The Actors
Explosions rocking Kyiv were half a world away, but they still reverberated in the spaces between the words in a Santa Monica airplane hanger converted into a Hollywood ballroom Sunday night.
Producers of the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and several of the artists who would receive them, marked the occasion by lauding the courage and unbreakable spirit of the tough soldiers, the volunteer resistance and the innocent families under merciless attack in Ukraine.
While the SAG awards offered moments of glorious escape from the apocalyptic nightmare weighing on us all, the artists also added valuable perspective to the dangerous, heart-rending coverage from the front lines we've been getting on CNN since the shelling began.
It's acting – not performing that other act – that's truly the world's oldest profession, quipped “Hacks” star Jean Smart, after winning the best TV comedy actress prize. “We are the tribe's storytellers, ever since man crawled out of the cave and sat around a fire together.”
Dame Helen Mirren, recipient of a lifetime achievement award, elaborated. She expressed deep humility and pride at being part of “this tribe of rogues and vagabonds,” even while noting the eternal struggle between insecurity and ego that every actor – and every artist – knows oh so well.
(For a complete list of SAG winners and nominees, see cnn.com/2022/02/27/entertainment/sag-awards-2022-winners-list/index.html.)
Award winners Michael Keaton of “Dopestick” and Brian Cox of “Succession” reminded us that Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had previously been a TV comedian who played a fictitious president of his country before being elected to be the real thing.
I'm not really a president, I just play one on TV …
Only in reverse.
As compared with our own country's experience electing a reality TV star president, Zalenskyy has grown into the challenge, emerging now on the global stage embodying the words of yet another president: a profile in courage.
This blog, and the various newspaper columns that preceded it, lives on the line where life and movies meet. It's what I used to clumsily call the intersection of the real and reel worlds. It's been a mission of sorts, trying to describe the funhouse mirror ways they reflect each other.
Movies, specifically last winter's award season, prompted me to blow the dust off this blog and start reviewing the DVDs and screener links coming my way in the media hoopla leading up to the Oscars. (They'll be presented March 27.) Occasionally a TV series, like “Ted Lasso” or Ricky Gervais' “After Life” found their ways into the blog..
The reward came in your feedback, your appreciation at being alerted to something you might have missed otherwise.
When the Golden Globes departed in disgrace from primetime TV, they left a gap the SAG Awards stepped into brilliantly. As opposed to scandal-plagued Globes, winners of the the SAG statues – called The Actor – are voted on, with love, by their peers.
There was a spirit of joy in the hall, as the famous faces we recognize like members of our family happily greeted one another again, maskless, emerging from the two-year ordeal of the pandemic.
As compared with the Oscars often known for their snubs, their behind-the-scenes jockeying, their red carpet gowns and their political causes de jour, the SAG choices made sense. It felt like a mutual admiration society where no one was a loser.
Jessica Chastain's best actress win for her deeply affecting portrayal in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” was a little unexpected. But the evening's big surprise – and richest moment – came with the choice of “CODA” for best ensemble, SAG's version of best picture. The story of the daughter of a family of deaf commercial fishermen who dreams of going to music school is – in the words of a Washington Post review – “impossible not to love.” Marlee Matlin's acceptance speech, delivered in sign language flanked by her fellow cast members, ended the evening on an incredible high.
2021 was a treasure trove for movies. Ironically, for all the rich emotions of “CODA,” the soulfulness of “Belfast,” the genius of “Don't Look Up,” the screen craft of “Power of the Dog,” and the artistry of so many more, none of them turn out to be the movie of the year.
Alas, that distinction belongs to “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” as impeccably portrayed by Denzel Washington. It is the tale of a self-made despot caught in the widening web of his lies, unleashing his personal demons on all around him, ultimately targeting women and children in his desperate quest to hold power.
In its sound and fury, it reveals the face of evil unbound. It is more tragic, terrifying – and urgently prophetic – than it was when Shakespeare first penned the the words 400 years ago.
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