There are news items running today headlined, "Woody Allen to receive Cecil B. DeMille Award at Golden Globes." This one then has a lede that says…
Though he is famously averse to attending awards shows, Woody Allen will be honored at the 2014 Golden Globes with the Cecil B. DeMille Award. The ceremony will take place Jan. 12, 2014.
That might lead you to assume Mr. Allen will be present for the ceremony. Well, maybe yes and maybe no. Further down in the piece, we read…
Whether or not he attends the ceremony, the tribute to Allen will be hard-pressed to raise eyebrows and curiosity quite like Jodie Foster's tribute earlier this year.
The other press coverage I've seen doesn't address the issue at all. Here's the press release for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the mysterious group that hands out the Golden Globes and their allied awards. It doesn't say Allen will attend. Then again, it doesn't say he won't. Methinks they don't know and they're hoping he'll decide to show his face. Mefurtherthinks that they're giving it to him in the hope that it will get him to show up.
When I say the H.F.P.A. is mysterious, I mean it's mysterious. No one really knows who they are or who votes…but in the smoke-'n'-mirrors world of Show Business, the awards are treated as important because they're treated as important. The association throws a great party with great food and beverage. It's televised and a lot of big stars show up to hobnob with other big stars and remind everyone that they're big stars. Winners thank the H.F.P.A. without knowing what it is; only that it's an award and it's been won by others with whom they want to be lumped. Actually, in some cases, the fact that it's an award is reason enough.
Will the Woodman show for it? His latest release, Blue Jasmine, has done decent business. That may be a reason to make an appearance, a reason why he doesn't have to or an utter irrelevance. Allen is widely admired not only for his films but by his refusal to go out and hype them and to not participate in some of the common rituals of being a filmmaker. He does the parts where you write and direct and sometimes even act but he skips the parts where you have to be a promoter. I'm guessing he won't come out for the Golden Globes in January. But then again, he sometimes does things no one expects him to do…