Quiet goes the Don
One of the great pleasures of hosting and organising the London Critics' Circle film awards last week was getting Donald Sutherland over from LA to present the Dilys Powell award to Nic Roeg. The Don't Look Now director had no idea his great friend was coming over, and was quite floored by Donald's surprise appearance right at the end of the ceremony. When I offered Donald the opportunity of presenting the award to Nic, he took about a minute to reorganise his shooting schedule on The Hunger Games in LA, flew in overnight, popped down to BFI Southbank for a tech rehearsal, went out for dinner, came back in and gave a gloriously colourful account of making love with Julie Christie while Nic Roeg sat on the bed and shouted: "Good, Donald… Slowly, Donald… Come, Donald", hugged Nic and nipped back to his hotel to prepare for a flight back the next morning. Cool just isn't the word.
With this Ring…
Feted for The Artist, director Michel Hazanavicius and actor Jean Dujardin were dream guests at the awards, staying until the very end and charming everyone. I asked Michel if he'd enjoyed the special world premiere clip of the restored version of Alfred Hitchcock's silent The Lodger, which we showed, accompanied by Stephen Horne on live piano, as part of the BFI's ongoing Rescue the Hitchcock 9 campaign, the Critics' Circle's charity of choice. "I'm a huge fan of Hitchcock's silent work," he said, "so it was a real treat to see it on such a beautiful screen. But my favourite silent of his is The Ring. I love that one and there are some shots in The Artist that I did, very quietly, that come from The Ring." Good news, Michel — the BFI's next Hitch movie to be rescued and restored is indeed The Ring, his 1927 film about a love rivalry between boxers. The funds have now come through and it should be ready in time for a big unveiling, alongside The Lodger and others, during this summer's Olympics, with a newly commissioned score. However, I'm told the campaign is still looking for funds to restore Hitchcock's 1928 film Champagne. I'd have thought that awards sponsors Moët & Chandon might funnel proceeds from their great Toast for a Cause initiative into saving this most appropriately titled work, no? You can help, too: www.bfi.org.uk/nationalarchive/hitchcock/
Smiley infiltrates the French
While The Artist and Iran's A Separation were dominating the critics' awards in London, the scantly rewarded Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (from six nominations, only Maria Djurkovic won, for her fabulous production design) was conducting classic counter-espionage with its own premiere in Paris the next night, ramping up its awards campaign following 11 Bafta nominations and hoping for inclusion when the Oscar nominations are unveiled on Tuesday. John Le Carré himself sent a coded message to premiere guests in the French capital: "Of course I am sorry not to be with you," he said, "but you are here to see the film, not the book. As I write this, the French Artist is about to do battle with the British Mole, not on the field of Agincourt or Hastings, but of Bafta, a better place altogether to settle our differences. In reality, of course, these two great films, like our two great countries, are separate works of creation that should never be compared. Better by far to admire one another's achievements. You offered us your Artist and we loved him. Tonight we offer you our Mole, and I can only hope you admire him half as much as I do."
