A change in the César awards: the end of an old-fashioned ceremony?
We know it’s Academy Awards time… But we have chosen to speak about ‘Les Césars’. Why? To once more praise the wonderful show of our dear Florence Foresti! Ok I admit that it draws together a very subtle transition (right?) between our last theme ‘Women in Culture’ and the new one ‘Humour’.
Now let’s introduce us Florence Foresti, the favorite female humorist of French people. She started fame midst 2000s. Since then, her career has taken off. She has been chosen to be the host of the 41st ceremony of ‘Les Césars’. And it was a real success!!
But let’s begin with 'Les Césars' ceremony. They are known to be quite a long, boring, old fashion ceremony… So this year Alain Terzian, president of the Academy, made changes. He asked during the traditional dinner of the nominees to shorten time of speech to 2m30. Just imagine… last year the ceremony lasted 3h52 because of the non-bounded time of winners’ speeches! Even if this rule was debated - freedom of speech issue you know… - It was necessary to fasten the oh-so long show.
The second brilliant idea was to choose Florence Foresti as the ceremony host. It was a risky move as it cuts sharply with the previous guideline. Also because Florence Foresti’s comedy is quite popular. But she succeed very well in it! She joked about Americans whereas Michael Douglas was here for an Honorary César - yeah, it was one of the funniest moment of the show. She drew a smart parallel with the 'Award Academy' which inspired her for the show. She was not afraid to tackle the cultural Ministry and the current Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, to joke about Audiard’s movies or to bow Michael Douglas. A real success, so much that Terzian said that ‘il y aura un avant et un après Florence Foresti’ (understand that she has triggered some shifts in the way 'Les César’s ceremony could be introduced!).
Read Terzian’s interview about the debate here: http://bit.ly/1QGFk6Y
Let’s see here introduction here: http://bit.ly/1oSTkVv
We can certainly say that she has merit, she really made the show and she has also shot some sketches before the ceremony to pick up the rhythm during the show that she made really enjoyable!
To conclude, a little gift: 2 of her sketches from the ceremony: First, her vision of famous movies if characters would have used Iphones:
And then her ‘Bloquées’ sketch with Vanessa Paradis, which is the parody of ‘Bloqués’ webserie from Orelsan:
Enjoy!