Steven Spielberg’s jury will have no shortage of Hollywood talent to sift through on
the Croisette this year. Heralding a strong showing for American auteurs, Palme d’Or
laureates Steven Soderbergh and Joel and Ethan Coen will square off with Alexander
Payne and James Gray at the star-packed 66th edition of the Cannes Film Festival,
announced by delegate general Thierry Fremaux and president Gilles Jacob at a Paris
press conference on Thursday.
In light of earlier announcements – that Baz Luhrmann’s “The Great Gatsby” would
open the festival, that Sofia Coppola’s “The Bling Ring” would kick off Un Certain
Regard, and that Spielberg would serve as president of the main competition jury – it
comes as little surprise that this year’s lineup is so top-heavy with U.S. and English-
language fare, even as it reflects healthy strains of international filmmaking,
especially from Europe and Asia.
The Coen brothers, previously in competition with 2007’s “No Country for Old Men,”
will make a return appearance with “Inside Llewyn Davis,” a look at New York’s ’60s
folk-music scene starring Carey Mulligan and Justin Timberlake. Payne, last in
Cannes with “About Schmidt,” will return with another road-trip comedy,
“Nebraska,” starring Bruce Dern and Will Forte and set in the writer-director’s native
Omaha. Jeremy Renner, Joaquin Phoenix and Marion Cotillard star in Gray’s 1920s-
set drama “The Immigrant,” which previously went by the titles “Lowlife” and
“Nightingale.”
Soderbergh, who recently competed for Berlin’s Golden Bear with his final theatrical
picture, “Side Effects,” will get another sendoff on the Croisette with his made-for-
HBO miniseries “Behind the Candelabra,” starring Michael Douglas and Matt
Damon as Liberace and his younger lover, Scott Thorson, respectively. Although
Olivier Assayas’ six-hour telepic “Carlos” was barred from competing at the festival in
2010, there’s a precedent for HBO fare screening in competition, as “The Life and
Death of Peter Sellers” did just that in 2004.
Fremaux said that while Soderbergh had initially wanted to present “Candelabra” out
of competition, he begged the director via email to “say yes” to a competition slot,
and Soderbergh agreed. “His first film, ‘sex, lies and videotape,’ played at Cannes and
won the Palme d’Or, and we wish him the same fortune with (his last) film,” Fremaux
said.
Also vying for festival prizes are Danish helmer Nicolas Winding Refn (“Drive”) with
his latest Ryan Gosling starrer, “Only God Forgives,” and Roman Polanski’s French-
language adaptation of David Ives’ Broadway play, “Venus in Fur,” with Mathieu
Amalric and Emmanuelle Seigner. Another Polanski-helmed pic, auto-racing docu
“Weekend of a Champion,” will receive a special screening.
Polanski, who hasn’t been in competition since “The Pianist” won the top prize in
2002, isn’t the only past Palme winner back in contention; the others are Soderbergh
and the Coen brothers (who won the Palme for 1991′s “Barton Fink”).
While Warner Bros.’ DiCaprio starrer “Gatsby” will get things off to a splashy start on
May 15, what this year’s festival so far doesn’t have is the sort of big-budget
Hollywood entertainment that typically generates red-carpet wattage at the midway
point (a la “Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted” last year and “Pirates of the
Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” the year before). Rumors had circulated that Warners’
“Man of Steel” or Paramount’s “Star Trek Into Darkness” might nab an out-of-
competition berth, but they didn’t pan out. U.S. studios repped on the Croisette
include CBS Films (“Inside Llewyn Davis”), the Weinstein Co. (“The Immigrant”) and
Paramount (“Nebraska”).
Along with his selection committee, Fremaux said he sifted through 1,858 films
submitted from June to just two days before the press conference – an increase over
selection pools from previous years. Fremaux also pointed out the numerous
international co-productions in the festival, with numerous helmers working outside
their native tongue and country. “Films can’t be reduced to their nationalities any
longer,” he said.
Cases in point: Iran’s Asghar Farhadi (“A Separation”) will appear in competition for
the first time with “The Past,” a Paris-set romantic drama starring Berenice Bejo
(“The Artist”) and Tahar Rahim. Gallic auteur Arnaud Desplechin will have his fifth
film in competition, “Jimmy P.,” an English-lingo drama set in Kansas at the end of
WWII, starring Benicio Del Toro and Amalric. As for “Only God Forgives,” the
violent revenge thriller was directed by a Dane, stars an American as a British
gangster, is set in Bangkok’s criminal underworld, and was funded by Paris-based
powerhouses Wild Bunch and Gaumont.
Out of competition, France’s Guillaume Canet (“Tell No One”) will make his English-
language directing debut with “Blood Ties,” a thriller starring Clive Owen, Billy
Crudup, Cotillard and Mila Kunis. Another high-profile picture slotted outside the
Palme race is “All Is Lost,” J.C. Chandor’s follow-up to “Margin Call,” a one-man
survival-at-sea drama that, per star Robert Redford, has no dialogue.
Of the 19 films slated for competition, 13 are directed by filmmakers who have
previously been up for the Palme. These include France’s Francois Ozon, back with
“Jeune et jolie,” a sexually charged portrait of a 17-year-old girl; Italy’s Paolo
Sorrentino with “The Great Beauty,” which reteams the helmer with “Il Divo” star
Toni Servillo; and Chad’s Mahamet Saleh-Haroun with “Grigris,” the story of a 25-
year-old man who yearns to be a dancer, despite a paralyzed leg.
The three Asian helmers in competition are also veterans: China’s Jia Zhangke with
“A Touch of Sin”; Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda, bringing paternity-switch drama “Like
Father, Like Son”; and his compatriot Takashi Miike, whose thriller “Straw Shield”
looks to challenge “Only God Forgives” as the fest’s bloodiest contender.
“Japanese cinema is making a comeback. It used to nurture the Cannes selection 15,
20 or 30 years ago, and it hadn’t been as present in a long time,” Fremaux said. “We
could have selected many more.”
Aside from Farhadi, the six Cannes competish first-timers are Tunisia’s Abdellatif
Kechiche with Lea Seydoux starrer “La Vie d’Adele,” the helmer’s first film since
2010’s “Black Venus”; Dutch director Alex van Warmerdam with “Borgman,” in
which a middle-class family receives a visit from the devil; France’s Arnaud des
Pallieres with “Michael Kohlhaas,” adapted from the 16th-century novel of the same
name; Mexico’s Amat Escalante (whose “Sangre” premiered in Un Certain Regard)
with crime-and-corruption drama “Heli”; and Italian-French actress-helmer Valeria
Bruni-Tedeschi with “Un chateau en Italie.”
Fremaux said that Ozon’s “Jeune et jolie” and Kechiche’s “La Vie d’Adele,” both of
which explore teenage sexuality, were likely to generate interest and heated
conversation about “the way in which a filmmaker depicts sexuality in 2013, and how
far he can go.” He also noted that both “Adele” and “Candelabra” are same-sex love
stories.
Bruni-Tedeschi is the sole female filmmaker in competition, a small improvement
over last year’s widely criticized dearth of distaff directors. Interestingly, the two
best-known femme helmers in the official selection will screen their latest work in Un
Certain Regard: Coppola with the aforementioned “Bling Ring,” a Los Angeles-set
look at teenage misbehavior starring Emma Watson, and France’s Claire Denis with
“The Bastards,” toplining Vincent Lindon and Chiara Mastroianni. There are seven
female directors in Un Certain Regard total.
“As a citizen, I’m obviously concerned about the place of women in society … but I
don’t think gender should come into play when you’re looking at an auteur and what
he or she has created,” Fremaux said. “It’s clear that men tend to dominate the film
world and Cannes is a reflection of that trend. How to increase the presence of
women in film is a question that should be raised not only once a year after the
Cannes press conference, but every day, everywhere, in film schools, at production
companies, etc.”
Fremaux has gone out of his way to raise Un Certain Regard’s profile during his
tenure, often slotting established auteurs in the noncompetitive sidebar; this year’s
batch includes Rithy Panh’s “L’image manquante”; Alain Guiraudie’s “L’inconnu du
lac”; Filipino helmer Lav Diaz’s latest four-hour-plus opus, “Norte, hangganan ng
kasaysayan”; and “Omar,” from Palestinian helmer Hany Abu-Assad (“Paradise
Now”).
Imprisoned Iranian helmer Mohammad Rasoulof, whose feature “Good Bye” played
alongside Jafar Panahi’s “This Is Not a Film” at the 2011 fest, received an Un Certain
Regard berth for his latest pic, “Anonymous,” which was shot secretly and smuggled
out of Iran. Another UCR title likely to attract considerable attention is James
Franco’s latest directorial effort, “As I Lay Dying,” which Fremaux singled out as “a
very original attempt to bring the singular universe of Faulkner to the bigscreen.”
Over the years, the sidebar has served as an international launchpad for Sundance
hits, as with “Beasts of the Southern Wild” last year. This year’s beneficiary is Ryan
Coogler’s “Fruitvale Station,” which premiered to much acclaim at Park City under its
simpler original title, “Fruitvale.”
Rounding out Un Certain Regard are Flora Lau’s “Bends”; Adolfo Alix Jr.’s “Death
March”; Rebecca Zlotwoski’s “Grand Central,” also starring Seydoux; Diego
Quemada-Diez’s “La Jaula de Oro”; Valeria Golino’s “Miele”; and Chloe Robichaud’s
“Sarah prefere la course.”
The festival will host a special tribute to Indian cinema with a screening of “Bombay
Talkies,” an omnibus featuring the work of four Indian directors. Elsewhere in the
selection, Amit Kumar’s cop thriller “Monsoon Shootout” will receive a midnight
screening.
Other special screenings at Cannes include Daniel Noah’s comedy “Max Rose,”
featuring Jerry Lewis’ first filmed performance in more than 20 years and screening
in homage to the French fave; James Toback’s meta-docu “Seduced and Abandoned,”
which he shot at last year’s Cannes fest; Stephen Frears’ HBO telepic “Muhammad
Ali’s Greatest Fight,” focusing on a crucial moment of the fighter’s career; Taisia
Igumentseva’s “Bite the Dust”; and Roberto Minervi’s “Stop the Pounding Heart.”
Fremaux noted the possibility that a few more films might be added to the lineup in
the coming weeks. The festival runs May 15-26.
Justin Chang- VARIETY – 18.4.13