David Fincher wants Hollywood to get back to work – The Hollywood Reporter

“I’ve never seen so many celebrities together in one place in my life,” one artist said at the 2023 LACMA Art + Film Gala on Saturday night.

How star-studded was the 12th annual event? The celebrities were so overwhelmed that one world-famous star was heard – in a true “stars are just like us” moment – saying: “I really want to go up and meet them.”

“Just go do it,” his friend urged him.

“The thing is though, I always play great,” the star protested. “I always play it cool.”

He could have been talking about any number of distinguished talents among the hundreds of guests seated inside the Gucci-sponsored bash. Leonardo DiCaprio, Kim Kardashian, Brad Pitt, A$AP Rocky, Blackpink’s Rosé, Billie Eilish, Keanu Reeves, Andrew Garfield, Jessica Chastain and Pedro Pascal were just some of the names who enjoyed the evening, which raised $5 million in cash. you will go. To support LACMA’s film-focused curatorial programming as well as the museum’s broader mission.

Each year, the LACMA Art+Film Gala—co-chaired by DiCaprio and Eva Chow—celebrates a visual artist and filmmaker and brings together the worlds of cinema and fine arts. This year’s honorees are David Fincher – who directed his latest film the killer Stars Michael Fassbender – and artist and activist Judy Baca, famous for her half-mile-long mural The Great Wall of China in Los AngelesOne of the tallest works of art in the world.

After guests enjoyed cocktail hour outside and VIPs posed for requisite photos in front of Chris Burden’s Urban Light sculpture of Los Angeles street lights — which served as the ceremony’s red carpet — the party moved inside for dinner at the hands of Mattia Agazzi, the Michelin-starred chef from the restaurant Gucci Osteria in Beverly Hills, in collaboration with Chef Joachim Splichal.

Hollywood Reporter I saw Jodi Turner-Smith catching Quinta Brunson, Odessa Azion, and Eilish. Salma Hayek and her husband François-Henri Pinault — owner of Gucci’s parent company Kering as well as the new owner of CAA — sat down with Jessica Chastain, who wore a metallic Gucci dress. Paris Hilton and her mother, Kathy Hilton, appeared with Kardashian. Colman Domingo is a star Rustinsat down to chat with David Oyelowo, the lead of the new Paramount+ series Lawmen: Bass Reeves. Gucci’s new creative director, Sabato Di Sarno, has starred with everyone from Julia Garner and Elliot Page to Heidi Klum and Jodie Comer.

Conversations often centered on the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike and whether it was on the verge of dissolution, a topic Fincher brought up in his speech from the stage. “We have to get these extremely talented people back to work. We have to do that very soon,” said the director, who was introduced by Pitt, who starred in three of Fincher’s films.

Pitt joked about Fincher’s strict standards when filming. “Here are some of the things you’ll hear while filming David Fincher: ‘Let’s shoot this now before we lose interest in life.’ ‘Okay, we’ve got the out-of-focus version.’ Now let’s try the one in focus. ‘That was crap through no fault of my own. My side.” And personal preference: “I want you guys to enjoy yourselves, but this is what works for Saturdays and Sundays.” The actor went on to praise the director, saying, “Working with him, you’ll know what it’s like to be special. His films – they have always challenged our sense of security. “If we’re not out there using the chainsaws, we’re hurting ourselves,” he says. He also praised Fincher for the “countless technical advances he brought to our industry”, for helping advance the careers of several cinematographers. And for all the career advice he generously gave to “aspiring young directors.” “He even created a ‘skip intro’ button that you’ll probably be using tonight,” Pitt added, referring to a popular Netflix feature.

In his speech, Fincher noted that he had been a child who wanted to be an artist — “he exhausted a handful of my father’s large fountain pens, and lost for days in little aesthetic endurance contests” — before he gave up drawing. As for the career he ultimately chose, Fincher said, “I guess I never looked at directing as an artistic endeavor because it requires a lot of the actual artists just to get through a given day.” However, he has since addressed the topic. “I have met more great artists in Los Angeles than anywhere else I have ever lived or worked… The desert here has absorbed the sweat and tears of generations of cinematic craftsmen, people with an innate understanding of their craft, and an easy style. Lyrical insights and in-depth solutions.

In an apparent response to Martin Scorsese’s recent comments about the dying state of cinema, Fincher continued: “I would also like to take this opportunity to insist that cinema is not dead. It’s not even close. Man has been drawing for over 30,000 years, and has played with the basic building blocks of cinema for more than 30,000 years.” Just over 100 years ago. We can barely keep our heads upright or roll over. We don’t even crawl. True cinema, the sonorous play of ideas and behaviors against story structures, falsified, implied or even ignored, has not diminished with the advent of sound, color or flow. It has evolved It will continue to do so, but we must push it, prod it, test its pull, and never be ashamed to question its effects and its merit.

She introduced Eva Longoria, the visual artist honoree, who praised the muralist for her dedicated practice of creating “community public art projects” and for leaving “her mark literally all over this city, from K-Town to Boyle Heights, and from San Francisco.” From Fernando Valley to Echo Park, from the Venice Boardwalk to the 110 Freeway, Judy has worked alongside communities across Los Angeles to transform the city’s bare walls into beautiful monuments to its people, past and present. Longoria added that Baca “didn’t want to make art that people would only see in galleries. As a matter of fact, we were outside and I was like, ‘Can you believe I’m here at LACMA?'” My entire artistic existence was to combat this. That’s why she painted a lot of Murals are on the street for people to enjoy, because you don’t have to be in an institution to be an artist. She understood the power of art and how art gives voice to the disenfranchised and the potential of public spaces to make their stories heard. She wanted to make art in the service of social change and social justice.

Baca worked with more than 400 young people to create the project The Great Wall of China in Los Angeles, which tells the city’s history through images and stories of traditionally underrepresented communities. She accepted the honor, saying, “There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of people with me on stage tonight” and recalling, “I have painted more than half my life in the Los Angeles River with over 400 young people in the hot sun, listening to the disappeared.” “A river, hardened into concrete, tattooed on the scar where the river once ran, telling the story of people who disappeared.” Baca is currently planning to extend the Great Wall of Los Angeles by a mile, thanks to a $5 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and until next June at LACMA — as part of the L.A. River Painting exhibition — he is creating new sections of the artwork, Which will eventually be transported to the Los Angeles River to join the mural.

In his remarks that began the evening, Michael Govan, CEO and Director of LACMA, welcomed guests and noted the progress made on the new Peter Zumthor-designed museum building under construction, saying he was “happy to report tonight – we are 70 years old.” “Percent finished.”

The evening was also an important moment in Los Angeles for Gucci di Sarno, who joined the house last January and showed his first collection in Milan in September. At the LACMA Art+Film Gala, the designer presented his first eveningwear collection for the luxury label, called Gucci Ancora Notte. It was worn at the event by a large number of models including Maria Carla Boscono, Vittoria Ceretti, Kirsty Hume, Abbey Lee, Jiahui Zhang, Fadia Gap, Nyagok, Violet Hume, Heather Strong Arm, Ajeel Akol, Camilla Orner and Sam Kiss.

Also attending the evening were past arts honorees Catherine Opie, Helen Pashgian and Ed Ruscha, and museum leaders such as Anne Philbin of Hammer, Katherine Fleming of the Getty, Jacqueline Stewart of the Academy Museum and Sandra Jackson-Dumont of the Lucas Museum. narrative art; and a group of artists including Glenn Ligon, Greg Ito, Ole Erezcu, Mary Weatherford, Jonas Wood, Analia Saban, Charles Gaines, Chase Hall, and Lauren Halsey.

After dinner, guests returned outside where Jennifer Lopez, who attended with Ben Affleck, introduced the evening’s performer, Lenny Kravitz, who played a stunning set.

The party was also sponsored by Audi, which brought the stars to the event in electric cars and transported many to the Chateau Marmont, the site of the unofficial party.