by Nathaniel R
Maren Ade, Will Smith, Agnes Jaoui, and Pedro Almodóvar at the Jury Press Conference today
Though we aren't in the South of France we'll try to keep an eye on the proceedings across the pond there these next two weeks. If you're relatively new to movie obsessing (We keep hoping more young people will tune in to TFE. We used to attract baby cinephiles... not sure where they congregate now!) Vox has a terrific heavily expository overview of why Cannes is so important, how to pronounce it ("can" not "cans" or "cahn"), why so many famous people go, why everyone is so dressed up, and some other myths and mysteries that surround the festival.
Jury Press Conference & the Netflix Divide
Because juicy click-bait headlines drive traffic most websites are framing the Jury Press Conference as a bloody war between the president Pedro Almodóvar and his most famous juror Will Smith. They may well eventually come to artistic blows in jury deliberations (who knows) but this is already grossly overstated. They merely have different feelings about Netflix, a famous "disruptor" as a company. Will Smith is very pro Netflix (basically because he has kids who like it). Almodóvar is very pro theatrical exhibition, because you know, he's a filmmaker who cares about movies. That's about the extent of the "war"...
Gross simplification alert! For what it's worth France has very complicated laws governing their cinema. Those laws have kept France an important hub for cinema forever despite its small size so they obviously work. That's one of the reasons why Cannes made headlines for giving Netflix an ultimatum: Show your films in theaters in France, or you can't be in competition. This is a relatively simple an reasonable request FOR A FRENCH FESTIVAL and the fact that people are so upset about it and acting like Cannes is being unreasonable is telling about how little thought people are putting into this. Yes, it's convenient to watch Netflix. I like doing it, too. (I was totally losing sleep bingeing Sense8 last night) But that doesn't mean they're always right!
If you give them too much power you will not like the end result. Netflix has absolutely no stake in the theatrical model continuing at all. Nor even movies themselves continuing at all really. They want to disrupt the movie model but they don't even appear to want to replace it with their own movies, really. Their actions as a company have clearly shown that they are interested in principally becoming a content creator of original TV series. This is totally fine, no judgment. It's great for TV fans -- so far they've made pretty good ones -- but this is not a reason to give them control over movie culture which they have no interest or stake in! They've been systemically getting rid of their movie library (finding movies made before 2000 is increasingly difficult, as if the 20th century never existed!) and when they make their own product, it's usually TV series. Why make movie institutions and theaters and awards groups (like Cannes and the Oscars) bend to their whims? They're a different business entirely is my point.
I shared more notes about the press conference on twitter which begins VERY uncomfortably with weird passive aggressive comments, and dumb mistakes including the moderator guy (I don't know his name) telling everyone how great Fanbingbing was in The Handmaiden even though she a) isn't in The Handmaiden and b) isn't even from South Korean.
...Fanbingbing's translator is, at this moment, in the difficult position of telling her how great she was in a movie she wasn't in. #Cannes pic.twitter.com/j5kpOAH6DT
— Nathaniel Rogers (@nathanielr) May 18, 2017
Note to Cannes Hosts: Kim Tae-ri and Kim Min-hee are both great in South Korea's The Handmaiden but neither or them are Fan Bingbing who is a Chinese superstar.
Opening Film
Arnaud Depleschin's newest film Ishmael's Ghost opened the festival. As is the tradition with opening night films, reports are that it was "underwhelming." (A larger question: Why does anyone want to open a film festival, we must ask? It's a basically untenable position since this "underwhelming" response is par for the course and not just at Cannes. Nobody wants a festival to peak on opening night, everyone is just excited to have arrived and nobody is really focused on that first movie as THE thing to focus on.)
Ishmael's Ghosts stars Marion Cotillard and Charlotte Gainsbourg, who showed up to the photocall looking impossibly chic in complementary white and black outfits -- Cotillard wore jeans! But they changed before the premiere itself into appropriately glitzy attire.
Despleschin, Cotillard, Garrel, and Gainsbourg at the premiere
Marion Cotillard already worked three chic outfits at Cannes and its only day one. She wore that white flowing caftan over jeans for the photocall, a black gown for the premiere, and then this curiously floofy sparkly number for the gala. She gave birth to her second child just two months almost to the day so perhaps she was dying to glam it back up?
Yes, yes, Jose will cover fashion for us this year but I just wanted to pipe in a bit early with this particular red carpet queen.