It’s a beautiful day in Paris and in Cognac.
The day began with a limo ride from the Warwick to Orly airport (Paris’ Midway). The limo part sounds groovy doesn’t it? It was, except that there were five passengers in one Mercedes that was stretched, but not very much. We also had so much luggage that we had to sit with our bags in our laps. Ah, the glamour of cinema!
The scene at Orly airport was sun splashed and festive as the assembled press and assorted celebrities prepared to board the AOM charter jet to Cognac. We shared the car with our host, the promotions guy for Cognac USA, Dr. Mokliss Al-Hariri, a historian, author and entrepreneur who just may be the coolest, smartest, most sophisticated man this side of Thomas Jefferson. I’ll interview him later in the week.
Also in our car, Richard and Dick, two British journalists — one a freelancer and one writing for the Scotland Weekly. They were commenting on the dominance of American films at this year’s festival. I guess, a few years ago, you could see the blood and brains of people from all over the world splattered on the screens of Cognac. But this year, most of the bodies will be from the U.S. This is in part because we produce so darn many films and partly because our films are kept out of Cognac so that they can be premiered at Cannes. Apparently the French are filmfestaholics. There are literally hundreds of film festivals held in the country each year. But Cognac is, as far as I know, the only one associated with highly combustible alcoholic beverages.
On the plane, Kay and I found that we were not the only Chicagoans attending the festival this year. Norman Mark, legendary Chicago media personality, and his wife, Grace, were also on board.
One of the fun things about the festival is that you deplane to a hail of flashing cameras and screaming fans. None of these people had ever heard of or cared at all about me but they were all photographing and screaming in my general direction with a starstruck glee that was fun to be near.
Immediately upon arrival, we were whisked to the palace of Francois the First (the guy after whom France is named) for the beginning of many cognac-soaked receptions. This one featured tumblers of cognac and tonic on the rocks and cognac with orange juice — both of which I sampled, for reportorial purposes only, and found to be wholly refreshing on a warm spring afternoon. The reception was basically a group grope wherein mildly tipsy people try to slyly read each other’s name tags so they can hug and kiss and call each other by their first names without admitting that they don’t’ actually remember anyone (or anything) from last year.
There were virtually no American stars at this year’s reception, although Robert Duvall is reportedly in town and will be honored later in the week (we’ll see how close I can get to him). There were, not surprisingly, a number of big time French film and TV stars attending, including comedy actress Andrea Ferreol and big time suave guy Claude Chabrol. Personally, I’ve never heard of these people but they are BIG deals in France and there were kids at the airport fighting each other to get close enough to smell them.
There is yet another Chicagoan here, and he’s even got a film in the competition. His name is Ken Solarz. He wrote “City of Industry” starring Harvey Keitel and Timothy Hutton. When asked for a statement to the folks back in Chicago Solarz said, “The buzz is that City of Industry is a strong contender for best film.” So we’ll see how it does.
Shalom.
