RSVP : Someone Should Have Colorized This Event

Actor Kevin Spacey provided a bit of film trivia: “Orson Welles was the only filmmaker who foresaw it. He had written into his contract that ‘Citizen Kane’ couldn’t be colorized. He saw it coming before the technology was there.”

Steven Spielberg had his story of artistic tyranny on a less lofty aesthetic plane. Accepting an award from the John Huston Artists Rights Foundation, he told the tale of scenes he had shot for a TV movie called “Duel” turning up in an episode of “The Incredible Hulk.”

The scene was Friday night at the Regent Beverly Wilshire, where 800 turned out for the evening chaired by David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Martin Scorsese and Barbra Streisand. More than $400,000 was raised to aid in preserving the rights of artists to prevent their films from being edited, colorized or otherwise altered.

Others out for the cause included Tom Selleck, Mel Gibson, Ben Stiller, Anjelica Huston, Richard Benjamin, Sally Field and U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.).

“All we’re asking for is a legal standing,” said Spielberg, “some redress to be able to say we are the moral authors of our work and you can’t do anything you want just because you own the copyright.”

The event, a clunky, interminable proceeding, could have used some editing and extra color. Bewilderingly, arrivals were scheduled for 4:30 p.m. and Spielberg wasn’t due to be presented with his award until 10:30. After the usual rubber chicken, no fewer than 10 assorted individuals took to the stage to speak, sing and introduce each other, often with long, confusing gaps between them. Field spoke twice, apparently by accident.

By the time Spielberg took the stage to accept his “Artists Rights” award, it was past 11 p.m.--well past any Baby Mogul’s bedtime.

Although film preservation was the theme, there were no Hollywood Legends of Yore in attendance and scant traces of old-time glamour.

In keeping with the anti-colorization theme, mostly everyone wore black and white, though not always to great effect. At least two blondes showed up wearing tacky plastic hair clips on top of their heads. The bearded and rumpled boy wonders looked distinctly out of place in their monkey suits.

People weren’t even greeting each other with kiss-kiss, let alone kiss-kiss-kiss, and one gent was seen to greet a young lady friend with a hearty slap on the butt.

Yikes! What was that about preserving our culture?