Hey folks, what we have here is an interesting report from Paris by Cocteau, and his English isn't the best, but then it's probably a bit better than my own. I like the color of this piece, it doesn't have a ton of info, but I like the flavor. Take a taste and see if you agree.
I'm not sure this message really fits in your page, but there will be one or two nice informations...
I'm writing you from Paris, France, and I'm a huge movie-fan (actually working in it).
The last 2 weeks, news were monopolized by the Festival of Cannes, where you could meet very nice people and see a whole bunch of a hell of good movies. I couldn't get there this year, so I have to refer to general audiences' critics, but I read a lot about, so my informations should be pretty close to the reality.
First of all, we DIDN'T have nor "Star Wars 1", nor "Eyes Wide Shut" which have been announced from time to time. So long for any HUGE information. BUT, we had pretty interesting stuff, especially for those people who love a sort of out-of-the-tracks-movies: "Ghost Dog" by Jim Jarmusch with Forrest Whittacker, which is apparently VERY good; David Lynch's new flick, which has to been said it would get the Golden Palm (but he didn't). Apparently it's much calmer than all his other flicks, very mature, simple, but intense and his principal actor is to be said to go to the Oscars; Takeshi Kitano's lastest movie, which also has been said to get any prize (he didn't neither), so he had a very good level. Pedro Almodovar presented "All About My Mother", which is a tribute to "All About Eve", but with a very different story. If this movie is a little bit crazier than his last flicks, it's still more mature than his first movies. Well he got the prize for "Best Direction", which is far away from the "Golden Palm" everybody expected to see him win. At last, Atom Egoyan presented "Felicia's trip" with Bob Hopkins and critics didn't like it all.
Concerning the ceremony, it has been presented by Kristin Scott-Thomas and prizes were given by people such as Geraldine Chaplin or Val Kilmer. The best part was definitely Sophie Marceau, which just shoots the new "James Bond". The medias said the next morning that she didn't want to read the official text and that she didn't find much inspiration for an own speech - the truth is, that she was completely f**cked, she must hava had a HUGE trail of coke before climbing up the stage. She didn't say anything, just telling who movies suck, Cannes sucks, how children die on this earth...well completely beside her socks. Scott-Thomas interrupted her, the audience starting to boo and whistling.
The jury was very interesting this year: David Cronenberg was its president, there were Barbara Hendricks, Jeff Goldblum (!), Holly Hunter and other european celebrities. Everybody expected David to provocate a sort of shock while giving away the prizes and he did very well (in shocking) : none of the favorites (Kitano, Lynch, Jarmusch,Greenaway) got anything; he gave the prizes to the most intellectual and indigest movies of the Festival ("L'Humanité", a 2h25mn movie by a french guy and " Rosetta" a little belgian movie), attributed the prizes of best actor/actresses to non-professionnal people (even better than R. Benignini stealing the Oscar of T. Hanks and compagnie) and the Palm of Best Script to a little russian movie describing the relation of Hitler with Eva Braun and the Goebels-family during one day; this latest movie has been seen by nobody everybody leaving during the screening...
It's absolutely fabulous, french people are disgusted, the medias don't know how to react and Cronenberg is considered definitely as an "enfant terrible", a bad, bad boy who isn't as welcome as he was before any more. I just loved it, Cronenberg hitting very hard, giving the prizes to movies HE really loved, no matter the diplomatic or political relations, no matter prizes he SHOULD have done to people like Takeshi because they are THE FAVORITES of the people. For once, we didn't assist a clean and nice ceremony played at advance, like the Oscars, where many money is involved and the prizes given away to actors close to their death or stars of the present moment. A real surprise and a big hit in the face.
