For my film panel on Babette’s Feast, which I will refer to as Babette, I chose to focus on the critical reception of the film. In addition I also will be delving into the financial success of the film, since I believe a lot of the time these two factors can have direct correlations. I decided on these topics, because even when I was as early as eleven years old I can remember spending Friday’s on the bus ride home reading movie reviews out of the newspaper, and then predicting that weekend’s box office total. So naturally critical reception and financial success seemed like an obvious choice for my topics.

            Babette’s Feast, or Babette’s Gaestebud as it’s originally known, premiered at Cannes film festival in May of 1987. The film was well received and the director, and writer, Gabriel Axel was awarded an honorable mention for the film in the “Un certain Reguard” category for “original and different” films. After Cannes, the film was released in Denmark in August of 1987. Upon release it was met with instant critical success. The movie was, and is still is praised for acting that is “impeccable”, being “beautifully crafted”, and being “the golden standard for food movies”. The main negatives pointed out were the films “predictability” and, with the exception of Babette, it’s “fuzzily sketched forgettable characters”.

            After a few select festivals in late 1987 the film was finally unveiled to America and many other parts of the world in small theatrical runs starting in March of 1988. The film garnered more buzz and positive reviews. The big break for Babette came later in 1988 when it was nominated, and won the Oscar for best foreign language film. The success didn't stop there as the following year, 1989, Babette was nominated for a golden globe and six BAFTA, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, awards. Despite being nominated for six BAFTA awards, Babette only took home one award for best film not in the English language. However, still being nominated for categories such as best film, best actress, and best direction firmly cemented the movie as being one of the best of the year. The success continued after that however not nearly as fast, as the film was released in other parts of the world and was nominated and winning various awards in places such as Italy, Scandinavia, and France.

            Turning an eye towards financial success, Babette is a slightly complicated nut to crack for two different reasons. First, the US box office numbers are easy to read and analyze, however I was unable to find any other box office information outside of the US and Argentina. In addition to that nowhere has the actual, or even an estimated, production cost for Babette. With that being said it is a very safe assumption to make that Babette was a great financial success. The movie earned over 4.3 million dollars in its US release, adjusted for inflation that would be a little over eight and a half million dollars. In addition there were nearly 870,000 tickets sold, or admissions, to the film in Argentina. This would average out to over six million dollars after inflation. So total between US and Argentina, after inflation, the film would have earned almost fifteen million dollars. The last important aspect to consider is that this is only accounting for two countries out of the sixteen that had releases for the film. It’s a safe bet that the film also had pretty substantial box office totals in numerous other countries such as Britain, where it was nominated for six BAFTA awards, and Denmark, where it was made. While we don't know the production cost of the film it’s safe to assume from watching the film it was not anywhere near a high budget film and that the film was a great financial success.

           

           

Work’s Cited

Rosenbaum, Jonathan, and Jeffrey M. Anderson. "Babettes Gæstebud (Babette's Feast)." Rotten Tomatoes: Movies. IGN, n.d. Web. 22 May 2014.

"Babette's Feast (1988) - Box Office Mojo." Babette's Feast (1988) - Box Office Mojo. IMDB, n.d. Web. 22 May 2014.

"Babette's Feast." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 22 May 2014.

"Juries." Festival De Cannes. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 May 2014.