Venice gives Hollywood a perfect Oscar launch pad
By Mike Collett-White
VENICE (Reuters) – The Venice Film Festival is the perfect
launch pad for an Oscar bid. It gives directors and actors
art-house kudos and is the ideal place to promote a movie
outside the United States. No wonder Hollywood loves the Lido.
Once again, some of cinema’s biggest stars graced the red
carpet in Venice, putting the lagoon city almost on a par with
the world’s premier cinema competition in Cannes in terms of
glitz and glamour.
George Clooney, Russell Crowe, Renee Zellweger, Matt Damon
and Monica Bellucci sat through gruelling rounds of four-minute
interviews to get their soundbites out, and only a plane scare
kept Gwyneth Paltrow away.
“This is the first salvo for the Oscars,” said Screen
International film critic Lee Marshall.
“People are looking for good reviews and upbeat reaction to
their films, which helps in the slow build toward the Golden
Globes and then the Oscars,” he told Reuters on the Lido.
Berlin’s film festival, held in February, is too close to
the Academy Awards which take place in February or March, while
Cannes, held in May, is considered to be slightly too early.
According to Marshall, among the contenders for this year’s
big prizes at the Oscars are likely to be Ang Lee’s “Brokeback
Mountain” and George Clooney’s “Good Night. And Good Luck,”
both of which premiered in Venice.
Some directors also see Europe in general and Venice in
particular as the best place to launch smaller, independent
films that tend to be more thought-provoking and demanding than
classic blockbusters.
“We feel in many cases we’re going to get a better response
to some of our movies in Europe, or outside of the United
States, than in the United States,” said Oscar-winning director
Steven Soderbergh, who often collaborates with Clooney.
“That’s just a fact that’s been proven in some of the films
that we’ve made,” he told Reuters in an interview.
Soderbergh brought “Bubble” to Venice this year, a
minuscule-budget film using non-professional actors in a murder
story set in a grim mid-American town.
AUDIENCE DIFFERENCES
Asked to explain the difference between American and
European audiences, he said:
“They (Europeans) are much more likely to change the shape
of their thinking to fit the art they’re watching instead of
trying to cut the art down to fit the shape of their thinking.”
Two other independent U.S. productions were in competition,
both with serious themes.
“Brokeback” stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger as young
cowboys who fall in love in the 1960s, while “Good Night” is
Clooney’s tale of broadcasting courage during the McCarthy-era
witch hunts of the 1950s.
In all, festival director Marco Muller attracted an
impressive nine U.S. premieres to his festival this year, in
and out of competition.
“I can give you a long list of examples of the role Venice
can play in enhancing the visibility of directors and
confirming their importance,” he told Reuters.
Commercial interests are as important as artistic ones,
however, and with box office returns outside the United States
becoming increasingly important to Hollywood films, Venice is a
convenient venue to showcase them, experts say.
“International box office really used to be the icing on
the cake. Now it is often the cake itself,” said Marshall.
Terry Gilliam’s “The Brothers Grimm,” starring Matt Damon
and Ledger and costing an estimated $90 million to produce, was
included in competition this year after it was critically
slated in the United States.
Ron Howard’s “Cinderella Man,” which disappointed in U.S.
theatres, got vital European exposure by being shown
out-of-competition on the Lido.
“America wasn’t as good as it was hoped, but the focus of
this country is a little inexact at the moment,” was Crowe’s
explanation for the film’s poor U.S. performance.
The luck of timing plays an important part in who turns up
at which festival, but Venice is considered more relaxed than
Cannes, which is also a huge market for films, and has the
romantic lure of the city to attract A-listers to its shores.