Jean-Luc Godard and his honorary Oscar: Does it matter if he's an anti-Semite?

Jean-Luc Godard, who's getting an honorary Oscar on Nov. 13, is suddenly back in the news, although not with the sort of media attention likely to burnish his image. Last month, the Jewish Journal put Godard on its cover, asking the provocative question: "Is Jean-Luc Godard an Anti-Semite?" And now, Tuesday's New York Times has a front page story examining the controversial honorary Oscar, describing what it calls "a simmering debate over whether Mr. Godard, an avowed anti-Zionist and advocate for Palestinian rights, is also anti-Jewish."

For me, the most fascinating part of the Times story, penned by Michael Cieply, was what wasn't in it. For all the supposed hubbub, there wasn't a complaint about the award from anyone in Hollywood. Even producer Mike Medavoy, who took issue with Godard's "narrow mind" toward Jews, said he was "fine with" Godard getting an award. The only person taking issue with the award was an executive at B'nai B'rith International, who argued that Hollywood had established standards for art but not for decency or morality.

It seemed even odder that Tom Sherak, the academy's president, wasn't quoted at all, while Sid Ganis, who is producing the ceremony, didn't defend the choice either, only being quoted about the selection of film clips in a tribute reel. Curious, I called Sherak to ask if he'd tried to dodge the bullet. Not at all, he said. So, I asked him: Do you have any misgivings about giving Godard an honorary Oscar?   

"I support the Board of Governors," he said. "They decided to give an honorary Oscar to Godard for his contributions to film during the early years of the French New Wave era. The academy has traditionally separated the art form from the honoree's personal life." I asked Sherak if he could be more specific. "We've given awards in the past to people like Roman Polanski and Elia Kazan whose personal lives were often far from perfect. They did objectionable things and we've been criticized for giving them awards. But that's not what's at issue here. We've always felt the art form outweighs the personal transgressions."  

Although I've been a frequent critic of the academy in other matters, I have to say that I've got no beef with their stand here. Artists aren't always especially admirable people in their personal lives, and if we started shunning every actor or filmmaker for misdeeds and bigotry, we'd find ourselves running out of potential award recipients. The Jewish Journal has gotten a lot of mileage out of Hollywood anti-Semitism scares, having run a cover story last February that examined the Oscar-nominated films "A Serious Man" and An Education," using the headline "Realism or Anti-Semitism?"

In fact, the Journal's Danielle Berrin, who writes one of my favorite blogs, Hollywood Jew, found herself pondering this recently, in the wake of the flap over Mel Gibson getting hired -- and then unhired -- from "The Hangover 2." Noting that a Journal archive search for "Mel Gibson" turned up 204 results, she admitted to having reached a breaking point in her obsession with "his strange psychotic behavior." She added: "No matter how much communal schadenfreude we can muster, it won’t change him; he is already a sad parody of himself. What I fear is that it’s changing us, and every time we talk about him, we give him new life."

Now it's Godard who has a new life, not only thanks to the Journal, of course, but the academy, which started the ball rolling with an honorary Oscar. Godard deserves the Oscar, but he also deserves to be criticized for some of his more outlandish statements. It's OK to do both. I wish all of our most gifted artists had hearts of pure gold, like the gleaming Oscar statuettes, but we don't live in a world of pristine good and evil. Many of our idols have feet of clay.  

Photo: Jean-Luc Godard, pictured in 1981, during an interview with the Los Angeles Times. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Naif]

As if being a hard core pro-Zionist is a must for every actor in Hollywood, and being an advocate for Palestinian rights is a big no-no! This is sickening.

[Atilla]

Who? Never heard of this guy. Did he make any movies that anybody has seen? Does he have Jerry Lewis in his movies?

[Robert Harper]

I wonder what the reaction would be to an article with the headline: "Is the Jewish Journal a Bigoted, Racist Rag?". This is the sort of PC that only goes one way.

[Elegabalus]

If Godard is an advocate for Palestinian rights, wouldn't that make him a Pro-Semite?

So Godard is simultaneously Pro-Semitic and Anti-Semitic, depending which Semites are being discussed.

[Susan]

Underlying the issue is the the very real fact, that anyone who criticizes Israel is immediately labeled and anti-Semite. Israel has gotten a free ride for what are surely war crimes in their many incursions and wars in Lebanon, and crimes against humanity in the treatment of the Palestinians by playing the anti-Semite card.

[Jean]

Jews and the media they control... had better temper their tired ancient drum beat of "Anyone who dislikes Israeli fascists, racists policies...as an Anti-Semite"...NOT all Jews agree with it's policy!

Make no mistake...AMERICA is tired of it's monopoly on guilt and racist nepotism.

[nick]

The Film Academy membership has quite a few Jews. If not the majority. So they have decided to honor Godard who is supposedly anti-Semitic. It goes to show that they, the Film Academy members, have courage and wit to distinguish between art and man. Beside, anti-Zionism is the right moral position and it's not anti-Semitic. Good thing Hitler's art wasn't any good.

[Jaap den Haan]

A critical voice from the sixties has remained and has perhaps not only stayed relevant, but become more modern where others have regressed to the fourties.

[David Ehrenstein]

Godard = Jean-Luc

Goddard = Paulette

Got it?

Good.

[mark shapiro]

since most faiths originated from judiasm and not paganism, who cares and if he is, so what. It comes down to semanatics for again, the Jewish faith started the belief in one god and all others fell in line and this battle over the centuries over semantics is absurd but humans love to fight with each other over what and who is right and thus more wars have been fought over so called faiths than anything else and in the end..they were all on the same page.