Cate Blanchett celebrates her Venice Film Festival win with a cup of wine
Following the Venice Film Festival win the Australian star is now tipped for more Oscars glory.
Following the Venice Film Festival win the Australian star is now tipped for more Oscars glory.
Cate Blanchett is shaping up to be the Serena Williams of cinema after taking out the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival.
Blanchett won the best actress prize which puts her in good stead for Oscars glory.
Should the Australian star reprise her role as a winner at next year’s Academy Awards she’ll be one statue closer to equalling Katharine Hepburn’s record four Oscars, and will be equal with Meryl Streep’s three accolades.
Coincidentally Blanchett, who already has two Oscars to her name, won her first Academy Award in 2005 playing the Hollywood great in The Aviator.
Now with her turn in director Todd Field’s TAR, as a renowned conductor with a furious mind whose success turns her into a monster, the race for her third major cinematic prize has tightened.
“She’s mesmerising and cruel, terribly human with a faint glimmer of the otherworldly hanging around her. It’s a major piece of work that we'd have to assume will be recognised by the Academy,” Vanity Fair said.
Blanchett’s first ever Oscar nomination was playing Queen Elizabeth I and at the closing ceremony in Venice, she led the charge of stars who wore black as a mark of respect for Queen Elizabeth II following her death.
In a draped Louis Vuitton gown Blanchett said she was looking forward to celebrating her win with a “cup” of red wine.
“I’m not joking,” she insisted after crediting TAR for changing her life.
She also praised Field, who returns to feature films after a 16-year hiatus, saying it was a remarkable collaboration.
“I feel so lucky to have encountered him and collaborated with him and I feel forever changed by it. The character, the big questions, the dangerous ideas that are contained within the movie, all come from him.”
When asked if she might go on to the Oscars glory, she said, “You can't put the cart before the horse in terms of awards. You guys make it sound like we're disingenuous and I can’t speak for everyone, but I am certain that nobody set out to sit here. They simply set out because they were passionate about something.”
Blanchett also reflected on the changing critical landscape, saying making art is considered a risk.
“I think that at its best it's provocative, it's rude, it's impolite. Now we're somehow at a table with lots of gilded objects in front of us, which I think probably is a danger. But it's also a provocation to us to keep the questions exciting…I think we're living in a very literal time where people want to reduce things to sound bites, and I don't think that's how many of us work.”
None of the Netflix films in the competition, including Andrew Dominik’s Marilyn Monroe bio-pic Blonde or Noah Baumbach’s White Noise, won an award.
Olivia Wilde's highly-anticipated Don't Worry Darling premiered but did not compete for a trophy.
The Volpi Cup for best actor went to Colin Farrell for Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin.
The Irish actor accepted his award from LA via Zoom with a bunch of bananas in lieu of his prize.
“I was working last night, I’m happy to be a working actor,” Farrell said. “I’m utterly shocked to get this award, and thrilled.”
McDonagh won for best screenplay.
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, a documentary about photographer Nan Goldin and her plight to hold the Sackler family responsible for the opioid addiction crisis in the US, was awarded the Golden Lion for best film.
Director Laura Poitras - who won an Oscar for Citizenfour about Edward Snowden - thanked the festival for recognising that “documentary is cinema”.
Jury head Julianne Moore alluded to the fact the top prize was awarded to a woman.
“So many stories are directed by women,” Moore said. “I think we can go forward and not genderise everything. We can all have opportunities to tell stories.”
Luca Guadagnino took out the directing prize for Bones and All.
Taylor Russell, who co-starred alongside Timothee Chalamet in the film, won for best newcomer.
READ MORE FROM THE VENICE FILM FESTIVAL:
Timothée Chalamet warns of 'societal collapse' ahead of cannibal film
The first reviews for Don't Worry Darling are in
“Where is the money?” Azealia Banks in pay dispute with Australian promoter
“You’re trying to use a character assassination as a means to not pay someone for work that they did," says the US rapper.Â
Margot Robbie in Barbie throws back to A Space Odyssey
Greta Gerwig has swindled us all with the first trailer for her upcoming film.