The 78th Golden Globes will be awarded on the night of Sunday to Monday during a virtual ceremony straddling Beverly Hills, California, and New York.
A first for the institution which is preparing the award season and paving the way for the Oscars.
From the pandemic to the scandals, all is not however for the best under the sunlights.
What to know before the ceremony.
The winners in their salons
Like the Emmy awards in September which rewarded the best television programs, the Golden Globes will have a hybrid format.
No red carpet or champagne this Sunday.
All the winners will be at a distance, at their American and European homes, but the two presenters of the evening Amy Poehler and Tina Fey will be on stage, surrounded by presenters such as Salma Hayek, Laura Dern or Angela Bassett.
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler Danny Moloshok / REUTERS
Small peculiarity, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler will not be side by side.
The first will animate in New York, the second in Los Angeles.
The ceremony that distinguishes the best of movies and series of the vintage 2020, will begin at 8 p.m. New York on NBC.
Or two in the morning at home on Canal +.
In the absence of stars to sit around the banquet tables, the Golden Globes, which are unlike the Oscars a gala where you eat and drink in normal times, will invite caregivers and essential workers, in particular volunteers working in food banks.
Under the sign of suspicion
The probity of the Golden Globes has been regularly questioned for years.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) which organizes it has 87 members who co-opt among themselves.
Entering the HFPA is not easy and an opaque process, you have to find two sponsors and admissions are tricky because this small group of journalists, often freelancers, based in California do not want to dilute their exorbitant influence. on the price season.
Pampered by the studios, the lucky ones have privileged access to the stars and to certain press trips.
This explains for many experts that the HFPA carries, each year, nominations which defy understanding and critical good sense.
Among the most gruesome 2021 nominations is Kate Hudson for
Music
, Sia's controversial and hated autism film.
The double nomination, on the serial side, of
Emily in Paris
raised eyebrows until we learned from a crisp investigation by the
Los Angeles Times
that about thirty members of the HFPA had been invited on the set comedy in Paris and very well housed and fed.
The newspaper revealed that the HFPA had no black members, that some very old were practically blind and deaf and that it paid some even though it was a non-profit structure.
Within the group, the atmosphere would be deleterious: several journalists who wanted to join the association gave up after facing slander and intimidation.
One of them even filed an antitrust complaint against the HFPA.
More than ever an oracle of the Oscars
Pre-Covid, the Golden Globes were held after nominations and during the Oscar voting process.
A victory and a nice speech at the Globes could attract welcome attention.
With the pandemic shaking up the usual schedule, the Golden Globes will take place even before the Oscar nominations process begins.
Sunday's winners will seem unavoidable: one can imagine that some of the 10,000 professionals of the seventh art who form the electorate of the Oscars are tempted to view in priority the films awarded by the small seraglio of the HFPA.
In the number of nominations, it is
David Fincher's
Mank
on the genesis of
Citizen Kane
who holds the rope with six citations.
But
Aaron Sorkin's
highly political
Chicago Seven,
which chronicles the White House's skewed and shackled trial of anti-Vietnam War activists, has come to the forefront to win the coveted trophy for best drama.
In ambush looms
Nomadland,
Chloe Zhao's hymn to the glory of modern hippies roaming the United States in their vans.
Florian Zeller's adaptation of his play The Father, with Anthony Hopkins as a demented old man, and the vengeful feminist thriller
Promising Young Woman
shouldn't be able to disrupt this face-to-face
.
Promising Young Woman, Mank and Nomadland are up for the coveted trophy for best drama Focus Features / Netflix / Searchlight
On the comedy side, because the Golden Globes separate and multiply the categories, the anti-Trump satire
Borat 2
with Sacha Baron Cohen in the role of the fictional Kazakh journalist starts with a head start but will have to be wary of the musical
Hamilton
.
Shortlisted for the best comic actor trophy Sacha Baron Cohen is also selected in the category of best supporting role for
The Chicago Seven
.
Her partner in
Borat
, the revelation Maria Bakalova can hope to dominate Michelle Pfeiffer (
French Exit
) and Anya Taylor-Joy (
Emma
).
Time for female directors?
A post-MeToo revolution, the Golden Globes nominated a majority of women in the best achievement category.
In eight decades, only Barbara Streisand, Jane Campion, Sofia Coppola, Ava DuVernay and Kathryn Bigelow had broken that glass ceiling.
In 2021, they are three: Chloe Zhao (
Nomadland
), the two actresses and directors Regina King (
One Night In Miami
), star of
Watchmen
and Emerald Fennell (
Promising Young Woman
) who plays Camilla Parker Bowles in
The Crown
.
They will face the directors, outnumbered, David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin.
Chloe Zhao (
Nomadland
), the two actresses and directors Regina King (
One Night In Miami
) can hope to write the history of the Golden Globes Abaca
This openness of the 87 international journalists based in California who make up the Golden Globes was astonishing.
Last year, their reluctance had exasperated Greta Gerwig (
The Daughters of Doctor March
) and Lulu Wang (
The Farewell
).
Paradoxically, notes the specialist magazine
The Hollywood Reporter
, it is therefore this category of the best achievement which is also the one which advocates diversity with an African-American (King) and a filmmaker of Asian origin (Zhao).
A new generation of stars
The Golden Globes have a reputation (especially in the playoffs sections) for bringing out young talents.
The HFPA cherishes this role of prescriber of trends and could be tempted to apply it this year in the cinema categories.
With the pandemic, the studios have continued to shift their blockbusters, independent cinema is therefore very present and honors young actors (often discovered on the small screen).
Rather than crowning imperial and veteran Frances McDormand (awesome in
Nomadland
), the Golden Globes could finally indulge the enraged, desperate and unpredictable Carey Mulligan in
Promising Young Woman
or crown Vanessa Kirby in the running for the title of best actress for her first role. principal at 32 years for
Pieces Of A Woman
, painful story of perinatal bereavement.
On the men's side, this season has propelled Riz Ahmed, 38, into the limelight.
The British of Pakistani origin is stunning as a
metal
musician losing his hearing in
Sound Of Metal
.
But winning the trophy promises to be complicated against the monument Anthony Hopkins (
The father
), the solid Gary Oldman (
Mank
) and the late Chadwick Boseman, incandescent in
The Blues of Ma Rainey.
In the best actor section, French film enthusiasts will have a thought for Tahar Rahim, imprisoned in Guantánamo in
Designated Guilty
.
The series take their revenge
Usually the Golden Globes television charts, cursed to lengthen the evening, are quickly forgotten.
But this year the pandemic has accelerated the germ mutations and reshuffled the cards.
The cinemas remained closed for long months, the series became unifying: an object of universal desire, attracting even the most recalcitrant.
The Lady's Game, The Crown and Normal People will be watching on Sunday Netflix / Hulu-BBC
The Golden Globes have reserved a shower of nominations for the most watched soap operas of the year.
Two for
Normal People
or Apple's football comedy
Ted Lasso
.
Three for
The Great
.
A sign of a slide from glamor to the small screen, Anya Taylor Joy and Olivia Colman are nominated twice for their films
Emma
and
The Father
that very few people have been able to see unlike their interpretation of Beth Harmon in
The Game of the lady
and Elizabeth II in
The Crown
.
It is for these performances on Netflix that they will be expected.
Carried by "the Diana effect", the fourth season of
The Crown
crushes the competition with six quotes, a feat at this stage.
In addition to the trophy for best drama, the chronicle of the reign of the Windsor imposes all its actors, sometimes in frontal rivalry with each other, from the most confirmed like Gillian Anderson and Helena Bonham-Carter to the greener Josh O'Connor or Emma Corrin.
At 25 and for her first role, the interpreter of the Princess of Wales directly joins veterans Sarah Paulson (
Ratched
) and Laura Linney (
Ozark)
.
She is not the only young push to rise among the stars.
Daisy Edgar-Jones (
Normal People
) and Shira Haas (
Unorthodox)
talk to Nicole Kidman (
The Undoing
) and Cate Blanchett (
Mrs America
).
To tell the truth, the heavyweights of the dark rooms have met in the miniseries sections which offer, like a film, the promise of a curly narrative: Ethan Hawke (
Good Lord Bird)
, Hugh Grant (
The Undoing
), Mark Ruffalo (
I Know That Much Is True
).
