2012 VeniceFilm Festival Winners

bizarre
Assistant
Posts: 566
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:35 am

Re: 2012 VeniceFilm Festival Winners

Post by bizarre »

ITALIANO wrote:
bizarre wrote:
ITALIANO wrote:I repeat: only the movie winning the Golden Lion can't win any other award. The Master won two awards, simply because neither was the Golden Lion.
Yes, but a movie may only win more than one award if one of those awards is a Volpi Cup or the Marcello Mastroianni award.

Bizarre, can you count? It's still more than one award. And it's not like there are that many other awards...
Ugh, you're insufferable.
ITALIANO
Emeritus
Posts: 4076
Joined: Mon Jan 06, 2003 1:58 pm
Location: MILAN

Re: 2012 VeniceFilm Festival Winners

Post by ITALIANO »

Big Magilla wrote: Less clear is why the jury then decided to take the top prize away from Anderson's film, and hand it to their second favorite, Kim Ki-duk's "Pieta," instead.,

Exactly. And it's "less clear" because it's absurd. They could have simply given the Golden Lion to The Master if they really thought it was the best movie - just like Amour won only the Golden Palm at Cannes. Why should they give it the runner-up award if they loved it so much? Let's face it: it doesn't make sense. But if you want to believe it...
Big Magilla
Site Admin
Posts: 19318
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:22 pm
Location: Jersey Shore

Re: 2012 VeniceFilm Festival Winners

Post by Big Magilla »

From the New York Times:

Fittingly for a festival where about half the titles in the official competition had religious themes, the 69th Venice Film Festival awarded its top prize, the Golden Lion, to “Pieta,” a mother-and-son drama with a sadistic streak from the prolific Korean director Kim Ki-duk. The film sharply divided critics — as do most of Mr. Kim’s confrontational movies — but it was deemed the best of the 18 competitors by a jury led by the filmmaker Michael Mann. Other members of the jury included the actress Samantha Morton, the filmmakers Matteo Garrone and Pablo Trapero and the artist Marina Abramovic.

There was some confusion at the awards ceremony Saturday evening, at which the special jury prize and the Silver Lion for best director were apparently presented in the wrong order — and to the wrong people. A festival press release confirmed that the best director prize went to Paul Thomas Anderson for his hotly anticipated new film, “The Master.” The film’s leads, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix, shared the best actor prize. (Mr. Seymour Hoffman accepted both awards, his collaborators having already made their way to Toronto, the next stop on the festival circuit.)

“The Master” was the only American winner this year, despite a competition stacked with American names; Terrence Malick, Brian DePalma, Harmony Korine and Ramin Bahrani were all shut out. According to a report in The Hollywood Reporter, “The Master” would have won the Golden Lion but for a rule that prohibits any title from winning more than two major awards, requiring the jury to deliberate a second time.

From In Contention's London based Guy Lodge who was there:

VENICE -- Sorry for the delay there. The wi-fi in the press room went haywire, so I had to bolt the second the Golden Lion was announced and cycle furiously back to my apartment to get online again, like a lanyard-wearing Nancy Drew.

Clearly, however, technical difficulties weren't just limited to the press room, as all manner of crossed signals and mixed messages made for the most confusing festival awards ceremony I've ever seen -- and that was before word leaked of an abrupt switch, forced by festival brass, in the jury's choice for the top prize.

After jury president Michael Mann announced at the start of the ceremony that no film could be given more than one award, two films were given a pair of statues. Minutes later, two winners were handed the wrong trophies, and were called back onto stage to exchange awards. And finally, it has emerged that film the jury deemed overwhelmingly the best in show hasn't won the award for, well, best in show. Confused? So are we -- and you didn't have to watch this all play out in Italian.

Here's how it apparently played out, according to The Hollywood Reporter: the jury was so dazzled by Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master" that they voted to hand not only the Golden Lion for Best Film, but the Silver Lion for Best Director too, with a joint Best Actor prize for Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix to boot. That's how much they liked it.

Such a sweep of the top categories may be commonplace at the Oscars, but it's very rare indeed in the festival world -- it happened at Cannes with "Barton Fink" in 1991 (though rules have since been changed to prevent another such occurrence), but it's unprecedented at Venice. The Silver Lion may technically be termed a directing prize, but in festival circles, it's regarded as a runner-up to the Golden Lion -- a silver medal, as befits its name.

Festival organizers thought the trio of awards was overkill -- redundant, even -- and instructed the jury to reallocate one of the prizes. That's understandable enough. Less clear is why the jury then decided to take the top prize away from Anderson's film, and hand it to their second favorite, Kim Ki-duk's "Pieta," instead.
(I'll have some more thoughts on that when I finally see "Pieta" tonight; schedule clashes conspired to make me miss its initial screenings.) It makes some sense of Mann's initially cryptic speech at the beginning of the ceremony, in which he stated that the jury paid particular attention to the wording of the award titles, and implied that certain awards should be regarded as equal.

(The trophy switcheroo, incidentally, didn't concern "Pieta." Rather, the confusion was between the absent Anderson's Silver Lion, accepted on his behalf by Philip Seymour Hoffman, and "Paradise: Faith" director Ulrich Seidl's Special Jury Prize, which effectively amounts to the bronze medal, in this scenario.)

So, it would appear a combination of festival politics and eccentric logic has cost "The Master" a major coup, though it hardly seems fair to Kim Ki-duk either: nobody likes winning on a technicality. It's fortunate, at least, that this whole fiasco revolves around a director as indifferent to the whole process as Anderson: if the man gave one shit about what awards he gets given, he'd have been at the ceremony. And even ignoring all the smoke and mirrors, it's still nice to see "The Master" -- for my money, the best film at Venice by some distance -- recognized in any capacity. (In the long list of preliminary honors from alternative juries announced before the ceremony, it also won the most prestigious one: the FIPRESCI Critics' Award.)

I'm particularly thrilled that both its leads shared the Best Actor award: going into the ceremony, all the buzz had been about Phoenix, but the superb Hoffman deserves just as much credit as his co-star -- if not a teeny bit more. (Phoenix, like Anderson, was not in attendance -- both men being unable to travel back to Venice in time after the film's Toronto premiere on Friday. This again left the charmingly rumpled Hoffman to accept for both of them, after his own rather hurried flight back. "I put this suit on in the bathroom, so don't judge," he quipped.) Both men, meanwhile, are firmly on course for Oscar nominations, though it remains to be seen how Hoffman will be categorized -- this joint award underlines my perception that the mean are co-leads, but campaign strategists probably won't see it that way,
ITALIANO
Emeritus
Posts: 4076
Joined: Mon Jan 06, 2003 1:58 pm
Location: MILAN

Re: 2012 VeniceFilm Festival Winners

Post by ITALIANO »

bizarre wrote:
ITALIANO wrote:I repeat: only the movie winning the Golden Lion can't win any other award. The Master won two awards, simply because neither was the Golden Lion.
Yes, but a movie may only win more than one award if one of those awards is a Volpi Cup or the Marcello Mastroianni award.

Bizarre, can you count? It's still more than one award. And it's not like there are that many other awards...
ITALIANO
Emeritus
Posts: 4076
Joined: Mon Jan 06, 2003 1:58 pm
Location: MILAN

Re: 2012 VeniceFilm Festival Winners

Post by ITALIANO »

OscarGuy wrote: They stoked a firestorm to bring more attention to the film.

This is very possible. And by the way I'm sure that The Master is a very good movie, and probably a movie I personally will like alot. It's also exactly the kind of movie which COULD have won the Golden Lion, and which could have profited from it, not in terms of box-office results of course but certainly in terms of prestige and future nominations. So here we have this (invented) story.

The rule may be wrong, I admit it. It's been adopted, of course, to avoid that a truly great movie wins every award in sight - so that any even slightly deserving movie will bring home SOMETHING, and nobody will complain too much. I dont know which festival chose it first, but in both cases it happened only a few years ago (Gus Van Saint's Elephant won both the Golden Palm and the Best Director prize, and Ang Lee's Lust, Caution won both the Golden Lion and a major technical award).
bizarre
Assistant
Posts: 566
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:35 am

Re: 2012 VeniceFilm Festival Winners

Post by bizarre »

ITALIANO wrote:I repeat: only the movie winning the Golden Lion can't win any other award. The Master won two awards, simply because neither was the Golden Lion.
Yes, but a movie may only win more than one award if one of those awards is a Volpi Cup or the Marcello Mastroianni award.
bizarre
Assistant
Posts: 566
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:35 am

Re: 2012 VeniceFilm Festival Winners

Post by bizarre »

OscarGuy wrote:Has Mann said specifically about trying to give The Master the award and then being told no?
He has made statements and so have the festival organisers.

I support spreading the wealth in festival awards, to be honest, especially when international distribution for most of the films that show at these kinds of events depend on their presence at the awards ceremonies. Snafus like this happen but they aren't common, and if a film is hogging all the prizes after jury deliberations it should send a message to the organisers that the competition lineup wasn't big or strong enough.
ITALIANO
Emeritus
Posts: 4076
Joined: Mon Jan 06, 2003 1:58 pm
Location: MILAN

Re: 2012 VeniceFilm Festival Winners

Post by ITALIANO »

Big Magilla wrote:That gives them even more reason to take away the Best Picture prize instead of the acting or directing prizes.

But why should they, if they think it's the Best Picture?! Any "best picture" is also very well directed and often very well acted - so that should always prevent it from getting the Golden Lion or the Golden Palm! No, seriously, this is getting pathological...
User avatar
OscarGuy
Site Admin
Posts: 13668
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 12:22 am
Location: Springfield, MO
Contact:

Re: 2012 VeniceFilm Festival Winners

Post by OscarGuy »

It doesn't really matter, it seems to be an asinine rule... Perhaps a better rule might be that the Golden Lion Award (or the Palme d'Or for that matter) be given equally to producer, director and performers. Perhaps then getting the Golden Lion would mean more. They stoked a firestorm to bring more attention to the film. I smell a Harvey Weinstein hand in this. It seems like something he would do. Plant a story with the newspapers. Has Mann said specifically about trying to give The Master the award and then being told no? I find it hard to believe that the Jury President and others on the Jury would be so ill-informed of the rules that they would mistakenly give a prize and then have to scale it back.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
Big Magilla
Site Admin
Posts: 19318
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:22 pm
Location: Jersey Shore

Re: 2012 VeniceFilm Festival Winners

Post by Big Magilla »

That gives them even more reason to take away the Best Picture prize instead of the acting or directing prizes.
ITALIANO
Emeritus
Posts: 4076
Joined: Mon Jan 06, 2003 1:58 pm
Location: MILAN

Re: 2012 VeniceFilm Festival Winners

Post by ITALIANO »

I repeat: only the movie winning the Golden Lion can't win any other award. The Master won two awards, simply because neither was the Golden Lion.
bizarre
Assistant
Posts: 566
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:35 am

Re: 2012 VeniceFilm Festival Winners

Post by bizarre »

"There will be no joint winners. Exceptions can be made for the two Coppa Volpi awards and the Marcello Mastroianni award. In addition, individual films may only receive one of the awards mentioned in the Regulations. However, in exceptional cases, and after consultation with the Festival Director, the Jury may bestow the Coppa Volpi and Marcello Mastroianni awards on actors or actresses featured in films which have won the Silver Lion, the Special Jury Prize or the awards for Best Technical Contribution and Best Screenplay."

It isn't directly stated, but no, a Golden Lion winner may not win another jury award.

I'm not sure when this was implemented because in 2010 The Last Circus won both Best Director and Best Screenplay.
bizarre
Assistant
Posts: 566
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:35 am

Re: 2012 VeniceFilm Festival Winners

Post by bizarre »

A film that wins the Golden Lion may not win any other award.

No film may win more than one award EXCEPT in the following scenario WHEN APPROVED by the festival director:
Special Jury Prize + acting prize
Best Director + acting prize
Screenplay + acting prize
Technical Prize + acting prize

Acting prizes may be shared by actors from the same film.
Big Magilla
Site Admin
Posts: 19318
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:22 pm
Location: Jersey Shore

Re: 2012 VeniceFilm Festival Winners

Post by Big Magilla »

I don't understand the last question.
ITALIANO
Emeritus
Posts: 4076
Joined: Mon Jan 06, 2003 1:58 pm
Location: MILAN

Re: 2012 VeniceFilm Festival Winners

Post by ITALIANO »

Big Magilla wrote: The Venice rule is that no film may recive more than one award NOT that teh film that is awarded Best Film can't win anything else like the new rule for Cannes.
.
Yes, Big Magilla, sure... Then how did The Master receive more than one award?!

Trust Italiano, who by the way knows one or two things about Venice, and not only about the city... The rules are the one I've written below in this thread. The American journalist was both a fan of The Master - which is acceptable - and misinforned - which is less acceptable.
Post Reply

Return to “2012”