Did it still deserve the name “ceremony”? Without red carpet, nor television broadcast, without star, the evening of the Golden Globes, ultra-publicized cinema awards given by the association of the foreign press in the United States (HFPA), went well on Sunday night to Monday in Hollywood but had to be satisfied, for the announcement of the results, of simple tweets.
The Power of the Dog and West Side Story have won the main awards. Jane Campion’s dark western The Power of the Dog becomes the second female-directed film to win the Golden Globe for Best Dramatic Feature. He also won the awards for Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor for Kodi Smit-McPhee.
Le remake de Steven Spielberg West Side Story was awarded the Golden Globe for Best Comedy or Musical, with Rachel Zegler for Best Actress in a Comedy, and Ariana DeBose for Best Supporting Actress.
Will Smith and Nicole Kidman received the Globes for Outstanding Actor and Actress in a Drama Film for their roles in the Williams Method and Being the Ricardos.
Considered one of the big favorites, Belfast, inspired by the northern Irish childhood of Kenneth Branagh, leaves with only the prize for best screenplay. Andrew Garfield won the Globe for Best Actor in a Musical for his role in Tick, tick,… Boom !.
Succession, family drama about an aging newspaper mogul, produced by HBO, wins best drama series.
Incredible tumble
The NBC television channel had even given up broadcasting the ceremony, yet followed in recent years by millions of viewers, and the event did not take off on Twitter, where fans were more concerned about the death, announced in the evening , by American actor Bob Saget.
An incredible tumble, for an evening traditionally experienced as the kickoff of the award season across the Atlantic, which culminates with the awarding of the Oscars, and whose broadcasting rights on NBC were sold at around $ 60 million. But after the revelations of Los Angeles Times, in February, then from New York Times, on the corrupt practices of the association and on its composition (not one of its 87 members was black), the profession massively acted on the boycott, the agents of actors and press officers blocking access to their stable of proteges.
The association of the foreign press in the United States may well have recruited twenty new members and announced reforms, nothing helped, NBC announced that it would not broadcast the event. Scarlett Johansson and Mark Ruffalo have also stepped up the attacks, Tom Cruise returned his three statuettes in protest, and Warner, Netflix and Amazon Prime announced that they would no longer work with the HFPA.
It must be said that voters, whose names were not public, had until then seen themselves courted by studios and platforms hoping for a victory and a publicity stunt in the race for the Oscars, a sumptuary lobbying to which their personal or professional ethics do not ‘had obviously put the brakes on: invitation to travel or to luxury hotels, overpriced gifts, privileged access to the biggest stars, even though they were working for obscure cabbage leaves …
Generous expenses
Lobbying was all the more profitable for the studios since it was only a question here of wooing a relatively small group, for example with regard to the one formed by the voters of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who award the Oscars. (9,400, out of 10,300 members). Not that all the members of the HFPA had an immense need for it, the association generously providing expense reports, compensation and other attendance fees to committees whose number had multiplied in a maddening way in recent years, all this funded by the association’s generous cash flow (in 2019, it amounted to around $ 55 million).
It was expected that the HFPA would try to stand out with political choices, and announce new reforms. In fact, during the closed-door ceremony on Sunday, the HFPA tweeted pre-recorded videos of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis, praising the association’s work in community programming, but it’s not sure that’s enough. to save the 2023 edition.
The rage with which the world of cinema has turned against the HFPA is undoubtedly matched only by its enthusiasm to court it again yesterday, and one can imagine that, a few hours before the ceremony, the stars named were undoubtedly divided between the hope of a reward and that, perhaps even stronger, of leaving empty-handed, if we can say of a ceremony which no one will have attended, especially so as not to have nothing to say about it.
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