whatdoesitmeanwhatdoesitmeanwhatdoesitmean
It feels like the entire industry is asking this question daily… repeatedly… frustratedly… fearfully…
Does Cannes matter?
Roger Ebert got it exactly right… it matters to him. It still matters to people who want to be close to the latest in a specific realm of international film… a realm that has only rarely brought anything of weight to America in recent years, the repeated exception being filmmakers who already have a following that would bring their films to America regardless. And the irony? Many of those filmmakers were made by Cannes more than a decade ago.
Just look at Ebert’s list of filmmakers that were in Cannes in 1960: Fellini, Minneli, Bergman, Icjikawa, Antonioni, Jacques Becker, Dassin, cinematographer/director Jack Cardiff, Nicholas Ray, Bunuel.
Seriously.
And in 1960, one of their only possible roads to international prominence was through Cannes.
But here we are in 2010. And Cannes remains one of the greatest film experiences in the world from a seat in the screening room.
However… film festivals, including Cannes, Sundance, and Toronto, are faced with a growing dichotomy between glamor/commerce and art. The ability of the filmmakers, distributors, and media to convert art to more than niche interest is all but gone. So… The Today Show is live from Cannes on Wednesday morning with Russell Croww… and if there is a mention of the Palme d’Or winner on the Today Show when all is said and done, it will be a frickin’ miracle.
Maybe one or two films that do not already have US theatrical distribution going into Cannes will come out with said distribution. A few more will go with IFC or Magnolia or some other VOD/Digital Download loaded distributor with a screen in NY and maybe in LA and long shot, Chicago.
Why are exclusive conclaves like Cannes and Telluride still the best place to see films? Because they are exclusive enclaves with some great films. But what defines the “importance” of a festival is not the internal experience, but the external one. Your local festival in Small Town America can be your Cannes or Telluride. See 10 great, challenging films in 5 days and you are doing quite well. But that’s not enough for people… whether the media or the people who fund and are on boards of festivals.
Perhaps the question is not whether Cannes still matters, but whether Cannes and Sundance and Toronto and Berlin and Venice are actually good for independent film or if they create an artificial product cycle that is seriously damaging the future of the independent movement… at least here in the U.S.
Would having 10 film festivals, for instance, of similar stature, rolling out new, ambitious films, take the gambling nature of the big fests down a peg and lessen the pressure for 90% of distributorless big festival films that get lost behind the handful of films that draw festival heat?
Festivals around the world are struggling financially and artistically these days. And for the B-level of fests, one big reason is that there is no real demand for these festivals, making it harder for these films to become markets, which is how the industry tends to prioritize fests. What has sold in Tribeca, Seattle, Los Angeles, Austin, San Francisco, Toronto (Hot Docs), or Chicago lately? Not much.
In terms of the Cannes experience that Roger Ebert writes about, that commerical question really doesn’t matter. But in the real world of million dollar plus festival budgets and boards and sponsors, it really does matter.
Wouldn’t things be better if there weren’t just 2 North American market film fests and 3 European ones? Wouldn’t things be better if someone really decided to premiere their distributorless American indie somewhere other than Sundance? (Yeah… there are a few cases… but fewer than the filmmakers admit.) And wouldn’t it be nice for filmmakers who embrace the arrogance of desperation around the Palm d’Or to be able to get as excited about the NY Film Festival or Seattle or a festival that could thrive in December, when fests shut down to avoid the two month Sundance indie suction?
And what does the destabilization of the indie distribution companies mean?
Similarly, it means that the more the industry hangs onto its past – even its recent past – the more difficult getting to the future will be.
I had a conversation with a young producer the other day and her perspective was simple… just get out there, know you have all these different possibilities, and work your ass off to find a combination that can work for you. There are no set rules anymore.
Your theatrical, your DVD, your TV, your VOD, your digital download, your merchandising, etc…each one is there to be worked… each one can be a different answer each time.
A studio exec told me recently that the streaming of their studio’s movie was tied into a cable sale that was so fat that it was perfectly fine, financially, to give away the streaming. Great. But for how much longer?
Everything is perspective… both with fests and the business side. We are coming out of an era when it got a little too easy for the players, though many were still left broken on the side of the road. DVD money was insane. Studios getting into the indie game were throwing away money. If your film was In, it was ALL IN… and if out, ALL OUT. With very, very few exceptions, this is now over. But the lack of simplicity means opportunity as much as it means difficulty.
We just ahve to make choices and move forward.
Love Cannes… pay no attention to Cannes. Split those rights and find a way to make it work for growing distributors. Invest in different festivals. Get serious about self-distribution. Figure out new ways to maximize the deals that have been on the table for years, but have been shrinking.
it may seem obvious, but change is hard. And that, in the end, is all any of this really means. Enjoy being awake. We only live once… unless you’re making Bollywood movies.
Watching ET in a drunken stupor and that empty idiot Samantha Harris is tooling around Cannes like a more vapid Guiliana DePandi, so it can’t be that fucking important.
Still, how the FUCK does an American travel to Europe? Seems like the most supernatural shit ever.
But other than that Assayas guy who’s stuff I’ve never seen EVER, the only things I’d remotely care about on that lineup are movies that are coming out over here in two weeks anyway.
Face it, if foreign directors were any good?
(Maher New Rules face…)
They’d be here in AMERICA.
Because if there’s one thing Americans love it’s foreigners coming to work in America.
Just look at all the political campaigns trying to open up the borders!
If I ever go to CANNES I’m gonna go around to every lankily built supermodel type chick with a GREASED RACK and HEELS and be all “CANNES I bang you?”
THAT’S A GREAT LINE. FUCK THE WORLD.
Every day not spend fucking a woman who is FAMOUS is a day where you should SLIT YOUR WRISTS AND END YOUR LIFE.
NONFAMOUS WOMEN DON’T COUNT AS HUMAN.
Between this and the Robin Hood thread with leah, you are really phoning it in this week, Lex. Your franchise needs retooling.
Well, I don’t know, York “Budd” Douchebag; Maybe in the interim YOU could try something like TYPING SOMETHING INTERESTING or ORIGINAL or ATTENTION-GETTING instead of ONLY clocking in to talk about my antics, be they first-tier or second.
Come to think of it, across two boards that I know of, can’t think of you ever making an actual point or post of interest OF YOUR OWN other than to criticize mine.
Who’s a bigger loser, me running my attention-getting game, or guys like you DUTIFULLY CLOCKING IN to complain about it without saying something either original or ON TOPIC.
DOUCHE.
So… The Today Show is live from Cannes on Wednesday morning with Russell Croww (sic)
Corporate Synergy, through and through. Not only that Universal is the biggest offender in slapping “Academy Award Winner” on a movie every chance they get.
Before Comcast takes control of NBC the guys from Philly should purge the entire Universal promotion team.
Signs that Spring is here:
1. Baeball season opens.
2. Final exams are given.
3. “Very special episodes” of popular TV shows air as season finales.
4. David Poland writes a piece about how unimportant the Cannes Film Festival really is.
5. Another well-known movie blogger complains about the WiFi in Cannes.
Gosh, I guess it’s time for me to check the filter on my air-conditioning system at home, and stock up emergency provisions to prepare for hurricane season.
“Face it, if foreign directors were any good…They’d be here in AMERICA.”
“In France, they give me money and I make my movie. In Hollywood, I turn in 100-page script and get back 150 pages of notes. This is why I don’t work in America.”–Francis Veber in an L.A. Times interview
Well said, Joe. As soon as I see the word “Cannes” in one of DP’s posts I’m thinking “Oh jeez, here we go again…”
Although doesn’t he write annually about how EVERY film festival doesn’t mean anything? Or EVERY pre-cursor award?
Corporate synergy?! What’s next? Promoting a movie by calling attention to previous awards and box office hits?!
Sure Cannes matters. But to a smaller and smaller universe. It has inertia on its side. It and a thousand other outdated and obsolete distribution models. And that’s what Cannes is: a distribution model. Nothing more. And unlike 1960, distribution models these days are a dime a gross.
I would love to see Cannes have an official entry in 3D just so it would make Roger Ebert’s increasingly reactionary, narrow-minded head explode.
Much more predictable… someone who has nothing better to do will judge the piece without even considering what the piece actually says because all they really want to do in life is to prove that the author is BAD. The asshole will also bring up Jeff Wells in context whenever possible because he figures this is a way to irritate the author. Ooooohhh, is this putz clever!
I don’t know why anyone comes here every day looking for the opportunity to sniff around my ass, hoping to find a spot I missed while wiping.
Even Lex’s “foreigners suck” inanity adds more to this conversation than you, Joe Dingleberries. Doesn’t your obsession with me bore you? God knows it bores me.
And of course, you will respond to this by whining about how I went personal or got aggressive or some such bullshit spin.
If all you want to say is, “Poland sucks,” go ahead and say it. But I think most of us would prefer that you actually have an opinion about the issue at hand and offer it in a cogent manner.
And to answer your question, Laz… if you read the post, you would see that I wrote about how it all matters and how it all doesn’t matter. And it happens to be true of EVERYTHING in the film world.
Variety going out of business doesn’t really matter… but in some ways, it really does. Firing Todd McCarthy means nothing… but in some ways, it really does.
Berney leaving Apparition means nothing… but it actually does in other ways.
Avatar being The Biggest Movie Ever means very little… except in the ways it does… most of which are completely misread by the media.
Covering the movie universe is always a balancing act between the meaningful and the meaningless. Is it art or commerce? Am I allowed to cover both? Are we able to have a conversation about something that I think is complicated or do we have to narrow it down to something easily targeted, so when I try to discuss both sides and say there is no easy target, I need to be the target?
And specifically with the awards season… I write about the intent of the organizations and the context of the season, etc. There are 10 quite different answers to what The Golden Globes means… or The Oscars… or Carlos de Abreau’s “I paid $20,000 for a table and all I got was this meaningless award” awards.
Would you prefer I just move forward like so many media sheep, doing as I am told, and clearing the path for the media to market movies like the bottom they want us to be? There are plenty of other places you can get that.
Everything I write in here is an invitation to a discussion. That is why it’s a blog and not a column. I invite discussion, including disagreement. When I becomes the discussion – except when it is, in rare instances, appropriate – we are not discussing anything of importance. And the same is true of analyzing Lex or bringing up people’s sexual preferences or geographic location or whatever. I don’t care that much that it gets mean. I mostly care that it’s BORING.
And if it’s me who endlessly bores you, do us all a favor and lose the bookmark. This is not an S&M club, in spite of the name of the blog.
Ladies and gentlemen, David Poland: The thinnest-skinned blogger in the entire blogosphere.
“Variety going out of business doesn’t really matter… but in some ways, it really does. Firing Todd McCarthy means nothing… but in some ways, it really does.”
Wittgenstein he ain’t.
Wow, Joe. Another attack with nothing of any substance to say that I am supposed to think is funny, lest you call me another name.
I hope your students don’t read this blog. They’d be embarrassed for you.
At least you’re transparent. Enjoy the fumes.
Psst, David: You’re the one carrying on like a potty-mouthed grade-schooler in an open forum that you claim is read by lots and lots of folks in the industry you cover. I have been reasonably civil. Now, you tell me: Who has greater cause for embarrassment?
How about those Twilight kids holding out for more money? Man, some nerve.
I thought the piece was pretty solid, at least in terms of the festival cycle and how many (hell, most) indie filmmakers are rather beholden to it. There’s nary a film festival in the summer and that’s always struck me as odd.
The way it is: you get Sundance kicking it off and if you attend 3-4 or more fests a year, many of the films at the other fests bowed at Sundance. SXSW chimes in with some mellower indies and solid genre stuff and then we get the big city fests like DP mentioned that don’t get nearly the attention they should.
Dallas, Atlanta, Maryland, San Francisco and Seattle are all very, very, VERY solid fests that hit around this time but aside from filmmakers from that region, it’s alot of “Best of Fests.”
We get nada in summer (ALL summer!) then October has AFI, Mill Valley, Austin and others, but they’re all out of the loop because all the newer indie fare is waiting for Sundance and then, the cycle starts all over again.
Filmmkers need to do what DP suggests but it all feels like they’re saying, “Yeah, that IS a good idea. You go first.” My way of doing it was just to pinpoint cities I love and try to get my film in a festival there. You meet other programmers, filmmakers, etc and build relationships much better at smaller fests because they’re based on movies, not business and buzz.
“How about those Twilight kids holding out for more money? Man, some nerve.”
WORTH EVERY PENNY.
MOST IMPORTANT SERIES OF ALL TIME.
Fuck STAR WARS, Twilight is way better.
K-STEW IS GOD. And by that, I mean ACTUAL GOD, not that fiction in the Bible.
But everyone else is signed. Doesn’t it look bad?
No straight man could ever love Twilight so much.
K-STEW.
Don Lewis: I think you could add Nashville to the list of solid festivals that are bunched into that pre-Cannes cluster. Maybe that and the other festivals will get more coverage as more websites assign more free-lancers to cover them. But I have to tell you: There is still that hard-to-kill conventional wisdom out there that, if you can’t land a spot at Sundance or SXSW, there’s something “wrong” with your film. It’s almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. And it’s really sad to see some fine films at regional festivals that you know will never get theatrical play, that will be lucky to pop up on VOD.
Oh lighten up, Dave.
Yesterday at this time I actually wrote on the BYOB Wednesday:
“Looking forward to Dave’s annual “Does Cannes matter?” spiel. Because you know, folks, THAT MATTERS.”
But I didn’t click post because I figured you would just get bent out of shape and launch a seven paragraph assault at me. It’s what you do.
Alas…
But you know, Crow… wouldn’t have written a word about that. I am one of a number of people who have written that piece every year… including Ebert and indieWIRE.
On the other hand, if I write a lengthy piece that doesn’t actually attack Cannes, but speaks to the layers of how things now work and all you had to add was that kind of slap, you would be a jerk, not a contributor.
Of course, as soon as Don Lewis writes a valuable response, Joe stops playing the six-year-old who wants to be supreme in the sandbox, and actually adds something to the conversation. Nothing that couldn’t have been written in response to my entry. But he was too busy drawing dirty pictures of the teacher to participate like the valuable addition he can be around here.
Fucking sick of it. I am not interested in playing daddy to a 60 year old man. Boring.
Truth is, it really pisses me off because it makes the comments section in here unreadable. So many of you have been in here for so long that it has become stale with the detritus of personal issues built up over years… expectations… anger…pettiness.
A bunch of people actually contributed to a conversation based on what I wrote. Doesn’t matter whether we agree or disagree. And some people just can’t get past whining about me. It’s boring… and incredibly minor. And if I weren’t the blogger here, I’d stop reading comments for that reason. And that would suck, because a lot of smart people add a lot of smart ideas here that are completely different than I would think of on my own. Even Joe, when he is not acting like an angry member of the glee club trying to get back at the jocks.
57, David. Not even 58 until August.
But to expand on the above post: I have been attending film festivals on a regular basis since the early ’80s, and I’ve always felt a little sorry for the indie filmmakers who hustle enthusiastically — but, alas, unproductively — for their destined-for-oblivion films. Sometimes, when I page through a old catalogue for a festival — Sundance, Slamdance, Fort Lauderdale, SXSW, whatever — and see listings for good-to-great movies that never appeared anywhere ever again, it’s enough to make me put down the drink and pick up the bottle. But in the last 2-3 years, I’ve picked up a different vibe from the filmmakers who approach me at festivals with screeners in their hands. They’re not just anxious these days — they’re often, and there’s no other word for it, nakedly desperate. Yes, I suppose there’s always been a fair amount of that in festivals of years (and decades) past. But here’s the thing: I thought the Internet would give these guys more ways to get out word for their films. But it almost seems like the exact opposite has happened: The are so many films at so many festivals, it’s getting harder and harder to stack out from the pack.
Sorry: Last sentence SHOULD read: There are so many films at so many festivals, it’s getting harder and harder to stick out from the pack.
David, I think your ‘zen’ approach to big-picture writing (nothing matters, and everything matters) could use some freshening up. I don’t think the frustration that (multiple) readers are exhibiting are have to do with this specific article. It has more to do with you seemingly hitting the same note, year after year, seemingly cutting and pasting.
Also, Joe is notorious at this point for needling others out of his own boredom, and should rightly be embarrassed.
I agree Joe, but the internet is also inundated with films and “filmmakers” and it makes it tough to know what to pay attention to. But that gets back to you and David’s point about the importance of regional fests; that’s where you can make a real connection to a writer or someone who can help further your cause.
Just because it’s not a primo stop on the fest circuit, all the fests we mentioned (“smaller” ones even though they’re usually not small at all except in terms of coverage from outlets) have major value.
Plus, lets face it, there’s some real shit out there that gets into fests based on relationships and some of it is rightfully never heard from again. But for every bad movie, there’s 2-3 great ones that fade away. David’s approach is, in fact, right. Zen is the only way to go. See what movies ya, attend fests that want ya (as a critic or filmmaker). The rest will come.
@Don Lewis: Something else to think about: While scanning the list of “Movies on Demand” available through Comcast last month, I found something surprising. Two surprising things, actually. Two movies I reviewed several years ago at the Slamdance and Fort Lauderdale film festivals — movies that, quite frankly, I had never heard about afterwards, and assumed had disappeared from the face of the earth — were readily available all month long as VOD offerings. Made me wonder: How many other festival films that I’ve seen and/or reviewed over the years, and never heard about again, are finally getting at least minimal exposure this way?
Yeah, I keep seeing things I had thought evaporated popping up on there too. Dunno if they went on to a poorly advertised DVD run after the fests or what. I also see some realllllly shitty shit on-demand as well. Maybe they’re buying cheap and selling cheap?
I don’t know what Cannes “means” or if it “matters,” but the fact that 21-year-old “film critic” Anthony Breznican and his floppy hair are both in FRANCE and watching WALL STREET 2 today, and my 37-year-old, worshipping WALL STREET since 1987 in theaters, FILM DEGREE, JOURNALISM DEGREE having broke ass is looking forward to a day of spot-scripting tv cuts of next week’s big theatrical releases in glorious BLACK AND WHITE 1.33 on a 2-inch screen starting at the one-hour mark….
LIFE SUCKS.
I don’t think I really want to be a film critic, but a STIFF like Anne Thompson or a junior-league high school kid like Breznican is off in CANNES watching WALL STREET 2?
FUCK THE WORLD. (TM ICP.)