And Martin Scorsese sent in a video, showing that work on “Killers of the Flower Moon” is giving him baggage under his eyes. (The man looks tired, but editing proceeds.)
The New York Film Critics Dinner at Tao Restaurant last night was full of fun and surprises. Seth Meyers, a Colin Farrell fan, showed up to present Best Actor but Farrell was MIA. Stephen Colbert anointed Cate Blanchett Best Actress for “Tar,” which also won Best Feature. That prize was given by Scorsese on video, though he seemed like he might take a nap any minute during his speech.
Talking Heads’ David Byrne presented to Laura Poitras who won the Documentary prize for her “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.”
The highlights of the night included Blanchett and Banshees star Kerry Condon. Blanchett arrived late last night after flying in from the wilds of Australia. Jet lagged, the star of “Tar” gave a cutely loopy acceptance speech from a sheath of papers. She’s already on her way to L.A. for more awards shows, which means she’s just been flying around the world for two days. My gosh. Condon presented in absentia awards for Colin Farrell and “Banshees” director Martin McDonagh and was so charming half the room was swooning. With her Irish accent and red hair, when she pronounces the word film in two syllables, it sounds like music.
Other emotional speeches came from Best Supporting Actor Ke Huy Quan and Best Supporting Actress Keke Palmer. Quan joked that Palmer’s “Nope” director Jordan Peele, who was in the audience, may change his name to “Ke Ke Ke” because he likes the “Ke” sound (Keegan Michael Key was Palmer’s longtime comedy partner, Keke Palmer– get it?). Quan is part of the 90s nostalgia wave this Year (like Brendan Fraser) but he’s also the happiest man in Hollywood as a perpetual nominee from “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”
We also got to meet Danny Ramirez currently flying high in “Top Gun.” He told me he became addicted to the flying in Air Force jets. He’s ready for the “Maverick” sequel. Ramirez next stars as the Falcon to Anthony Mackie’s Captain America” In the next chapter of that Marvel series.
Scorsese, by the way, could not wax more poetic about “Tar.” His abridged comments follow but they don’t include the moment when he looked into the camera and said of Blanchett’s amazing performance, “Cate, I don’t even know what you’re doing there. It feel like the beginning of a new career.” Or something like that. And don;t forget, Scorsese directed Blanchett to an Oscar in “The Aviator.”
Scorsese:
For so long now, so many of us see films that pretty much let us know where they’re going. I mean, they take us by the hand, and even if it’s disturbing at times, sort of comfort us along the way that it will be all okay by the end. Now this is insidious, as one can get lulled into this, and ultimately get used to it.
Leading those of us who’ve experienced cinema in the past — as much more than that— to become despairing of the future of the art form, especially for younger generations. But that’s on dark days. The clouds lifted when I experienced Todd’s film, TÁR.
What you’ve done, Todd –– is that the very fabric of the movie you created doesn’t allow this. All the aspects of cinema and the film that you’ve used, attest to this. The shift in locations for example, the shift in locations alone do what cinema does best, which is to reduce space and time to what they are, which is nothing.
You make it so that we exist in her head. We experience only through her perception. The world is her. Time, chronology and space, become the music that she lives by. And we don’t know where the film’s going. We just follow the character on her strange, upsetting road to her even stranger final destination.
Now, what you’ve done, Todd –– it’s a real high wire act, as all of this is conveyed through a Masterful Mise-en-scène, as controlled, precise, dangerous, precipitous angles, and edges geometrically kind of chiseled into a wonderful 2:3:5 aspect ratio of frame compositions. The limits of the frame itself, and the provocation of measured long takes all reflecting the brutal architecture of her soul — TÁR’s soul.
