The Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, now celebrating its 20th year operating as a nonprofit organization, bestowed filmmaker and part-time Provincetowner John Waters with is prestigious Coolidge Award last month. Previous awardees have included Meryl Streep, Jonathan Damme, Julianne Moore, and Werner Herzog.
“We can’t think of a more brilliant artist to celebrate for the Coolidge Award’s 20th anniversary than John Waters,” Coolidge Program Director Mark Anastasio told LGBTQ Nation. “His movies have long been a staple of our programming, and his filmography remains one of the funniest, filthiest and most subversive in cinema history.”
Reports LGBTQ Nation:
To celebrate the Coolidge Award, Waters took part in what amounted to three events in one at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, starting at 3 p.m. and ending just before 11 p.m.
First was a screening of his 2000 black comedy Cecil B. Demented, with an introduction by the filmmaker and remarks after the movie ended. Second was a fast-paced conversation with Bowen, followed by the presentation of the Coolidge Award. Third was the Group Therapy session with superfans who paid extra to meet with Waters in a smaller theater upstairs at the Coolidge Center. All of the proceeds went to the nonprofit that runs and programs the arts center.
At another prestigious ceremony this year — the 74th annual American Cinema Editors Eddie Awards in Los Angeles, where he received the ACE Golden Eddie Filmmaker of the Year Award — Waters delivered a speech in which he discussed his approach to film editing, before an attentive audience of movie industry professionals. Speaking at the historic Royce Theater on the UCLA campus, he talked about everything from deciding when to cut a scene from a movie to the influence of a censor board and also the use of songs instead of narration to convey plot points.
The Coolidge event was geared more to the general public than to film editors. There was no lengthy acceptance speech, just Waters’ brief, heartfelt, ‘Thank you so very much, it means a lot to me, with no irony, for real.”
He didn’t perform his holiday spoken-word show. He pretty much just graciously responded to questions and used them as a springboard to talk about a wide range of subjects on his mind, in the sort of stream-of-consciousness outpouring of wit and wisdom that fans have come to expect from him. Some of his remarks were about topics he’s addressed before; others pertained to news of the day or subjects he doesn’t usually address in his spoken-word shows, such as his admiration for the artist Cy Twombly.
For anyone who went to all three segments of the Coolidge celebration, and many did, it was like watching several of the sit-down interviews that Waters does with Bill Maher — unscripted, free-wheeling, bouncing from one subject to another. It was also a good look at a talented performer at the top of his game. That was his Thank You speech, essentially. His mix of facts and commentary was all the more illuminating because it was so wide-ranging and spontaneous.
Read the complete LGBTQ Nation story here.
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