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Deprived of Cannes, Anderson, Eastwood, Iñárritu, Denis tell what the festival represents for them

2020-05-14T13:47:01.613Z


The New York Times gives the floor to some twenty directors who remember the significant moments experienced on the Croisette. And explain that this pause must serve to feed a collective reflection on the cinema.


For the first time since 1946, no movie star will step on the red carpet in May. The coronavirus health crisis was right, like many events, the 73rd edition of the Cannes Festival. The opportunity for the New York Times to give the floor to some twenty directors who have passed through the French Riviera, from the Dardenne brothers to the Safdies, via Debra Granik and Christophe Honoré.

Also read: Pierre Lescure: "Cannes must not draw the curtain"

That they remember the wonder felt when they first climbed the stairs (Hirokazu Kore-eda), the audience's hoots (James Gray), the decisive meetings they made there (Mohammad Rasoulof), moments of thanks to their experiences there (Asif Kapadia), all of them evoke the Croisette as a place full of memories and emotion.

"Cannes before the pandemic for me, whether I'm going there or not, represents a kind of warm moment in the spring, " said Claire Denis, one of the 23 personalities interviewed. "Even when I don't go, I know the list of films in competition ," continues the director of Chocolat . I get informed by reading newspapers and articles, whether I am there or not. I never lived a month of May without knowing that there was a Cannes festival. ”

This year, we will have to do without Paul Verhoeven, Sofia Coppola or Leos Carax, who are expected to join the official competition. How to pass the time by the 2021 edition? The Dardenne brothers, double winner of the Palme d'Or ( Rosetta and L'Enfant ), have their idea. "We have the impression that we must use this break to stop our activity and initiate a reflection on our work, cinema and its function in society" , explain the Belgian directors, wondering about the place of streaming platforms in a post-containment society.

Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, winner of the staging prize for "Le Jeune Ahmed" at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival in May 2019. Lionel Hahn / ABACA

Others, like Wes Anderson, take advantage of this period of inactivity to "improvise as a home teacher" for his four-year-old daughter. The Texan exiled to the Land of Lights finds time to revise his classics. "We watch a film every night ," says the filmmaker. During our last evenings we saw  : Secret Desires, Stronger than the devil, Do The Right Thing, Men of the Sea, Crucified Lovers, La Grande Bouffe, Passionate Lovers, Station 6 Blonde, What Price Hollywood? and who killed the president? ”

His next feature film The French Dispatch was one of the films expected on the Croisette this year. “Thierry Frémaux [the general delegate of the event, note] really knows how to organize a film festival, says the director of Moonrise Kingdom , remembering his only Cannes getaway in 2012. There were good films of all kinds and coming from four corners of the globe. And can you imagine a better place than the beaches of the Mediterranean to watch a perfectly restored 251-minute version of Once Upon a Time in America ? ”

Once upon a time on the Croisette ...

Clint Eastwood knows the Côte d'Azur well, where he has presented five films in competition since 1985. The legendary nameless man Sergio Leone even received a palm of honor from the festival in 2009. His last time on the Croisette ? In 2017 to attend the anniversary screening of his film Merciless . "It was nice to see young faces watching an old movie, " he says. I hadn't seen it in years, so I was curious to take a look at it myself. He is still standing. Sometimes when you go back so far in the past you wonder what you have been trying to do. But a lot comes back to you when you see the pictures. ”

President of the jury of the previous edition, Alejandro González Iñárritu set foot on the Cannes beaches for the first time in 2000 to present his film Amours chiennes . It was the first time in my life that I had ever set foot in a film festival, remembers the Mexican filmmaker. Our budget was so tight that we decided to stay in a village 25 minutes from Cannes where the rooms were much cheaper. ”

Read also: Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu: "In France, there is a real culture of cinema"

From this Cannes premiere, the director of Babel remembers especially the film by Wong Kar-wai In The Mood For Love , whose 20 years were to be celebrated this year Cannes . "Maria, my wife, and I walked in silence for ten minutes after the screening ," he says. We stopped to watch the sea. Maria took me in her arms and started to cry without being able to stop. I did the exact same thing. In The Mood For Love left us speechless and deeply moved. At that moment, I remembered that, even if it was sometimes particularly difficult, I wanted to dedicate my life to making films. ”

And if the festival arouses the desire to make films, it also has the power to make people think about the world around us. The documentalist Michael Moore remembers his palm of gold received from the president of the jury Quentin Tarantino for Fahrenheit 9/11 in 2004. "He leans towards me during all the hubbub and says to me:" "I want to tell you something thing I never told anyone. I never voted. In fact, I never even registered on the electoral roll. While watching your film, I decided to register when I got home in Los Angeles ” , he recalls his evening of celebration spent alongside the director of Pulp Fiction . I ran into him the following year and he told me that he did. He registered and voted. In a way, it gives meaning to what I did. It is the most rewarding of the palms that one can receive. "

Source: lefigaro

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