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It’s a free country, or at least it used to be, and everyone is entitled to weigh in on their Academy Award favorites, whether or not you link up with the prevailing betting odds. All of which is to say I hardly endorse Ethan Hawke’s virtuosic turn in Blue Moon as the right choice for the Best Actor Oscar statue this year. Hawke’s genuinely tour de force performance as the acridly witty, wise, and sloshed Lorenz Hart (of Rodgers and Hart fame) just before his soggy, sorry demise is a stunning thing to behold. (He also deserves a special award for Best Combover Performance in the history of cinema.)
His Hart work is also what made him a shoe-in as a late-breaking addition to the SBIFF’s tribute list this year, scooping up the American Riviera Award last night at the Arlington Theatre. As he has shown on the talk-show circuit and at a recent SBIFF Cinema Society Q&A, Hawke is also one of the more organically articulate actors on the Hollywood block, a role he again demonstrated in conversation with moderator Dave (TCM) Karger.
Sitting behind Hawke and his family, before the star was escorted onstage, was country hero Charlie Crockett (subject of the fab new documentary A Cowboy in London, given its world premiere at the Film Center on Thursday) and Santa Barbara’s own major dude Jeff Bridges. This was also the fateful night when Hawke finally met Bridges, who he acknowledged as an early hero and role model, and who paid due respects to the Blue Moon man when it came time to present the award. The Dude-ly summation of Bridges’ accolade: “I dig your approach, man. I dig your stuff.”
Hawke, whose work has spread over stage and film — and TV, as on his new show The Lowdown — seems to be genuinely a big picture brand of a high-profile artist, not one to get overly sucked into the narcissistic blur of movie star consciousness. As he pointed out at the Arlington, “Here, the spotlight is on me and it’s all about focusing on self and about me, but the real fun in acting is the opposite of that, the dissolution of self. The real fun comes through collaborating with other actors and crew members on a film.”
Before this year’s Blue Moon pinnacle, Hawke had reached another great height of acting with his role in Paul Schrader’s 2017 masterpiece First Reformed, playing a tortured priest headed for a Schrader-esque apotheosis. About that special project, Hawke declared, “It’s a significant piece of writing, touching on all the apathy in the church today, climate change, how to hold two opposing truths in your hand at the same time. It’s a very beautiful film.”
Hawke continued, “There’s a Catholic writer, Thomas Merton, who meant a lot to me as a young man, and this character loved Thomas Merton. That tiny insight made it personal for me. Paul was so desperate to make this movie when we were shooting it. I really felt like I was working with a great artist at an important part of his life.”
The evening’s selection of clips featured many of Hawke’s hits and Oscar nomination fodder, including Sidney Lumet’s chillingly powerful Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead and other Richard Linklater–directed films, such as the Before Sunset trilogy and Boyhood. But I wish they had included one of his more fascinating and underrated works, in which he plays the jazz legend Chet Baker in the Canadian film Born to Be Blue. The film not only grandly showcases Hawkes’s cooler depths but is also one of the rare strong entries in the slim ranks of films about jazz.
Accepting the trophy, Hawke said, “I really do believe that every night, our dreams heal us. Every night, we go to sleep, and our imaginations kick in. Collectively, we who make films and hear about art and stories and paintings and documentaries, we’re making dreams for each other. We’re talking to each other. That’s how we heal ourselves.”
He held up his trophy and gave it a good shake: “I’m going put this in my office and say ‘hey, Jeff Bridges gave me this thing!’”
Last Wording
Ethan Hawke’s final sentiment in his acceptance speech warrants a place on t-shirts and protest placards, if not already there: “Let’s get ICE off the streets and into our drinks.”
Cheers.
