BAFTA bows to Hollywood
That summed up an evening when BAFTA paid homage to Hollywood, and Hollywood, for the most part, took notice. "Constant Gardener," although directed by a Brazilian, was the main British contender and led the nominations with 10, but took away a solitary prize for editing.
Even the two awards reserved for local talent went to movies from U.S. studios -- DreamWorks' "Wallace and Gromit" won best Brit film, and Joe Wright took the rookie kudos for U's "Pride & Prejudice."
"Constant Gardener" producer Simon Channing-Williams was heard to mutter that the BAFTAs should drop the B for British. Wright struck a defiant note by praising Working Title's commitment to Blighty, and berated the failure to nominate Keira Knightley.
Yet despite predictably chauvinistic media headlines about the washout of British hopes, it was hard to find anyone in the local film community who felt the Academy -- which gave four prizes to Brokeback Mountain" (including best pic and director Ang Lee) -- had got it badly wrong.
It seems odd that second place in the medal table, with three golds, went to "Memoirs of a Geisha." But it's hard to dispute any of its wins -- for cinematography, costume design and music. That vindicates BAFTA's switch to chapter voting for the technical categories, proving the experts are capable of isolating the quality of the individual work from the overall merit of the movie.
On the whole, Hollywood did provide a strong turnout of talent and execs to accept benediction from BAFTA. George Clooney arrived as a four-time nominee and left as a four-time loser, but was showered with so much praise from the podium that he should have felt like a winner.
Perhaps the clue to why this year's ceremony felt so American lies in the speech given by David Puttnam, accepting the BAFTA fellowship. This is the man, remember, who brought his high-minded ideals to Columbia Pictures in the 1980s, and so aggravated half of Hollywood that he was run out of town on a rail. He returned to Blighty to restart his career as a producer, but retired eight years ago, disillusioned that it no longer seemed possible to make his kind of movies with a message.
Yet he acknowledged from the BAFTA stage that movies like "Good Night, and Good Luck," "Syriana" and "Brokeback Mountain" had proven him wrong.
In other words, the British film community wasn't really bowing down before Hollywood, but its own image of its ideal self. The winning movies represent the kind of classy, high-minded (and relatively low-budget) entertainment that Brits aspire to make, but too often fail to.
"The Constant Gardener" fits that bill too, of course. So why did Weisz lose? The simple answer is that she was in the wrong category.
The producers of the movie wanted her in the supporting actress race, where she probably would have won. But in the first round of polling, she was overwhelmingly chosen for best actress. BAFTA brass bowed to the popular voice and left her there. Clearly, though, that was before anyone had watched their screener of "Walk the Line." On such quirks are BAFTAs won or lost.
U.K. gets a Big Idea
Brits like to talk about their "special relationship" with America, but they suffer from a sneaking suspicion that the feeling isn't entirely mutual.
So it is with the British film industry, which prides itself in being Hollywood's most important foreign partner, but worries that it's merely subservient.
With plenty of high-profile Yanks in town for the BAFTAs, the U.K. Film Council seized the opportunity to organize a summit, titled the Big Idea, between 15 invited visitors and a carefully selected squad of 45 home players.
Over a day and a half, the likes of Paul Haggis, Bob Yari, Alfonso Cuaron, James Schamus, Ken Kamins, Toby Emmerich and Nina Jacobson debated with Paul Abbott, Anthony Minghella, Gurinder Chadha, Stephen Daldry, Anand Tucker, Iain Softley and a gaggle of Brit producers. Variety editor-in-chief Peter Bart gave a lunchtime speech.
"We were trying to shrink the geographical gap between Los Angeles and London," says Stewart Till, who straddles both worlds as chairman of the U.K. Film Council and chairman/CEO of UIP.
"The primary purpose was to get the two worlds together. From the British point of view, it was to get information about how these top people from Hollywood work, and also to get a sense of the American business culture."
Cuaron, a Mexican who has juggled his career as dextrously as anyone between local and studio movies, warned that Brits should not focus on pitching "big ideas" to Hollywood, but should have confidence in their own culture. He suggested that with the rise of local cinema around the world, Hollywood should be coming to those outside the U.S. for advice and inspiration. That message was seconded by several U.S. execs.
According to Till, the purpose of the event was not to teach the Brits how to make Hollywood movies, but to encourage them to apply the can-do spirit of the Americans to their own labors at home. "We keep saying the glass is half empty and they say it's half full, when it's exactly the same glass," he observes.
