----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >At 10:44 AM 4/4/95 -0500, Ulf Dalquist wrote: >>----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >>William Brooks wrote: >>>As a followup on the question of racism at the Oscars and in Hollywood in >>>general, could someone in the know please tell me if the major European >>>film festivals - Cannes, Venice, Berlin, etc. are as Eurocentric in their >>>awarding of prizes as the Academy is in theirs? >>> >>Well, there's always a big fuzz about the festival in questin having >>'sold out' >>whenever an american film is being awarded. For some reason, the french >>critics >>seems to be the most aggressive. People were really upset last year in >>Cannes, >>when <sarcastic mode on> such american trash as Pulp Fiction defeated >>Kieslowski's Red <sarcastic mode off>. >>BTW, did you yankees know that parts of the european parlament, mainly the >>French part, again, is promoting a legal limit to the import of U.S. >>television >>programs. This is NOT a joke! >> >I'll add to this, and say that I was in France last year when Pulp Fiction >won the palme d'or, "over" the film version of "Germinal" by Emile Zola, >quite an expensive/expansive production with an all-star leading cast >including Gerard Depardieu, Miou-Miou and (Ah, what's that guy's name -- >the singer who played Lantier?). Anyway, the night it won, I happened to >catch television coverage on one of the main networks, during which three >prominent French critics proceeded to rant for hours about the upset. >Among other things, one of them said that Pulp Fiction had won because >Clint Eastwood was a member of the jury. >This is all just for informational sake. Moreover, there was a bad >atmosphere in France for Pulp Fiction to have won, especially because >Jurassic park had recently left Germinal in the dust regarding box office >take-in. Both were released in France at the same time, and the latter was >the big French production of the year. ======================= Additions. 1) Eastwood was Jury President, not just member 2) No proof he influenced anyone unduly 3) At Cannes proper there was wide expectation that Pulp Fiction would get top prize 4) A small percentage of critics was annoyed, but no more than usual and less than in some years Edwin Jahiel,Cinema Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign "and there is throats to be cut, and works to be done" (Capt.Macmorris in Shakespeare's HENRY V, act III sc.II)