By Jake Howell jake.howell@utoronto.ca

Cannes 2013: A Slate Analysis

It’s time to switch on the projectors.

So says Festival de Cannes president Gilles Jacob in his press memo, like a gun shot at the start of the race.

But wait a second.  This is the movie business! “It’s time to switch on the projectors” feels way too stuffy for your stereotypical Hollywood trailer. I propose the following tagline (try and read it in your best trailer voice):

This summer:

19 films. 

19 men. 

One Bruni-Tedeschi.

(The complete Cannes’ Official Selection, including the Competition, Un Certain Regard, and Out of Competition programs is here.)

From the Selection, we know that Cannes veteran Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi (who has primarily walked the Croisette as an actor) is the only woman in Competition. Bruni-Tedeschi’s Un Chateau en Italie faces 18 films by 19 men (Inside Llewyn Davis is a Coen brothers joint), her contemporaries mostly selected for Un Certain Regard.

Un Certain Regard 2013 looks especially promising. The Salle Debussy sidebar seems far more interesting than the Palme slate, with an intriguing collection of newcomers, lesser-known directors, and women (six, in fact). Of the famous names in Un Certain Regard, Claire Denis, James Franco, and Sofia Coppola make for a tempting trifecta.

As for the Competition, I’d underline the fact that Cannes has programmed 18 films and one TV movie. Steven Soderbergh’s Behind the Candelabra debuts on HBO literally the day after the Festival ends, which strikes me as disappointing (the slot could have gone to Claire Denis, who hasn’t played in Competition since 1988). Of course, the sex, lies, and videotape Palme-winner has reported to retire after Candelabra, so a final shot at gold should prove to be a nice sendoff for Soderbergh.

As for my personal must-see picks, Alexander Payne’s black-and-white Nebraska is a film I hope to be first in line for (and I probably should, given how popular it will be). Similarly, Bruni-Tedeschi’s Un Chateau en Italie sounds to be a classy, light-hearted dramedy, while Francois Ozon’s Jeune et Jolie looks fun and sexy. Big names like James Gray’s The Immigrant (formerly “Lowlife”) and Inside Llewyn Davis are certainly attractive, but I’m keen to see some of the lesser-buzzed flicks, like Arnaud des Pallières’ Michael Kohlhaas (which stars Cannes ‘12 Best Actor, Mads Mikkelsen). Finally, Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives should be a brilliant shot of adrenaline.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be continuing what I did last year with my Countdown to Cannes series, where I write short bios for each director in Competition and their respective film’s Palme potentials. Updates and trailers will roll in, too, so we should have a strong idea of what to expect on May 15 when The Great Gatsby opens the Festival.

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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

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon