Last Sunday marks the official celebration of Cannes' 60th
anniversary. And scuttlebutt on the Croisette was that organizers
are pulling their hair out over the screening of Chacun Son
Cinéma, the series of short films commissioned by the festival
and shot by some 35 renowned directors — they are to gather
together to stride up the red carpet. Following that, a huge
fireworks display is planned and an exclusive party at the far end
of town. "It's total madness," said one French industry
executive.
Indeed, early in the morning, a screening of the film was
followed by a press conference that only added to any tension.
Roman Polanski, who won a Palme d'Or for The Pianist in
2002, apparently got increasingly fed up with what he considered
softball questions lobbed by the assembled journalists. At one
point before the end of the meeting, he took the microphone and
said, "It's a shame to have such poor questions, such empty
questions, and I think that it's really the computer which has
brought you down to this level. You're no longer interested in
what's going on in the cinema. Frankly, let's all go and have
lunch."
None of the other directors followed suit, but at a more
intimate event later in the day, several failed to turn up. In the
media equivalent of speed-dating, round tables were organized with
three directors and a handful of journalists meant to have
20-minute discussions before the journalists switched to a new
table. Neither Wong Kar-wai nor the Coen brothers were spotted, and
Polanski, who was meant to sit with Atom Egoyan and David
Cronenberg, failed to turn up as well.
Egoyan, however, happily shared his memories of going to the
movies. All of the directors asked to participate in Chacun Son
Cinéma were given a mandate to talk about the movie theater
itself. Egoyan noted that although he didn't put it in his short,
"The first time I ever copped a feel was during 'The Sting.' Maybe
I should have done that movie!"
Another theme to emerge during the day was annoyance with the
lack of intimacy found in movie houses nowadays. "You used to turn
off the outside world when you went into a cinema. Now it's a zone
that you negotiate," said Egoyan.
Guillermo del Toro, who was in town Sunday morning for a news
conference to announce the upcoming release of a world premiere
HD-DVD version of Pan's Labyrinth, called the medium "an
opportunity to experience film in exactly the same way as at the
movies or even better. If you go to the cinemas I do, you get
crying children, bad popcorn, terrible sound, and you can hear the
explosions from the Schwarzenegger movie playing next door."
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(Agencies via CRI.cn May 21, 2007)
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