Back in the 1960s, Anouk Aimee was one of the hottest starlets on the international movie scene. The great Federico Fellini, at the height of his renown and artistic prowess, cast her in two of his masterworks, La Dolce Vita (1960) and 8 1/2 (1963). Her career hit its zenith with 1966’s timeless love story, A Man and a Woman. The moving tale of a widow and widower who cautiously surrender their hearts to one another garnered Academy Awards for best foreign language picture and best original screenplay. In 1967 Aimee secured an Oscar nomination for best actress and won a Golden Globe for her performance.
Somebody should have warned the 68-year-old French legend that she was stepping into a situation as surreal as anything Fellini could dream up when she arrived at the Kravis Center to accept a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Fifth Annual Palm Beach International Film Festival.
As an elegantly attired crowd filed into Dreyfoos Concert Hall for the star-studded awards gala, a young woman’s piercing cry of “Tommy Lee!” (for Aimee’s fellow Lifetime Achievement Award winner Tommy Lee Jones) set the tone for the evening. The natives were restless, and they were here not to see some actress whose glory days were three decades behind her, but contemporary Hollywood stars like Jones and Samuel L. Jackson (the latter actor presenting the award to the former).
At 8 p.m. the house lights dimmed and out sauntered the evening’s master of ceremonies, WPEC-TV anchor Bob Nichols, who promptly informed the crowd that he had left the local broadcast TV station to work for cable’s Senior Living Channel. With all the sincerity of William Shatner shilling for that name-your-own-price Internet travel company, Nichols then introduced PBIFF director Burt Aaronson. The Palm Beach county commissioner and festival founder revealed that earlier that day he had named his first grandchild, and that he and his wife were also were celebrating their 51st wedding anniversary. I can’t speak for the rest of the crowd, but I know I was thrilled by these personal revelations.
Following a musical interlude from the Harid Philharmonia’s symphonic orchestra, Nichols turned over the stage to celebrity co-host Delta Burke, who headlines a PBIFF offering entitled Sordid Lives. I’m pleased to report that while no one would mistake her for Calista Flockhart, Delta has clearly shed most of the controversial poundage that made her a staple of supermarket tabloid cover stories a few years back.
“You look great!” shouted someone from the audience. Semi-svelta Delta beamed broadly.
Ms. Burke handed over the dais to producer Richard Zanuck (Jaws, Driving Miss Daisy), who would present the evening’s first Lifetime Achievement Award to director William Friedkin. Back in 1970, Zanuck, then a production chief at Fox, green-lighted Friedkin’s breakthrough film The French Connection.
Following a glowing introduction, the director took the stage to accept the award. Immaculately groomed and resplendent in a black pinstripe suit, Friedkin looked more like an investment banker than the maverick director of two of the landmark films of the 1970s — The Exorcist and The French Connection. Maybe his marriage to Paramount Pictures Chairmwoman an Sherry Lansing had something to do with Friedkin’s corporate polish.
Certainly it hasn’t hurt his chances of finding work. Paramount bankrolled Friedkin’s latest effort, the military thriller Rules of Engagement. Although the film isn’t playing the Palm Beach festival, its presence could not be missed at the awards gala: Zanuck produced; Friedkin directed; Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson star. What a nifty coincidence (wink, wink) that both Friedkin and Jones won awards, and that Zanuck and Jackson showed up to present them!
After graciously saluting the Palm Beach fete and praising his fellow award recipients, Friedkin allowed as how he had mixed emotions about accepting a lifetime achievement accolade — an honor customarily bestowed at the end of a career, which the director clearly hopes he has not yet reached. “It’s difficult to accept because you always want to think that your best work is ahead of you,” said Friedkin. “I’d like to believe that. Perhaps in 25 years you’ll consider me again.”
With that jest Friedkin raised an important issue. His career has seen better days, but it is probably far from over. Meanwhile, few would argue that Tommy Lee Jones is at (or near) the top of his game. Lifetime achievement awards seem extremely premature for both men; only Anouk Aimee really deserved the distinction. But her presence was so overshadowed by that of her big-shot co-honorees that congratulatory letters from Vice President Al Gore and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush didn’t even mention her.
Aimee indirectly addressed the Hollywood chauvinism in her acceptance speech, which followed a whimsical intro from quintessentially French-looking (i.e., disdainful) compatriot Elie Chouraqui (Man on Fire). “Try to see a little more European film,” she urged. “Film is one thing, no matter what language it is. Try to read [subtitles]. Because I think we need each other.”
The audience applauded politely. But they roared when Jackson took the stage to introduce Jones. Both men radiate intensity and raw star power.
Reflecting upon his own career, Tommy Lee imparted some wisdom accumulated over the course of three decades in showbiz: “I have learned how to walk into a room and hit a mark on the floor without looking down at it. If I know what size lens is on a motion picture camera I can tell what size the frame is by looking at how far away from that lens I stand. I can memorize a page of motion picture script in a minute. These are important survival skills. But the most important lesson in filmmaking comes when you understand that our work is far more important than we are. The most ineluctable lesson here is that one’s self is most certainly not the center of the universe. The work we do is more important.”
Important enough for a lifetime achievement award, some day.
