UPDATED with video: Writer-director Dee Rees gave an electric speech while receiving the Robert Altman award for Mudbound at the 2018 Film Independent Spirit Awards.
The Robert Altman award is presented to the ensemble cast, director and casting director of a film. It is named after director, screenwriter, and producer Altman and was first given at the 2008 award ceremony.
Here is her speech:
I know that as Independent Filmmakers, as the so-called Rebels, as the Outsiders creating without respect to means or access…
I know that we, of all makers, are far, far beyond any Identity Tokenism or Snobbery of Form
In both production and distribution
Because we know that cinema lies not in
A strip of celluloid
A length of magnetic tape
Nor across the blind plain of an image sensor
No, we know that
Cinema lies in absorbing , electrifying Performances by committed actors
That make audiences feel, that make them think, make them observe themselves and world around them in a more expansive way
Like Rob Morgan’s intelligent, deliberate, emotionally exquisite performance of Hap Jackson, a man whose capabilities, ambition and work ethic are continually undone by the ancient and overlapping systems of social and economic oppression that still exist today
We know that cinema lies in the thoughtful and narrative Composition and Choreography of subject, movement, color, and light
Like Rachel Morrison’s compelling, sculptural, humanistic photography that elevates reality into a visceral, highly textured symphony of feeling
We–radical thinkers that we are, know that cinema has nothing to do with
- a Smartphone screen
- a Television screen
- nor a 52 foot high IMAX screen
We know that it has everything to do with the complicated art of montage, like Mako Kamitsuna’s literary and perfectly fluid interweaving of seven distinct character’s voices and worldview into one single sweeping, and cohesive narrative
And that it has everything to do with the establishment of mood, tone, and the unspoken subtext, like in Tamar-kali’s breathing, haunting, omniscient score that summon the unseen ancestors with every frame. The blood beneath the mud.
We know that cinema is in the wizened authenticity of David Bomba’s sets that never ever feel like sets
Cinema is in the just-so bend in the sweat-stained brim of a gray felt hat of Michael T. Boyd’s costume design.
It’s in the faded hope of pastel domesticity in Laura’s dress
It’s at the tip of Angie Well’s make up brush
It’s in Virgil William’s illuminating keystroke, deft turn of chatacter
It’s in Jason Clarke’s limping run across a road
It’s in Garrett Hedlund’s guilty slump
It’s in Jonathan Bank’s sneer
It is in the corners of Mary J Blige’s un-smile beneath wary eyes
It’s in Carey Mulligan’s chew of a cuticle
It is in Jason Mitchell’s gone, long gone gaze across an impossible field
Mudbound is cinema
And we are grateful for this recognition, for this Robert Altman award and all that it signifies
But We–all of us in this room–broad thinkers that we are know that this, or any other award, valuation, critique of any artistic work is purely subjective
Is not about the work itself
Is not a meritocracy
Because nothing diminishes nor enhances the value of the work except the work itself
That’s what we put onscreen
Thank you to Ted Sarandos for taking our work and letting it be seen,
Thank you Film Independent for acknowledging it’s existence
Thank you to Billy Hopkins and Ashley Ingram for helping me to put together this extraordinary cast
And thank you to Cassian Elwes, to MACRO, to Armory and our league producers for equipping us with the tools to create it.
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