Locarno Festival: Is James Gray a loser?
The 57-year-old American filmmaker, the biggest loser at the awards ceremony, will finally be rewarded in an honorary capacity for all of his work at the Swiss Locarno Film Festival. Return to the paths of his loss.
May 2007. At the Cannes Film Festival chaired by the Englishman Stephen Frears who will see the Romanian drama crowned 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days by Cristian Mungiu, the American James Gray returns seven years later The Yards present his new family thriller, The night belongs to us. This tragedy in the New York of the eighties bathed in black academicism ends with a gesture of tender love between the two brothers who are a priori enemies. While their glorious father (Robert Duvall) is honored by his peers on the New York police force, Joseph (Mark Wahlberg) turns to Bobby (Joaquin Phoenix) and whispers: “ I love you very much! » before an emphatic musical chord completes this reconciliation.
For the public of “largest film festival in the world » is too much. Whistles ring out in the room. Too pathos, too pro-cop, too classic… James Gray will climb the red steps in a tuxedo with a lump in his stomach:
“ It was an electric shock. I don’t want to say I expected to get an award, but I didn’t expect to be booed. I suppose that on this point, The Night Belongs to Us was a real failure…» explained James Gray in 2011 to Jordan Mintzer critic at Hollywood Reporter.
Return to The night belongs to us
No Palme, Oscar or Cesar
The night belongs to us but like before him, The Yards (presented with a watered-down ending that Gray himself disowned) and later: Two Lovers (2008), The Immigrant (2013), Armageddon Time (2022) and Paper Tiger (2026) all left without the slightest charm from the Croisette. At this level it is no longer bad luck but a vendetta hatched by who knows what divinity of the cinema-loving Olympus.
And we’re not just talking about the Cannes Festival out of chauvinism, there’s no trace of Oscars or Golden Globes either. To “win” in Hollywood, you have to rake in cash. But on site, Gray’s opuses remain little corduroy arthouse films for Europeans. Even with that, no one was able to give him a César, a Goya or a Bafta… He can always console himself with the covers of Positive or Sight & Sound.
To find the trace of a trophy, you have to go back to 1994 to the Venice Film Festival where his first feature film, Little Odessa leaves with the Silver Lion, the promise of a career full of luxury, calm and voluptuousness.
Shades of Gray
So we have arrived at this month of August 2026 where on the Piazza Grande of the Swiss Festival of Locarno, Gray will receive “ The Pardo alla Carriera », the kind of price suitable for correcting misfortune if not repairing infamy.
What exactly is wrong with this career? Gray has his little ideas. The night belongs to us ?
“The Departed was such a success that the distributors clearly wanted to make it a “B-side” to Scorsese’s film. »
The Lost City of Z ? The filmmaker who was chasing a substantial budget settled for bits of string and above all did not listen to his master Coppola who advised him against filming in the jungle.
Ad Astra ?
“ The studio took back control and the film no longer belonged to me. This is not my edit. »
As for his last born, Paper Tiger, he said to himself that the filmmaker, tired of the jokes of the French Riviera, did not want to go back there. Except that without the spotlight of the said Festival, its dark thriller around two brothers who are a priori enemies (we’re not getting out of it!) is commercially worthless. So the always a little sad Gray accepted the flogging. And everything went as planned. The criticism shuddered, the jury ignored it.
As for his casting, Adam Driver admitted a bit embarrassed to having caught most of the filmmaker’s films at the last minute. As for Miles Teller, he couldn’t name one.
The father of the family
James Gray, champion of an assumed classicism plowing a well (too?) identified auteurist furrow (Jewish roots, pre-gentrification New York, dysfunctional families, the mafia, etc.), seems both out of sync with the times and locked in his obsessions. We are always a little surprised at his age, 57 years old, as the man carries the image of the daron of the family.
Of his generation, PTA or Wes Anderson appear much more generous and therefore quick to excite the crowds. As for the de-synchronism that we pointed out above, it is possible that it will postpone the canonization of the filmmaker once everyone has finally agreed on the real value of his talent. While waiting for a Palme d’Honneur in 2048 and a Lumière Prize to follow, the comeback begins in the Swiss lakeside city of Locarno this summer. Hold on James!
The Locarno International Film Festival, from August 5 to 15
Paper Tiger, in theaters November 25
