A distinguished tribute was paid to American actor and director Sean Penn, Saturday evening, at the 21st Marrakech International Film Festival (FIFM 2024), for his entire career in the cinema industry. Carried by a committed gaze which constantly questions the situation of the world, his cinematographic contribution combines artistic and humanist expression, sometimes political, sometimes offbeat, in the service of a reflection on the individual and on the collective, all with an extraordinary dramatic talent. peer.
Son of actress Eileen Ryan and actor and director Leo Penn, the native of Santa Monica (California) grew up immersed in the world of cinema, in a context marked by the Cold War. His father, a former pilot during the Second World War, was excluded from the artistic world under McCarthyism for refusing to give names. Suffice it to say that the seventh art and politics were two worlds that witnessed the evolution of the “enfant terrible of Hollywood”.
On screen, behind the camera or in production, the two-time Oscar-winning star has left his mark on generations of moviegoers with increasingly dense roles, whether it be a death row inmate in “The Last March” (Tim Robbins, 1995), a fake jazz guitarist in “Chords and Disagreements” (Woody Allen, 2000), a single father with disabilities in “Sam I am Sam” (Jessie Nelson, 2002), or even “king” of crime in Boston in “Mystic River” (Clint Eastwood).
Sean Penn / Ph. FIFM
This film was also the herald of the first Oscar for best actor for Sean Penn in 2003. He doubled the stakes in 2009, thanks to his role as a municipal councilor coming out in “Harvey Milk” (Gus Van Santa).
Keen to put human themes at the service of the aesthetics of the seventh art and vice versa, Sean Penn explains making cinema “because[il a] the impression that people today isolate themselves in their fears, their struggles and their pain. “I want to help them by showing on screen that other people feel the same things and that we are never completely alone,” he said in his television interviews as early as the 1990s.
Cinema going against the grain of political correctness
Celebrating his artistic career at the Palais des Congrès in Marrakech, during a tribute to FIFM 2024, Sean Penn said he was “very lucky to be distinguished here”. “Let me thank His Majesty King Mohammed VI, His Highness Prince Moulay Rachid, as well as the director of the festival, Mélita Toscan Du Plantier, my friend Valeria Golino, the audience in this room, as well as the 37 million Moroccans around us,” declared the actor with emotion, receiving his distinction from the Italian actress.
Ph. FIFM
Sean Penn took the opportunity to recall the importance of continuing to enrich the diversity of cinema, in response to political correctness. “For those who know me, you know that I never miss an opportunity to express an opinion, and I have one with regard to this festival which brings together people in the diversity of their talents,” he said. -he said.
“It is our role to express our diversity in a positive sense, against political correctness (…) in criticism of what has happened to liberalism in the United States and elsewhere in the world. So I call on everyone to be as politically incorrect as their heart tells them. Continue to write and tell stories to enrich this diversity.”
Sean Penn at FIFM 2024
Furthermore, Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997 for “She's So Lovely” (Nick Cassavetes), Sean Penn also distinguished himself as a director, strongly inspired by the American cultural mosaic and open to the world at the same time. times. Each of his contributions to cinema has thus become a celebration of the diversity that he always advocates. In 1991, he confirmed this trademark as a renowned filmmaker, with “The Indian Runner”, developed from the song “Highway Patrolman” by Bruce Springsteen and an Indian legend about the rite of passage to the adulthood.
Along the same lines, Sean Penn did it again with “Crossing Guard”, where he directed Jack Nicholson in 1995. Since 2007, his film “Into the Wild” has had worldwide success. In the meantime, he directed “The Pledge” (2001), or distinguished himself on screen and behind the camera in “Flag Day” (2021).
The secret of his success lies in the equation of “absorbing” his character, “without being totally imbued with it”, but just enough to get into the skin of a role with natural acting.
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