Vincent Lamkin is a founding partner of the Comfluence agency, and co-president of Opinion Valley.
It was necessary, with such a name, that all this one day end in compression of arena. In addition to the emblematic trophy of French cinema, did our great sculptor commit a giant thumb, symbol of life and death (depending on whether you raise or lower it) in the circuses of Rome antique… Such seemed the atmosphere offered to the curious who ventured to watch the 45th ceremony of the Caesars.
Under a humorous varnish, which it was difficult to know if it was heated in the first, second or third degree, the politically flaky made his show. Mistress of Ceremonies, President and remitters did not fail to laugh at everything: politically correct (to defend themselves better but also to serve them better), discrimination (to denounce them better) and of course Roman Polanski (not to lose face). By not wanting to hurt anyone, it is simpler and ultimately less risky to hurt everyone. Everyone will recognize their own ...
The talented Florence Foresti thus raked wide: mocking the era and the difficulty of speaking there without an oppressed minority jumping at your throat, she nevertheless made sure to obtain her patent for feminism, subtly summoning psychoanalysis to compare the age when she was playing cubes and the age when Polanski lived her American scandal. On occasion, she could also recall that at the age when she was playing cubes, Polanski was "having fun" in the Krakow ghetto. As long as talking about eros , you might as well summon thanatos . More the merrier, the merrier.
We have all understood one thing: there will now be a before and an after, a past on which we must spit indiscriminately and a new order of purity to which we must pledge allegiance. We know the song… Curious popular court of the tabula rasa, however, which it is difficult to understand the code of justice and to know where it places the border which separates the good from the male: Alain Delon, who was never convicted of rape , did he not suffer the same wrath when it was decided that a Palme d'Or honor would be awarded to him in Cannes? Conversely, the feminist silence in the face of the Mila affair did not fail to surprise. The arbitrary, he obviously has a bright future ahead of him.
Curious attitude than that which consists in playing the game if the result suits you and to overturn the table if it does not suit you.Discomfort in the profession reached a new level when the Prize for the best director was awarded to Roman Polanski. The actress Adèle Haenel at the head, the director Céline Sciamma and a small procession of indignant left angry the room to express their disapproval. Wouldn't it have been more logical for these people not to enter, since they condemn the film's nomination, its very existence and its distribution. Curious attitude than that which consists in playing the game if the result suits you and to overturn the table if it does not suit you. It is with the same reasoning that some people come to consider democracy illegitimate and want to overthrow it - of course with the best intentions in the world and for the good of the people.
Women are right to defend their dignity and their place in society. Some do it and do it with particularly remarkable intelligence. They are called Simone Veil, Mona Ozouf, Élisabeth Badinter, and many others. These women do not resent their standard, they do not hate the past and their discernment is based on their intellectual integrity: they are nonetheless effective ambassadors of the cause of women, because their fight is one of humanity in its entirety. We were far from them with this ceremony and its noisy by-sides.
The title of the film that was sacred ( Les misérables ), to the great manifest joy of Sandrine Kimberlain, sums up the diffuse feeling that this evening leaves: there was in all this show offered, despite some inspired moments, a climate that inspired pity.
Concerning this ceremony and its future, perhaps we will also have to end up changing its name and symbol if we remember that the sculptor César had the indecency to end his life with a woman younger than him. 40 years old.