Cannes Preview: Big Movies, Big Names, Small Impact

The Cannes Film Festival, which kicks off on Wednesday despite a volcanic burst of delayed flights and travel woes, is itself a contradictory, messy event – a mixture of serious purpose and flashy showmanship, of cinema and spectacle.

It’s the year’s foremost showcase for serious international cinema … and it opens with a mainstream Hollywood movie, Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood,” that will kick off a paparazzi-fest chock full of Hollywood stars and A-list parties throughout the French Riviera town.

It’s a competition to choose the best of the best … but the winners rarely if ever make any money at the U.S. box office, and a Cannes winner has never taken home the Best Picture Oscar.

It has high standards for acceptance, attracting the elite of worldwide auteurs … although it runs concurrently with the Marche du Film, a market that annually hawks the rights to some of the schlockiest, sleaziest films imaginable.

It is a festival at which independent exhibitors and art-house companies can sift through the cream of international cinema to pick up films for their slates … and yet the buyers this year will suddenly, surprisingly not include Apparition ("Bright Star," the upcoming "Tree of Life"), which pulled out of Cannes participation at the eleventh hour when the company’s chief, Bob Berney, abruptly resigned.

This year’s festival, Cannes’ 63rd, is also at the mercy of Mother Nature: ash from the volcano in Iceland is still wreaking havoc with flights from northern Europe, while only last week 30-foot waves battered the Cannes coastline and did significant damage to automobiles and oceanfront businesses.

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The show, of course, will go on.

Will the festival have much effect on the American market? Probably not.

Aside from the major-studio productions that occupy out-of-competition gala slots, Cannes films rarely make much noise at the domestic box office — though the visibility brought by the festival will often win them distribution deals and limited releases.

In recent years, the Palme d’Or has gone to “The White Ribbon,” “The Class,” “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” “The Wind that Shakes the Barley,” “L’enfant,” “Elephant” – and one certified financial success, Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

This year’s Cannes is a showcase for big names: Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett in “Robin Hood,” Michael Douglas and Shia LaBeouf in Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street,” Anthony Hopkins and Antonio Banderas and Josh Brolin and Naomi Watts in Woody Allen’s “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger,” Watts and Sean Penn in Doug Liman’s “Fair Game,” among others.

But the meat of the festival is usually in the less high-profile films from international filmmakers. Last year’s festival, for instance, is remembered less for Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” than for an international slate that included “The White Ribbon,” “A Prophet,” “Fish Tank” and “Antichrist.”

The films occupy several different slates: the main competition, which expanded to 18 films with the last-minute addition of Ken Loach’s “Route Irish”: Un Certain Regard, which generally showcases younger, lesser-known directors but this year also includes “Film Socialisme,” a new work from French icon Jean-Luc Godard; and special midnight screenings, special screenings and out-of-competition screenings.

Prominent films at this year’s festival include “Biutiful,” a drama from “Babel” director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu; the film is set in Barcelona and stars Javier Bardem.

Abbas Kiarostami’s “Copie Conforme” (“Certified Copy”), meanwhile, is the first film the acclaimed Iranian director has made outside his home country.

Asian filmmakers have a strong presence on the slate, including Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s “Uncle Boomee Who Can Recall His Past Lives,” Lee Chang-dong’s “Poetry,” Takeshi Kitano’s gangster film “Outrage” and In Sangsoo’s “Housemaid.”

Two of the most prominent British independent directors, Mike Leigh and Loach, made the selection with “Another Year” and “Route Irish,” respectively.

Cannes always likes a little controversy (hence “Antichrist” last year), which could conceivably happen this year with “Carlos,” director Olivier Assayas’ five-hour film about the terrorist Carlos the Jackal. Its subject already tried, unsuccessfully, to sue the film’s producers.

And turmoil has already swirled around Nikita Mikhalkov’s “Utomlyonnye solntsem 2” (“Burnt by the Sun 2”), the most expensive film ever made in Russia. A sequel to the director’s classic 1994 film about Stalinist Russia, the movie was a flop in its home country, and was attacked for its depiction of the Nazi invasion of Russia in World War II.

Judging all of this will be a jury headed by American director Tim Burton, who will be joined by actresses Kate Beckinsale and Giovanna Mezzogiorno, actor Benicio del Toro, cinematographer Alberto Barbera, composer Alexandre Desplat and directors Emmanuel Carrere, Victor Erice and Shekhar Kapur.

The American Pavilion, meanwhile, will be set up for the 22nd year with a series of panels and discussions. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams are among the actors who’ll be in attendance at the Pavilion, along with directors Gregg Araki, Cam Archer, Derek Cianfrance and actor/director James Franco.

As for the buyers in attendance, you can expect companies like Sony Pictures Classics to comb the offerings for possible fall and winter releases, ala "The White Ribbon" and "A Prophet" last year.  But Apparition’s decision not to participate, which comes on the heels of Berney’s sudden resignation, removes a company whose upcoming "Tree of Life" figured highly on Cannes’ programmers’ wish lists.  Had director Terrence Malick finished the film on time, it certainly would have landed a prominent spot at the festival.   

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