Jessica Chastain and Howard Shore to be honored at Palm Springs

The festival has announced its final awards recipients

By Roth CornetWednesday, Dec 28, 2011 10:41 PM

Jessica Chastain at the Morocco Film Festival.

Credit: AP Photo/Abdeljalil Bounhar

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The Palm Springs International Film Festival has announced its final honorees for this year’s Awards Gala. Jessica Chastain will receive the Spotlight Award for her work in “The Help,” “The Tree of Life,” “Take Shelter,” “The Debt” and “Coriolanus,” while composer Howard Shore will be feted with the Frederick Loewe Music Award for “Hugo.”

Shore also received the honor in 2004 for his “The Aviator" score. “Howard Shore is a master composer who has consistently delighted audiences with the more than 80 films that he has scored,” said festival chairman Harold Matzner. “He has received universal acclaim for 'Hugo,' with his compositions as dramatic and innovative as the 3D in which 'Hugo' was filmed.”

I’m not sure in which ways the 3D in “Hugo” was especially “dramatic” or “innovative.” Making good use of a format doesn’t necessarily equate to innovation, but, there you have it. Perhaps the festival chairman is referring to broadening the range in which 3D is put to use.

Previous recipients of the Frederick Loewe Music Award include T Bone Burnett, Alexandre Desplat, Danny Elfman, James Newton Howard, Randy Newman and Diane Warren.

Meanwhile, 2011 is without question the year of Jessica Chastain. For a moment, early on, it looked as if the strength and variety of her portrayals were muddying the critical waters. But with SAG, Golden Globe and BFCA nominations for Best Supporting Actress for her work in “The Help,” her path to an Oscar nod is looking clearer.

Palm Springs has made an obvious, but absolutely appropriate choice in honoring Chastain with an award meant to highlight the full range of an actor’s work in a given year.

“Through a series of virtuoso performances, Jessica Chastain has established herself as one of the cinema’s most versatile and most sought after young actresses,” said Matzner. “To this actress, who captivates audiences with her adroit talents, the Palm Springs International Film Festival is honored to present the 2012 Spotlight Award."

Other honorees previously announced for this year's fest include George Clooney, Glenn Close, Michel Hazanavicius, Brad Pitt, Octavia Spencer, Michelle Williams and Gary Oldman. The festival runs January 5-16.

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Roth Cornet
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JLPatt

If the 3D in "Hugo" isn't what you'd deem innovative, I can't imagine what would be.
December 29, 2011 at 12:40AM EST Reply to Comment
- Roth Cornet Well, I feel like Hugo is about a technological and cinematic innovator -- George Melies -- someone pushing the boundaries of what is possible in a given technology. And while I think that Hugo makes gorgeous USE of the technology and that it is significant that a director of his stature has chosen to embrace the medium thereby opening the doorway to possibility for other more established and critically acclaimed directors to engage, I do not see it as innovative in terms of the medium itself. Jackson is and innovator and Cameron is technological innovator. Shooting The Hobbit at 48 frames per second in 3D is innovative. It pushes into new realms, and explores new cinematic possibilities, it plays with the format. That is what I mean by innovative. That is not to undercut the gorgeous cinematography and use of the format in Hugo at all -- it is just to clarify what I think of as innovation. I find Nolan's practical effects to be innovative and so on.
  December 29, 2011 at 2:01AM EST