The opening of the Cannes Film Festival lately seems like a simple rule of 3. There will be a well-known name (Johnny Depp, in the case) more than prestige in an expensive production (shot in the very Palace of Versailles) and the result will be forgettable.
But before talking about Jeanne du Barry, the film that opened the 76th edition of the Festival, things happened. At the ceremony and also in the afternoon.
The protocol indicates the order of arrival at the Palais des Festivals. First, the public, who are actually invited, because tickets are not sold in Cannes. Then, the Jury, which integrates Damián Szifron, who was like a boy in a toy store. Actor Paul Dano (The Riddler in the last Batman) was the most patient with the fans, who agreed to take pictures with anyone who asked him.
Damián Szifron, next to the president of the Jury, Ruben Östlund, who is with Brie Larson. Photo EFE
Then, members of the film team that opens the Festival arrive on the red carpet. There the one who let himself take selfies and signed everything they put in front of him was Depp.
Wearing rings and without a bow, Depp reappeared on a movie screen. AP Photo
In a suit, without a bow, but with a white handkerchief in his pocket, tied tail, hook rings, chain and three silver rings on his right hand and two on the left, blue glasses, he received an ovation upon entering the Sala Lumière. Before, Pierre Richard – yes, the actor of I Mustard Up and Tall, blond and with a black shoe – who plays the Duke of Richelieu – stood between Maïwenne and Depp in the photo at the entrance of the room.
He received a standing ovation upon entering the Sala Lumière. Tomorrow, Wednesday, will be his first meeting with the press. AFP Photo
And then, who would receive the Palm of Honor, the American Michael Douglas, who arrived with his wife Catherine Zeta-Jones and his daughter, Carys, the most effusive when they gave him the award.
Depp even posed with a puppy and signed everything that the fans put forward. Photo Reuters
Chiara Mastroianni was the master of ceremonies, and entered the stage singing in Italian. As always, the nine members of the Jury were introduced and there was a musical number, with Cuenta conmigo.
The surprises came when Mastroianni, daughter of Marcello and Catherine Deneuve, invited Uma Thurman to present the Palme to Michael Douglas, who did not hide when putting on his glasses and reading from a screen located in the back of the stalls everything he was going to say.
Michael Douglas, center, with his Palme d'Or of honor, next to Chiara Mastorianni and her mother, Catherine Deneuve. AP Photo
As a brooch, Catherine Deneuve appeared, which is on the official poster of this year's edition. The French diva opened the Festival in French, and Douglas, in English.
"Bon festival", Chiara wished at the end, and before the screening began.
For what.
A bodrio
In Jeanne du Barry Johnny Depp gives life to King Louis XV, in love with a woman who does not come from the court, who is the character of the title, which the also director Maïwenn reserved for herself.
Jeanne Bécu was an illegitimate daughter, born in 1743, who rose through the ranks of Louis XV to become his last official mistress. She was Madame Du Barry, or the Countess du Barry until December 8, 1793, when her head literally rolled: she was beheaded.
Courtesan – a euphemism for a luxury prostitute – she didn't get along with the king's daughters, and the film follows all that at the bottom of the story.
But it is boring, failed, has a voiceover that tells what is seen, or at the end tells everything that happened to the protagonist while the camera points to the sky, as in some films by Enrique Carreras.
Maïwene is neither a great performer nor an excellent filmmaker. If any of all the money he had in this expensive production had put him into hiring a screenwriter, perhaps, in one of those, the result would have been different.
Johnny Depp has not been canceled after allegations of abuse made by his ex-wife, Amber Heard, but for three years he had not been seen on a screen. Maybe that's why he accepted the invitation. He is not bad on the screen, he does not overact, he speaks in French, his face is dusty and every so often he escapes a gesture to Jack Sparrow, his character in Pirates of the Caribbean. Another symptom of how badly Maïwenn runs.
From Pola Negri to Dolores del Río, through Lucille Ball and Asia Argento (in Marie Antoinette, by Sofia Coppola), many actresses were Madame du Barry, and Maïwenn does not honor the character.
A pity, yes, but nothing that a forewarned spectator could not have advanced. There were even some boos at the end of the screening.
The Jury speaks
The press conferences held by the Jury at the Festival de Cannes on the afternoon of the opening day are usually anodyne, boring, a mere formal meeting on one side and the other of the dais, in which the 9 members of the Jury express how honored they feel by the situation, and little else.
Unless something happens outside the established parameters. Which is what happened this afternoon in the Press Room at the Palais des Festivals.
Actress Brie Larson, who stars in Captain Marvel, and who we will see from Thursday also in Fast and Furious X, and who is part of the Jury, was asked directly if she was going to see Jeanne du Barry.
Brie first tried to evade the question. She was present at the opening ceremony, and Maïwenn's film is not competing for the awards, so she was not obliged to stay. "Sorry, I don't understand the correlation or why me specifically," was his first reaction.
Faced with the question, he had no choice but to answer. "I'll see it, I guess. And I don't know how I'll feel about it if I do."
Larson has been an outspoken advocate for #MeToo and came out on more than one occasion in defense of victims of sexual assault. She won the Oscar in 2016 for In the Room, and at the ceremony the following year she had to present the statuette to Casey Affleck, who had been sued by two women for harassment, as best actor for Manchester by the sea. And she stood still, not applauding him even when the audience stood up to cheer Ben Affleck's younger brother.
A day earlier, on Monday, the festival's general delegate, Thierry Frémaux, had supported the inclusion of the film Jeanne du Barry, saying it was simply about screening the film as a matter of free expression.
"I don't know about what Johnny Depp's image is in the United States," he said during a news conference. "Truth be told, in my life, I have only one rule: it's freedom to think, and freedom of speech and action within a legal framework."
In the midst of all this, the actress and director Maïwenn also arrived in Cannes after a scandal, after assaulting in a restaurant a French journalist, who had published accusations against her ex-husband Luc Besson, with whom she married at age 15 and separated at 22, 25 years ago. for sexual assault.
Maïwenn spat in his face, and journalist Edwy Plenel, who is editor-in-chief and founder of Mediapart, a French online investigative daily, where he published Besson's work, filed a police complaint against him earlier this year.
More campaign and no champagne
A new social media campaign, with the hashtag #CannesYouNot, points to the Festival, for "celebrating abusers for 76 years." The campaign was launched online by Amber Heard's followers.
Eve Barlow, who is a journalist, activist and friend of Amber Heard, posted the hashtag on her social media. "Cannes seems proud of its history of supporting rapists and abusers," it reads, adding the French expression "Plus ça change," which is like saying "the more things change, the more they stay the same."
To substantiate his claims, Barlow released a series of photos showing accused men who have had a prominent presence at Cannes over the years, including Depp, Roman Polanski, Harvey Weinstein, Woody Allen, Gerard Depardieu and Luc Besson. "If you support Cannes, you support the predators," Barlow's post reads.
The director was sitting alone at a nearby table, grabbed Plenel's hair and spat him out, after which, she left the restaurant. In the complaint, Plenel said he was "traumatized by the incident."
And for more, a group of French film professionals criticized the Festival for putting "the red carpet to men and women who attack."
By rolling out "the red carpet for men and women who attack, the festival sends the message that in our country we can continue to exercise violence with total impunity, that violence is acceptable in places of creation," said the collective of 123 workers in the French film sector, in a text published in the newspaper Libération.
Cannes is a film festival, but also a sounding board.
See also
