Notes on Cannes

The competition and the Un Certain Regard selections for the 60th Cannes Film Festival are out, and the general consensus among my fellows is, aside from some disappointing but probably unavoidable omissions: What's not to like? Hell, the programmers have even given the American press a day to sleep in by putting David Fincher's Zodiac in the competition!

What am I most looking forward to? Well, see below for my musings, mainly on the competition for now.

Yeah, I'm totally down for Wong Kar-Wai's My Blueberry Nights. Am I the only person in the world who's completely blown away that the script for this was co-written by crime writer Lawrence Block? Apparently Kar-Wai is a huge fan and sought out to work with him for his first America-set film, even though it's not a crime picture. I've always found Kar-Wai's non-actress star, singer Norah Jones, kind of alluring, although a music industry insider tells me she's...what's the nicest way to put this...kinda dumpy in person. I don't buy it.

Every now and then it becomes an obligation for some to announce, as loudly as possible, that they've given up on the Coen Brothers. Again, I don't buy it. Even when they make a movie I'm not too crazy about—Intolerable Cruelty, let's say, as I actually kind of dug The Ladykillers—I never get a "now they've lost it" vibe from their stuff. That said, No Country For Old Men is already feeling like one that'll get the nay-sayers shouting "a return to form!" etc.

The Man From London: Bela Tarr meets Tilda Swinton.

What do I say to that? See right. That's what I say to that.

I know there's a lot of guys out there who are drooling over the prospect of seeing Vanessa Ferlito's missing-reel lap dance in Tarantino's stand-alone Death Proof, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't interested, but what I'm more interested in is how he's gonna make it work as a stand-alone. There's the bifurcation, for one thing, and there's also that its freeze-frame ending only really works in the double feature context. Maybe I'm wrong. And maybe QT will cite Syndromes and a Century in defense of the bifurcation!

Glad to see Julian Schnabel's Le Scaphandre et le Papillon got made at all, let alone made it into the competition. I ran into Schnabel around this time last year at the Tribeca Fest and he seemed to be having an awful time with the project, which had been slated to star Johnny Depp in the lead role of Jean-Dominque Bauby, the French magazine editor (at Elle, like Premiere a Hachette enterprise) whose debilitating stroke left his entire body paralyzed—save his left eye, which he used to communicate and eventually to write the memoir upon which the film is based. The more-than-capable Mathieu Amalric wound up taking the role of Bauby.

Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park, about skateboarding and murder, employs a young amateur cast, just as van Sant's 2003's Palme d'Or winner Elephant did. Van Sant's 3 for 3 at getting into Cannes since 2003. Go Gus! Abel Ferrarra's Go-Go Tales looks to be an at least slight return to sleaze after the intense, rewarding theological explorations of his last picture, Mary, which itself has yet to be seen here, which is a shame. James Gray's We Own the Night seems to contain a slight return to the Russian mob theme of Gray's first feature, Little Odessa; my only complaint about James Gray's films is that there aren't enough of them. Kusturica, Breillat, Akim, ki-Duk, Sokurov: bring 'em on, I say. (And now I've stumpled upon a potential complaint: with so many masters on display, is there enough room for new directors?)

The standout oddity of the bunch? Les Chansons d'Amour, a musical from Christophe Honore, whose 2004 adaptation of Bataille's Ma Mere ended with a, er, memorable depiction of necrophiliac incest. Chansons stars sulky Louis Garrell (who was the necroincest commiter in Mere) and the also sulky Ludivine Sagnier. Could be funsy!

The disappointing omissions, incidentally, were Paul Thomas Anderson's oil saga There Will Be Blood and Todd Haynes' postmodern Dylan biopic I'm Not There, neither of which are ready, apparently. I'm also sad there's no sign of the new Cronenberg. But the director's fortnight hasn't been announced yet....

Comments

[Aaron Aradillas]

I guess it would be asking too much for Revolution Studios to let Julie Taymor present her version of Across the Universe at Cannes?

I'm surprised Moore's Sicko isn't in competition.

I would LOVE to see Zodiac with a French crowd.

[Neil FC]

Can't wait for the new Wong Kar-Wai BUT it stars one of my least favourite actors (Jude Law, in case you were wondering.) I find it kinda depressing when an actor that i just can't stand is in a movie by a director i really dig. And Law has been in movies by Spielberg, Scorcese and Cronenberg! If David Lynch ever casts him in one of his movies i will take it as a sign of the Apocalypse.