Jacques Audiard is a bruised man. This year marked the first time that the renowned French filmmaker had an Oscar contender, and I don’t think he ever wants to experience that again.
With “Emilia Perez,” Audiard has been thrust into a never ending storm of controversy involving Mexican representation, trans depictions and, to make matters worse, his star’s unhinged past tweets being unearthed for public consumption.
Earlier this evening, while receiving a lifetime achievement award from Le Syndicat Français de la Critique de Cinéma (SFCC), Audiard sent out a video message with a pertinent and valuable lesson that he’s had to learn the hard way this awards season:
“When I started watching cinema, I liked to study the intentions of the filmmaker. I know that today it’s not the intention that counts, but the perception. The immediate perception on social media. I also know that this desire to have an instant opinion is wrong; the reign of scores and algorithms, no doubt influenced by social behavior, has stifled cinematic analysis and thrown the fIlmmaker’s actual intentions into the artistic gutter, all for the sake of social posturing.”
Audiard gets it. Gone is analysis of intention, and entering the picture, in violently misguided fashion, is what people perceive.
Hive mind mentality is all the rage now. Cliques are formed. Waves of peer-pressured bandwagon fervor wreak havoc. If it happens that you don't agree with the flock, then you run the risk of being chastised and mocked.
The hive mind mentality is real and most definitely part of today’s film analysis, and only few attempt to stray away from it. Audiard learned it the hard way with “Emilia Perez” which, people seem to have forgotten, won two big prizes at Cannes last summer.
For the social media hoarders not affluent to realize, Audiard has been making great films for over 20 years now (“A Prophet,” “Rust and Bone”). He’ll no doubt brush off the “Emilia Perez” backlash and go on to the next one. His integrity still intact.