minded. All very much "auteur" films. And while there's a place for this, I hope, it gives an unrealistic picture of the French movie scene.
God forbid that the award should go to a film that people have been to see. The High Priests - the small group of French directors, film critics and miscellaneous cultural figures who make up the audience, staff and critics of these films are a self-serving bunch, determined that their amusement should be funded by the success of other, more popular films, which are taxed to support smaller movies. Indeed, the smaller the audience for a film, the more "successful" it is in the eyes of some critics: Too smart for the common herd, surviving only because of redistribution of wealth from big business. Unfortunately, there isn't the sense of awarding undiscovered gems or movies unfairly passed over by the box office and critical consensus.
Of course, preachy awards and preachier participants aren't unique to the Césars. Conservative America blew a gasket when Al Gore won an Oscar on Sunday, having just replaced the old one, which blew when Michael Moore won his.
Charles Bremner picks up on the ceremony in his blog in the Times:
"Even before she won the César at the ceremony in the Theâtre du Châtelet, (Lady Chatterly director Pascale Ferran) went on stage to denounce the failure of the subsidy system that is supposed to keep the French film industry healthy in the face of the Hollywood onslaught. The French industry is now divided into well-financed low-brow blockbusters and a ghetto of under-funded art films, she complained. "The present system is a betrayal of the heritage of the great French cinéastes," she said to applause."
(...)
"Le Monde weighed in this afternoon with a very French appeal to the candidates in the current presidential campaign. It urged them to "ensure that all films are born equal and with equal rights.""
