Party Coverage: Scene City: A Salute to Tom Hanks at the MoMA Film Benefit



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Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Meg Ryan at MoMA

Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Meg Ryan at MoMA

CreditKrista Schlueter for The New York Times

The monochromatic labyrinth that is the Museum of Modern Art isn’t particularly known to give visitors the warm fuzzies, but on Tuesday night, the space echoed with resounding positivity.

“We are going to be all right,” said Tom Hanks, who was the guest of honor at MoMA’s annual film benefit. “We are going to be all right, because we constantly get to tell the world who we are.”

And when Tom Hanks tells you something, you believe it. “Tonight just feels like the warm hug that we all kind of really need,” said Rajendra Roy, MoMA’s chief curator of film. “And for America’s Dad to give us that hug is kind of more perfect than we could have ever imagined.”

Spend an hour (or four) with friends of Mr. Hanks, and the adoration seems to effervesce like Champagne bubbles. “He’s already the nicest guy — everybody knows that,” said Aaron Eckhart, Mr. Hanks’s co-star in “Sully.” “He’s already smart, witty, fun, charming. We all know that.”

But the night was not only about coming to terms with the election. It was also about raising some $1.4 million for MoMA’s 30,000-strong collection of films.

At 8:30 p.m., a squadron of organizers dressed in Chanel, which sponsored the gala, ushered guests with militaristic precision from cocktails in the Agnes Gund Garden Lobby to the subterranean theater for the night’s presentation.

Emma Watson, Mr. Hanks’s co-star in the forthcoming movie “The Circle,” set the speech bar high. “If I can conduct my career with at least some of the grace which he has conducted his with, I know I will have succeeded,” she said.

Steve Martin took a more riotous approach. “So we all know that Tom is a genius,” he said, nursing a glass of Sancerre. “And Thomas Edison said that genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. And that’s why, when Tom enters a room, everyone leaves.”

After video tributes from Oprah Winfrey, Ron Howard and Clint Eastwood, guests took in a montage of Mr. Hanks’s staggering body of work. “It’s odd to look at your life flash before your eyes and, uh, not be dead,” Mr. Hanks said incredulously.

After a standing ovation, guests were guided up another stretch of escalators to the atrium, where 25 tables flickered in the glow of candlelight reflected off peonies. Before the apple tarte Tatin, a sweet end to a savory three-course dinner, Stephen Colbert introduced the evening’s performer, Leon Bridges.

As guests swayed in their seats to the jazzy strains of Mr. Bridges’s set, all the angst of a divided nation seemed to melt away.

As Mr. Colbert put it: “All around the world, we can look at the films he’s done and say, ‘That’s an American man, right there.’”

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