New Oscar Honoree Godard Missing … and Cranky

The new honorary Oscar winner isn’t easy to reach, and doesn’t care much for Hollywood

This could be fun.

The Academy has voted an honorary Oscar to Jean-Luc Godard, an eminence grise of European cinema who was one of the leaders of the French New Wave, and who today “has continued to write and direct challenging, and sometimes controversial films that have established his reputation as one of the seminal modernists in the history of cinema,” said the Academy in a statement.

But will he accept the honor? Will he show up? Who will they get to present it to him?

Godard missing posterAnd, for that matter, does he even know about it yet?

The Academy, which had originally planned to release the names of the honorary recipients immediately after Tuesday night’s Board of Governors meeting – besides Godard, the other honorees were director/producer Francis Ford Coppola, actor Eli Wallach and historian/preservationist Kevin Brownlow – put off the announcement until Wednesday morning so they had time to notify all the recipients.

They got through to Coppola, Wallach and Brownlow – but as of Thursday, AMPAS executive director Bruce Davis told TheWrap they’d been unsuccessful at reaching the 79-year-old Godard, despite attempts by phone, email and fax, and a letter sent via Federal Express.

(Movieline created a “MISSING” poster to aid in the search, right.)

"Mr. Godard doesn’t make it easy for people to chat with him, either by phone or by any of the various written formats available," said Davis. "We’ve sent the good news toward Switzerland in a number of forms, but haven’t had a response yet."

When they do reach him, there’s certainly no guarantee the enigmatic filmmaker will agree to come to Los Angeles for the November 13 ceremony.

In 1995, when the New York Film Critics Circle voted him an honorary award, he declined the honor.

He has spoken disparagingly of Hollywood for decades, and is known to avoid long plane flights, partly because he’s not allowed to smoke.

Godard was scheduled to make an appearance at this year’s Cannes Film Festival on behalf of his new movie, “Film Socialisme,” but he was a no-show, issuing a cryptic statement that seemingly alluded to the dire economic situation in Greece:

“Due to problems the Greeks would be familiar with, I unfortunately cannot be at your disposal in Cannes. I’d walk to the ends of the earth for the festival. But alas I will not be taking a single step further. Sincerely, Jean-Luc Godard.”

But assuming that the Academy eventually gets word to Godard, and assuming that he decides to accept the award, and assuming that he even makes it to L.A. for the Governors Awards ceremony – if the stars align and all that happens, who are they going to get to present him with his Oscar?

How about Quentin Tarantino? The director is an avowed fan who named his production company, A Band Apart, after a Godard film; what’s more, he gave a wildly entertaining speech in honor of Roger Corman at the inaugural Governors Awards last November.

But Godard has been dismissive of Tarantino. “He says he admires me but that’s not true,” he told the Guardian in 2005. According to the interviewer, Godard then followed that statement with “a cryptic remark about the torture and humiliation of prisoners by U.S. guards in Iraq,” and then concluded, “What is never said about Tarantino is that those prisons are shown pictures of, where the torture is taking place, are called ‘reservoir dogs.’ I think the name is very appropriate.”

So maybe they should go for a bigger filmmaker … maybe an unassailable giant like Steven Spielberg?

Not so fast. “Spielberg wants to dominate the world,” Godard said in 1995, when for some reason he was incensed by the director’s Oscar-winning Holocaust movie, “Schindler’s List.” “Spielberg, like many others, wants to convince before he discusses. In that, there is something very totalitarian.”

And if the Academy counters with an openly political filmmaker who’s critical of the powers-that-be – say, new AMPAS governor Michael Moore – that won’t work either. Moore, he said after “Fahrenheit 9/11,” is “just a Hollywood reporter man” whose films aren’t good enough to make their political points.

Then again, Godard isn’t just dismissive of filmmakers – in his infrequent interviews, he scoffs at young actors (“they think they know what to do”), film technology (“with digital, there is no past”), ruling regimes in general (“it is the part of the rule to want the death of the exception”) and America in particular.

He did praise directors John Cassavetes and Elia Kazan (another honorary Oscar winner) in a lengthy article in the New Yorker in 2000, but precious little else won his approval.

And in the Guardian, he said the promise of the cinema has been squandered. “It’s over,” he said. “There was a time maybe when cinema could have improved society, but that time was missed.”

This kind of attitude could be disastrous if the Academy lets it be – but one of the good things about the selection of Godard is that it was made, said Davis, without any discussion of whether the filmmaker would accept the award, or show up at the ceremony.

So the thing to do is to let the Academy celebrate an opinionated, maddening, confounding, cranky old giant of the cinema, whether or not he shows up – to raise a toast to a guy who doesn’t want any toasts, and to do so with a wink and a sense of humor to go with the respect that they’re showing him.

And if they’re still having trouble getting through to the guy … well, that’s not surprising. In that New Yorker article, Godard was proud of his inaccessibility:

Godard works out of the basement of a modern low-rise residential building in Rolle, the town in Switzerland where he and his partner, Anne-Marie Mieville, have lived since 1978. Godard maintains that the town is outside one of the defining loops of modern life. “Here in Rolle,” he says, “you can’t get a package from Federal Express.”

I asked him why not.

“Because he comes by. I’m never in. He leaves word: ‘Call us.’ So, I don’t call.”

Yeah, this could be fun.

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