Thursday, May 15, 2008

Can Cannes Film Festival get serious?

There are 22 films in official competition this year, and roughly 35,000 story-hungry journalists with a desperate need to tell Clint about where he got it wrong. I don’t know why the Palme d’Or exerts this cruel grip. The 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival last year was a stunning demonstration of celebrity pulling power but a ghastly disappointment on screen. The tabloid froth and pop looked brilliant on the red carpet but the films withered on screen.
Gilles Jacob and Thierry Frémaux – the Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev of the Cannes monopoly – have dramatically revised their faith in tinsel. The two oligarchs have wisely reinserted a cerebral spine into the festival. They have recalled tried-and-tested favourites: auteurs such as the German maestro Wim Wenders, the perennial Cannes champions Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne and a sprinkling of lofty American mavericks including Steven Soderbergh, James Gray and Clint Eastwood...

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