James Gray received the career achievement honor of his life this weekend at the Locarno Film Festival, and by his own account, it didn’t move the needle much at home. The filmmaker accepted the Pardo alla Carriera, or Career Leopard, Sunday evening in the Swiss town’s Piazza Grande before a crowd of 8,000, then told the story of how his wife reacted to the news.
Gray recounted telling her that Locarno wanted to give him the prize, only for her to respond, “That’s very nice. Now, can you take out the garbage?” He added that the moment offered a certain perspective on life, even as he called the recognition itself deeply moving. Looking out at the packed square, Gray admitted he hadn’t anticipated a crowd that size, joking that he felt like a member of the Beatles.
The award came just ahead of the festival screening of Gray’s latest film, “Paper Tiger,” starring Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller. Set in 1986, the film follows two brothers, Irwin and Gary Pearl, after Irwin gets tangled up with the Russian mob through a get-rich-quick scheme involving New York’s Gowanus Canal, with his former-cop brother the only one able to pull him out of trouble.
Gray described the film as heavily autobiographical, telling the audience they would recognize the neighborhood he grew up in and see the distance between where he started and where he stood that night. The movie premiered in competition at Cannes in May and is set for its North American premiere as the opening film of the New York Film Festival on September 25.
Locarno’s tribute traced Gray’s career back to his Silver Lion win at Venice for “Little Odessa” at age 25, describing his work as rooted in his upbringing in New York’s Russian-Jewish community. Artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro called Gray “the last great novelist of American cinema,” pointing to a body of work he said echoes the Jewish diaspora, film noir and both Russian and North American literature. The festival also screened two of Gray’s earlier films, “We Own the Night” and “Two Lovers,” as part of the tribute. Previous recipients of the honor include Claudia Cardinale, Harry Belafonte, Costa-Gavras, Shah Rukh Khan and, last year, Jackie Chan.
Gray, whose other credits include “The Lost City of Z,” “Ad Astra” and “Armageddon Time,” used the moment to push back on any notion that a lifetime award signals the end of his relevance. He told Variety this week that despite Locarno’s reputation as something of an “old man’s award,” he believes his prime is happening right now, adding that he still owes the world one or two truly great movies.
