Governors Awards Last Night: Gena Rowlands, Spike Lee, Debbie Reynolds

The Motion Picture Academy’s Governors Awards happened last night, honoring Spike Lee and Gena Rowlands with Honorary Oscars, and Debbie Reynolds (who was too ill to attend) with the Humanitarian Award. Cheryl Boone Isaacs, President of the Academy, started off the night with a speech in tribute of France, and the lives lost in the terror attacks:

“I do feel it’s important to mention yesterday’s horrifying attacks in Paris and to say that all of us here stand in solidarity and support our friends and the French people…Our connection with the film-loving French is especially deep with waves of influence going back and forth across the Atlantic ever since the Lumiere Brothers made the first motion picture. We also mourn those who died. We send our deepest affections.”

So far, this is the only report I’ve seen from the Awards ceremony itself, which gives a nice feel for the evening, the speeches, the tributes, and some good quotes. (I had asked the Oscar people if I could attend and they basically laughed in my face. If you can imagine them laughing nicely, then that was the feeling of the interaction. One of the associate producers said, “They won’t let me go either. I’m totally bummed.” I offered to wash dishes. More laughter.)

The whole thing (including the tribute reel for Rowlands, with script by yours truly, read by Angelina Jolie) will end up on Youtube, so I’ll share those clips when they’re available. It is nice to hear the reel was called out specifically in the Deadline piece as “breathtaking.” I saw the rough cut and it was breathtaking then, even though incomplete at the time (and with someone else reading my narration, not Angelina). I feel so pleased and humble and grateful that I was a small part of that celebration.

Congratulations to all of the worthy honorees. Giants of the industry.

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15 Responses to Governors Awards Last Night: Gena Rowlands, Spike Lee, Debbie Reynolds

  1. Todd Restler says:

    Congratulations Sheila this is such a wonderful achievement. It must be pretty thrilling to be involved in honoring a legend that you clearly revere. And to have Anjelina Jolie read it! No pressure on you I’m sure!

    Wash dishes lol. Yes your treatment honors a long tradition of Hollywood devaluing the writer. (Unlike theater where if I am not mistaken literally not a word can change without writer approval, such a weird difference).

    Did you have any say in the clips that were used? And how long is it? I can’t wait to see it, especially since I know it will motivate me to seek out more Gena Rowlands movies. Enjoy this achievement!

    • sheila says:

      Todd – ha. Yeah, a lot of people on FB were making jokes about Hollywood’s treatment of writers. Ha!! It was all good though – I felt I HAD to ask if I could go, because what if they had said “Sure!” It was 50/50 right, it could have gone either way – so I took my shot. My sister joked that I could stand outside the closed door of the hall, and press a glass to the door so I could hear. “Oh, don’t mind me …”

      One of the factors in writing this thing was definitely that I wanted to give Angelina Jolie something beautiful to read. I mean, I really thought about that! I think the video is about 5 or 6 minutes long. I had no say on the clips – they used many of the same clips as were in the Criterion video-essay (the Criterion Collection has a close relationship with the Academy – and since they have such a huge archive of clips – they often provide stuff for reels like this). But the other stuff they found – interview footage with Rowlands – or with Cassavetes – so their voices were woven through and around my narration – and it was just beautifully done the way they put it together. So I would say something like, “They helped create blah blah blah” – and then there would be a clip of Cassavetes elaborating on that thought. So it really FLOWED. I’m sure the final cut will flow even more – there were still some place-markers when I saw the rough cut – and I did a couple of further edits with other things I thought were important – but there may not have been time for all of that. It had to be a strong and ringing summing-up of a 6-decade career in 5 minutes – so it was no small challenge!

      Oh – and have no idea if they used the same music for the final cut – but the music I saw in the rough cut gave me goosebumps. Pure emotion. I mean, we’ve seen these reels before, right, with other Honorary Oscar people – and they’re always amazing. (James Earl Jones read the narration for the Angela Lansbury award – it’s gorgeous) – so hopefully they used the same music.

      But again, these people (the Oscar producers I worked with) are such pros – that anything they create is gorgeous and perfect.

      So yeah, I’m excited to see it!! Thanks, Todd!

  2. Helena says:

    You got your shot!

    ‘Breathtaking’ – ha, of course it was.

    Can’t wait for you to share those clips.

    (I’ve just watched Opening Night – BFI player is now streaming Cassavetes films, so my chance to catch up on a bunch of GR films. Just wow.)

    • sheila says:

      Oh my gosh – Opening Night. Right??? Isn’t that film incredible? And spooky? And hilarious?

      I love that movie so much I don’t even know if I can talk about it. It’s not usually mentioned in any “Best Cassavetes” list – but it’s one of my favorites. Especially for all that meta stuff – and Joan Blondell!!!

      • Helena says:

        Still processing! I had to watch it in two goes – it just got too intense for me at the point where they go to the playwright’s spiritualist(Joan Blondell – ohmygod, that character, that hat, those eyelashes, those earrings) – I needed a break.

        Yes, it is so spooky – it’s like watching a psychological horror film, or a war film – it’s like a battle is going on there, like Myrtle is fighting throughout for her soul and noone else can see it. At one point I thought, this is like Macbeth!

        I’m not a theatre person, front or back stage, but I loved the backstage view, how everyone has a role and there’s definitely a hierarchy but also that often the most ‘lowly’ people can also be the most human and vital – the dresser who is always there and just holds Myrtle, the guy who walks Myrtle to the wings and tells her she’s the best drunk actor he’s ever seen. The people – director, producer, playwright – who have an immense stake in the play and try to control it all until the point where they have to relinquish everything and leave it up to the actors onstage. The director’s wife who is just enraptured by the opening night performance. And the film seems to go just on and on – I kept thinking – where is this going, how is this going to end? From minute to minute I just had no idea how things would develop, and that was disorientating and wonderful.

        • sheila says:

          I saw it in college, when I was a theatre major, and it felt like a documentary. Like, that is often what rehearsing a play is like. Things get insane. (I was in a production of The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds – by Paul Zindel – and the actress playing the mother – who is a vicious soul-destroying witch to her children – REFUSED to play the part as written. She literally could not get her head around the thought that some mothers are monsters who cannot bear that their children are happy, smart. And so she put this softness into it – that did not work – she resisted so much during one rehearsal that she ran offstage and threw up. This actress was also a mother – she had young kids at home – and she was just mis-cast, that’s all – but it was quite extraordinary. I was only 19 and I could so clearly see what was going on. She was up against something – something real and true – that she could not admit – or even acknowledge. I remember her saying to me, before a painful climactic scene where her character does something horrible to my character – evil, really – on purpose – and she said to me beforehand, “Deep down, though, she cares.” (talking about her own character.) I stared at her, and she reiterated, “A mother always cares.” I was like … Your character KILLS my pet rabbit because I love it, and I love it more than I love you, and you say you CARE? But she could not do it. She threw up backstage when she came close to actually doing it. And she was a talented actress in other things – but this role she refused to do, she could not do it, it stirred up so much angst/resistance in her. Reminds me a lot of Opening Night. Joanne Woodward played that part of the mother in the Gamma Rays movie and – needless to say – SHE was not afraid to play an evil crazy mother.)

          But then in my mid-20s I saw it again on the big screen at a Cassavetes retrospective in Chicago – and I honestly felt overwhelmed and claustrophobic by it. It was an extremely upsetting experience. I couldn’t even put my finger on it. Having watched it a couple times since – maybe 10, 15 times? – I’ve been able to relax enough to see/perceive a lot of different things. There’s actually funny moments too – but it honestly took me 15 years to be able to even SEE them. Such an intense film!!

          and yes – that whole backstage scene. Getting her hair spritzed, cigarette dangling – the prop guy – I love the guy shouting up the stairs “she’s here!” and all the other actors lolling about waiting for her to show up.

          And Zohra Lampert as the bored horny wife. Oh GOD. Crying and clapping at the end of the play. Ben Gazzara is so awesome, too. Gena is out of her mind. It’s hard to believe that she was not actually drunk during that last sequence, right?

          NOBODY plays drunk like Gena Rowlands.

          So excited you saw it!! So much to think about and discuss.

          • Helena says:

            Goodness, your story about the actress fighting against her role is amazing.

            Snd yes, so much in it!

          • sheila says:

            Isn’t that intense? She found the thought of a mother who hates her daughter so threatening that her psychology rose up in revolt. It was unbelievable to witness. It also made our production not a very good production … a huge disappointment since I had loved that play since middle school.

            But the whole thing was extremely Opening Night-ish.

          • Desirae says:

            Your story about being in Marigolds reminds me a lot of the one you’ve told here about the acting class with Ellen Burstyn, and the guy who freaked out and spit at her. Different outcome but the same root. I guess those shadow sides really do resist being shown.

          • sheila says:

            Desirae – yes, very similar moment! It happens a lot in acting classes – even actors, who seemingly revel in being revealed – have a hard time with this darker stuff.

  3. Jeff Gee says:

    Really, if The Academy doesn’t think the lifetime achievements are worth broadcasting, LET TCM SHOW THEM.

  4. sheila says:

    All clips up on Youtube now. Good enough for me.

  5. Jeff Gee says:

    I don’t wanna look at it on my crappy computer!! I want it on somebody’s flat screen TV, and I want to EAT CHIPS while I’m doing it.

    • sheila says:

      Ha!! I am with you on this. Believe me, I GET IT!! (Check out my newest post. I have some further thoughts on this thing not being broadcast.)

      I think it’s a travesty that it was moved to another night – but also in a way it’s good because the event has a looser feel, and the speeches can go much much longer. I hate how rushed the speeches are during the main broadcast. I’m not a big Oscar person (ironically) – I like it for it’s “celebrating one another” aspect – so the sight of actors/actresses racing through a laundry list of agents and managers … Bah.

      So here’s Gena last night – telling this LONG story about working with Bette Davis – and she’s not rushed, and she can take her time … and it’s just spontaneous and wonderful.

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