For 12 days in May, it’s the center of the world for moviemakers, movie mavens and movie lovers alike: the Cannes Film festival, queen of the international film circuit for over half a century. But, though it’s the place where hundreds of movies are premiered for thousands of journalists and filmmakers, and where great reputations are made — from Federico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman to Martin Scorsese and Spike Lee — Cannes has its detractors. People who say it’s too old, too establishment, too glamorous, too pretentious. That the films are overrated.
Once again, the detractors were wrong. Especially this year.
So, what was Cannes 1998? Among many other things, it was the year of Theo Angelopoulos’ final hard-won Palme d’Or, for his capstone work, “Eternity and a Day.” It was also the year of the “Dogma 95 Manifesto” (a declaration against special effects and violence, and for natural light and hand-held camera work) by Lars Von Trier’s Danish wild bunch.
It was the year of the blowout “Armageddon’ and “Blues Brother 2000” parties, of the no-show of the eagerly awaited final directors cut of “Touch of Evil,” of jury president Martin Scorsese’s big heart, John Boorman’s salute to the Irish people (to whom he dedicated his Best Director victory for “The General”) and the improbable triumph of an unbuttoned Italian clown named Roberto Benigni.
That was without a doubt ’98 Cannes’ greatest, funniest moment. To the delight of a huge audience, the great comedian prostrated himself before Scorsese at the closing-night ceremonies, kissed the entire 10-member jury that voted him a Grand Jury Prize for his World War II anti-bigotry comedy “La Vita e Bella” and brought the Palais de Cinema house down.
Even coming 12 months after the star-heavy, media-frenzied 50th anniversary celebration of 1997, this was my favorite of three Cannes Festivals I’ve covered. The movies were better and more varied this year, the crowds more congenial, the results more satisfying. I had more fun, even in the rain which pelted Cannes for four of the first five days, only abating on the day after Frank Sinatra’s death. And that closing ceremony — pronounced by Newsday’s Jack Mathews, a Cannes reporter for more than two decades, the best he’d seen — actually brought tears to my eyes.
By my own count, I saw eight superb films. There were the top winners: “Eternity and a Day” which brought Greece’s Angelopoulos his long-overdue Palme d’Or, Benigni’s “La Vita e Bella’, and Ken Loach’s Glasgow thriller/social drama “My Name is Joe.” And there were four new films by major directors: Sweden’s Ingmar Bergman with the intense backstage drama, “In the Presence of a Clown, Portugal’s 89-year-old Manoel de Oliveira with his three-episode fable “Inquietude”, Taiwan’s Hou Hsiao-hsien with his gorgeous period drama on 19th Century brothels, “Flowers of Shanghai” and Japan’s Shohei Imamura with his uncharacteristically idealistic portrayal of a heroic WWII doctor, “Kanzo Sensei.” (Only “Flowers of Shanghai” was in competition.)
John Boorman’s “The General,” a black-and-white thriller about a Dublin master criminal, was touted by everyone as a return to his “Point Blank”-“Hope and Glory” prime. And there were fascinating discoveries. Especially notable were three vibrant or offbeat French movies by new directors: Erick Zonca’s working-girl drama “The Dream Life of Angels” (which netted “Best Actress” honors for costars Elodie Bouchez and Natacha Regnier), Gaspar Noe’s laceratingly powerful portrait of a psychopathic butcher, “One Against All’ and, also starring Bouchez, the breezily realistic kids-in-the-metro romance, “Louise.” (Bouchez, a radiant young French star not familiar enough here, resembles a punk Leslie Caron and acts like a dream.)
So, I ended up happy, satisfied — having consumed 39 movies in 12 days, raced to more than a dozen interviews and press conferences and tagged along with Robert Duvall to a barbecue where he hoped to meet Iranian directors Mohsen Makhmalbaf and his daughter Samira. (They didn’t make it.)
Was my euphoria mistaken? Strangely, other critics in major U. S. journals were far more downbeat. No good movies. No good parties. No good interviews. Too hot. Too noisy. Too famous. Too obscure. What a drag.
But this is typical for Cannes. There is a particular tone of disgruntled urbanity that many writers and attendees like to assume at this festival, and I suspect part of it comes from simple guilt at being there — amid all that sunny Mediterranean splendor and comfort, with hundreds of movies on the screens, and dozens of publicists vying to set us up with major star and director interviews. Perhaps too many writers are too eager to prove they can’t be easily seduced.
There’s another problem. Cannes stands for competition among films from all around the world, but especially it signifies foreign language films. And, in the U.S. media, foreign language film coverage is an endangered species. “Newsweek,” for instance, now barely covers the event. Other publications concentrate only on the Hollywood contingent at Cannes. Even The New Yorker, supposedly the nation’s most intellectual and art-minded popular magazine, wasted space last year on a silly Anthony Lane report that mentioned almost nothing but parties and Lane’s (somewhat exaggerated) madcap Cannes adventures.
So covering Cannes is a duty as well as a pleasure. Last year, the fest was a disappointment, despite the premieres of such eventual Oscar contenders or Best 10 mainstays as “L.A. Confidential,” “The Sweet Hereafter” and “The Ice Storm.” This year, though the Oscar nods won’t be as plentiful, Cannes lived up to its older tradition. It seemed truly a place where great filmmaking flowered and future classics were recognized.
Credit for much of that goes to the fest’s organizers — President Pierre Viot, longtime programmer and general Delegate Gilles Jacob, press boss Christine Ayme and all the others. But this year, a lot of credit, I think, belongs to jury president Martin Scorsese. Cannes festival jury presidents — including Isabelle Adjani last year and Francis Coppola the year before — usually set the tone of the awards. But you sense here that Scorsese’s was an even more powerful, serene and steadying voice than usual: that he was the guardian angel who made sure that the prizes were not parsimonious and that Angelopoulos, Benigni and Boorman and the others would be fairly remembered. It was Scorsese’s movie-savvy, street smarts and generous spirit that illumined the closing ceremony.
So, if Cannes once again proved a worthy movie mecca, Scorsese showed himself again asa true champion and teacher of the cinema. Benigni’s hilarious prone, shoe-kissing tribute to Mr. “Mean Streets” cracked the president up, but he deserved it.
