Rolex finds a perfect storytelling partner in the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
In America’s Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the esteemed watchmaker recognises a perfect partner to uphold the art of storytelling
ROLEX HAS YET to win an Oscar, despite the timepiece’s role being ever-present across the history of film and its influence so legendary – not just on the wrists of the actors and characters who have appeared in the luminous storytelling of cinema across the ages, but also on the directors, cinematographers and technicians who made them. The iconic watches have even become a plot device. One thing’s certain: if ever the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences instituted a lifetime achievement award for accessory excellence, Rolex would win hands down.
In 2017, Rolex became the exclusive watch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (organisers of the Academy Awards) and a Proud Sponsor of the Oscars for the first time at the 89th ceremony. But Rolex’s connection reaches into the essence of filmmaking, as the brand has just announced itself as Founding Supporter of the Academy Museum, currently under construction in Los Angeles and scheduled to open next year. The museum is charged with upholding and safeguarding the history of cinema. It will be the world’s leading institution devoted to exploring the art and science of the moving image.
Through the association, Rolex will contribute to the preservation of the history of film. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano, the museum will include a 1,000-seat theatre, with 50,000 square feet of immersive exhibition galleries and a state-of-the-art education studio.
In celebration of this monumental construction,
Rolex unveiled a new campaign this year at the 90th Academy Awards, featuring a quartet of outstanding filmmakers who have each won Best Director Oscars for their work: Kathryn Bigelow, James Cameron, Alejandro González Iñárritu and Martin Scorsese. These Rolex Testimonees represent the pinnacle of achievement in film, as each has redefined the art of storytelling on screen.
Bigelow remains the first and only woman to win an Academy Award for Best Director. Her 2008 low-budget Iraq War film, The Hurt Locker, about a bomb disposal team, won six awards in total. She continues to make films that provoke an examination of the politics surrounding us. “If the purpose of art is to agitate for change, then film should expose us to something we don’t already know,” she says.
Cameron is an acclaimed filmmaker and explorer, and responsible for a host of blockbuster successes from Aliens and The Terminator to Titanic and Avatar. He’s an admirer of precision; attention to details in films helps to transport viewers into the world a movie represents. He has also worn a Rolex for decades and the brand’s watches appear organically in his films; he gave the late actor
Bill Paxton a Rolex Submariner to wear during the filming of Titanic. “A Rolex is not only a beautiful watch and a masterpiece of engineering – it’s very tough,” says Cameron. “It’s a watch that you can take into any environment and which can stand up to the pressure. So, what you’re saying subliminally to the audience is: that character can take the pressure, too; he or she has what it takes.”
Iñárritu won two consecutive Oscars for Best Director ( Birdman in 2015 and The Revenant in 2016) and his latest project, Carne y Arena ( Virtually Present, Physically Invisible), which examines the personal journeys of refugees, won a special Oscar at the ninth annual Governors Awards. Iñárritu had worked with Rolex before. He was the film mentor in the 2014–2015 Rolex Mentor and Protégé
Arts Initiative, when he took his protégé on the set of
The Revenant. “Our life is multidimensional, but time is linear – we cannot escape that,” he says. “Cinema is a two-dimensional reality within a frame, but time and space are fragmented, which is why it’s so liberating and addictive.”
Scorsese is a living legend, a towering figure in the history of cinema. From early works including Mean Streets and Raging Bull, he has had a profound effect on the art form that became his vocation at an early age. “Film really tells us who we are,” he says. “Tells us about ourselves. There’s a reflection of the society that we were at that time, our philosophy of life.”
Rolex will continue to play a part in shaping future generations of filmmakers and inspiring existing ones with the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, originally launched in 2002. With these four exceptional Testimonees, who share with Rolex the understanding and importance of time and making a mark on the world through excellence in storytelling, the best is yet to come. Rolex – a hero for our time and for all time.