By Jake Howell jake.howell@utoronto.ca

Countdown to Cannes: Resnais, Haneke

Posted Thursday, May 3rd, 2012 - Comments Off on Countdown to Cannes: Resnais, Haneke
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The second in a series of snapshots of the twenty-two filmmakers in Competition for the Palme d’Or at the sixty-fifth Festival de Cannes.

MICHAEL HANEKE

 

Background: Austrian; born in Munich, Germany 1942.

Known for / style: The White Ribbon and Caché; films that are bleak or otherwise depressing; a cold, often shocking approach to narratives surrounding social issues

Film he’s bringing to Cannes: Love (Amour), a French-language film about an elderly couple, Anne and Georges, who must cope with both Anne’s stroke that has paralyzed half her body, and the strain it puts on their love. Stars include Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Louis Trintignant, and Emmanuelle Riva. Amour is one of two films Huppert will star in at this year’s Festival; the second being Hong Sang-soo’s In Another Country.

Haneke, Riva, Trintignant

Notable accolades: Michael Haneke has won several prestigious awards, including the Palme d’Or for 2009’s The White Ribbon, which also won the 67th Golden Globes’ Best Foreign Language Film award. He has also won Cannes’ Best Director award for 2005’s Caché, and their Grand Jury Prize for 2001’s The Piano Teacher.

 

 

Previous Cannes appearances: Amour will be Haneke’s sixth film at the Festival.

Could it win the Palme? Haneke’s won a lot of Cannes awards. In fact, Haneke has only walked away from Cannes once without anything to show for it (1997’s Funny Games won nothing). It’s clear Cannes loves Haneke, and we can expect Amour to likely continue his winning streak in at least some capacity. Amour‘s Isabelle Huppert has won many acting awards, including Cannes’ Best Actress twice (1978’s Violette Nozière and 2001’s The Piano Teacher), and Jean-Louis Trintignant has won Cannes’ Best Actor prize for 1969’s Z. In the end, Amour should go very far, especially if it debuts in the latter half of the Festival (where the better films tend to reside).

Why you should care: The reuniting of Haneke and Huppert is exciting, to be sure, but seeing Emmanuelle Riva on the silver screen alongside Trintignant will be truly memorable. Riva was in 1959’s Hiroshima Mon Amour, which is definitely required-viewing for any self-respecting cinema student, while Trintignant has not completed a film role since 2003’s Janis et John. Both Riva and Trintignant are legendary thespians with work dating back to the 1950s, and if Amour has upheld the Haneke standard, it should prove to be a cinematic history lesson.

ALAIN RESNAIS

 

 

Background: French; born in Brittany, France 1922.

Known for / style: Hiroshima Mon Amour and Nuit et Brouillard (Night and Fog); French New Wave (nouvelle vague); a luminous career spanning six decades which has evolved and explored many styles, themes, and ideologies

Film he’s bringing to Cannes: Vous n’avez encore rien vu (You Haven’t Seen Anything Yet), a French-language film loosely based on the 1941 Jean Anouilh play Eurydice. You Haven’t Seen Anything Yet depicts a gathering of actors who meet to read the final will of a deceased playwright. Stars include Mathieu Amalric (who Western audiences will remember as the villain in Bond flick Quantum of Solace), Lambert Wilson (The Merovingian in The Matrix trilogy), Michel Piccoli (La Belle Noiseuse, Belle Toujours, Holy Motors), and Anne Consigny (Claude, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly).

Notable accolades: Alain Resnais has never won the Palme d’Or, but he has received a Special Award commending him for his vast career and cinematic achievements. In addition, Resnais has received Cannes’ Special Jury Prize for 1980’s Mon oncle d’Amérique, as well as Venice’s Golden Lion (1960’s L’Année dernière à Marienbad) and Berlin’s Silver Bear (1994’s Smoking/No Smoking).

Previous Cannes appearances: You Haven’t Seen Anything Yet will be Resnais’ fifth film at the Festival.

Could it win the Palme? Alain Resnais is one of France’s most respected directors, and at the spry, young age of 89, it seems he has a lot of fight left. In fact, it’s almost criminal that a filmmaker as important as Resnais has no Palme d’Or to his name, but it’s very possible this year will change that. Regardless if it is an honorary Palme or a win for his latest film, Resnais certainly deserves one (or three). Indeed, for all we know, You Haven’t Seen Anything Yet could be Resnais’ final work, and it would be admirable of Nanni Moretti’s Jury to acknowledge that. (2011 saw the Festival’s first honorary Palme, given to Bernardo Bertolucci)

Alain Resnais, shooting "Wild Grass"

Why you should care: Given Resnais’ age and the subject matter of You Haven’t Seen Anything Yet, one wonders if the film is autobiographical. Is Resnais trying to tell us something? More importantly, Resnais made 1959’s Hiroshima Mon Amour, which starred Emmanuelle Riva as the main actress. Both Resnais and Riva are going to Cannes this year, and there should be an awesome nostalgia rush in the inevitable photo-op of their Croisette reunion (Hiroshima Mon Amour played in Competition over 50 years ago). To be sure, this year’s Festival is loaded with cinematic history. If You Haven’t Seen Anything Yet is indeed Resnais’ final film (he has made 49), the film world will graciously tip their hat to a man whose films have beguiled audiences for over 60 years. Then again, the title of his latest film may be a tongue-in-cheek reference to his unwavering commitment to filmmaking. Resnais could hit 50 films and keep going (Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira is 103 years old, and age hasn’t stopped him yet). Ultimately, only time will tell what Alain Resnais intends to share with the Festival audience, but one thing is certain: it will undoubtedly generate some interesting analysis in whatever that may be.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

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~ David Simon