In Competition No. 2534 you were invited to submit an extract from a speech given by the presenter of a Lifetime Achievement award at the Oscars in which the discerning listener can detect that the speaker is not as ‘delighted’ for the recipient as they purport to be.
The film industry is clearly a cut-throat business and it is safe to assume that beneath the veneer of back-slapping and mutual congratulation at awards ceremonies runs an undercurrent of bitter rivalry. We can only imagine the outrage and vitriol that lurks behind the rictus smiles and brave applause of the losers. Hats off, then, to Bill Murray who, at the 2004 Oscars, turned his back on this collective hypocrisy and sat stony-faced, resolutely refusing to clap as fellow nominee Sean Penn collected his award.
I was looking for speeches filled with the double-edged and back-handed in which insults masquerade as compliments. A commendation to Alan Millard, but Adrian Fry nailed it nicely and nets the bonus fiver. His fellow winners, who can only grit their teeth and smile, get £25 apiece.
In an age when cinema can seem merely entertaining, Ken Loach demonstrates that it can be something quite other. Valiantly ignoring the cinéaste dogma ‘show, not tell’, Loach remains unafraid to tell, tell and tell again. Whether searingly indicting secondary modern education in Kes, the Spanish Civil War in Land and Freedom or the subcontracting arrangements of trackside railway workers in The Navigators, his gift is not merely to chronicle the despair underpinning late capitalism, but to enable audiences actually to experience it. His is a cinema in which substance has triumphed over style, and it’s this substance that has held film-makers and critics in thrall for almost half a century. Loach believes passionately that cinema can change the world; its failure to change only compelling him to redouble his efforts. Maybe this award will finally precipitate that change, cementing his place at the end of an illustrious career.
Adrian Fry
I’ve been in the business as long as he has and I can tell you this: it doesn’t happen to everyone. No, sir. Some of us are given to joking we’ll get ours posthumously. But a lifetime’s achievement Oscar means what it says. You didn’t just get lucky once or twice with a mega-hit that everybody loved. I’m sure my old friend here will tell you himself there were times he went straight to video. But hey — who’s counting? And what, in the great scheme of things, is a mere headliner’s popularity? No, this award means more than that. It means you served the industry and made the pictures and didn’t pay too much heed to what the critics said about your career choices and your performances and your personal life and tastes. And that takes a special kind of integrity. Or whatever you want to call it.
Basil Ransome-Davies
You know, I remember when Hank first burst on the scene. Some of us old hands thought we knew a bit about movie-making, but here was this new kid on the block who seemed to know everything. Matter of fact, still does, ha, ha, ha. But you know, I’ll say this for Hank, he has never sought to flaunt it. Not for him the quirkiness of a Coen, the breathlessness of a Hitchcock, the harsh discipline of a Kubrick, the imaginative flair of a Spielberg. No, Hank makes movies in the best American tradition — of the people, by the people, for the people, those jes’ plain folks who like their movies with popcorn and not too many surprises. And it is this quality of ordinariness that Hank embodies that has brought him this little statuette that I now have to … to hand … to hand over to him.
Noel Petty
It’s an honour and a privilege to present this award to an actress who has been around since the silent days — not, of course, that she was working in movies then, for heaven’s sake, she’s not that old — a true legend in her lifetime. She was a big, big star — big as Brando, much bigger than Elizabeth Taylor — but above all she was versatile. Marketing her own diet plan and beauty soap, opening supermarkets, playing character parts as her looks matured in such ground-breaking films as Swamp Incest and Alabama Paranoia — she took an unaffected delight in all these, without a trace of star ego. But most of all, she is remembered for her roles in the Forties, playing the femme fatale, cruel, greedy, treacherous, using her sexuality to trap and exploit men. In them, she seemed to bring a new dimension of realism to screen acting.
G.M. Davis
I was just a kid when Rocky became an instant box-office success and the simple recipe, repeated incessantly, inspired my troubled adolescent years in countless sequels. We have come a long way in the 40 years since then, but while most of us diversified, one man pursued his dream and Rocky continues to triumph against the odds. When I took my grandson to Rocky Fifteen, I was convinced that would be the swan song of this scriptwriter/director and actor. Yet here I am today, presenting this lifetime achievement award to the creator of Rocky Twenty-One! With undiminished fervour, his screenplay presents boxing for geriatric cases, exploiting the physiotherapy units of old folks’ homes. How many despairing and neglected street kids have been inspired by Rocky’s message: ‘If you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth’! Well, sir, you are worth this award. May Rocky never die!
Shirley Curran
And now to a very special moment in the ceremony and a very special person, someone who has been with us for longer than I care to recall. Wow. Not just a household name but a mansion of a name. Someone who has been described as more than just filling his roles, he overwhelms them. He does not act, he performs. He does not merely dumbfound, he also flabbergasts. But our flabbers, if I may say so, were duly ungasted when he was nominated for this award, not because we were surprised — we weren’t — but because here was someone who could not be safely ignored any longer. His achievement is epic — a word he has redefined in many a longer film — overflowing with charisma of the kind that gets you by the throat and shakes you to the core and shows you what sheer grit and guts can do.
Josh Ekroy
Competition No 2537: Just the job
You are invited to submit a poem entitled ‘The Song of a Chartered Accountant’ (16 lines maximum). You may substitute another profession should you wish. Entries to ‘Competition 2537’ by 20 March or email lucy@spectator.co.uk.
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