Cannes Film Festival 2012: The wrath of Cannes

AS the world’s coolest film festival gets underway today, Stephen Applebaum finds that behind all the glitz and the glamour there lies an institution not to be messed with

THANKS to the internet, we are living in an age of leaks. And it seemed like the security-conscious Cannes Film Festival might have sprung one, when a list of 24 films supposedly selected for this year’s 65th edition appeared on a French website calling itself Blog du Festival de Cannes, nearly three weeks before the official launch of the Competition line-up on 19 April.

It was a tantalising post, designed to get film fans’ juices flowing (and, no doubt, to attract traffic to the website). However, the inclusion of last year’s press-shy Palme d’Or winner, Terence Malick, as well as There Will Be Blood’s Paul Thomas Anderson, with films that most commentators believed wouldn’t actually be finished in time for the 2012 edition of the world’s glitziest – and frequently most vulgar and crazy - collision of cineart and commerce, instantly called its authenticity into question.   

Launching into damage-control mode, festival director Thierry Fremaux pronounced it “all lies” and warned that “Cannes is an institution and must be preserved. There is a code of conduct for Cannes and it must be respected,” he told website Deadline.com, adding darkly: “Those who don’t respect the code will never come back to Cannes.” 

He wasn’t kidding. As Lars von Trier discovered very publicly last year, one of the first rules of participating in Cannes is, don’t embarrass Cannes. After making some ill-advised off-the-cuff remarks about being a Nazi and having sympathy for Hitler when he was holed up in his bunker, at the now infamous press conference for his Competition film, Melancholia, the Danish iconoclast was declared persona non grata, and banned from the festival. Although the furore didn’t stop Kirsten Dunst from winning the award for best actress, the decision to exclude her director sent a powerful message: if one of Cannes’ favourite sons, and a past Palme d’Or winner to boot, can be barred, then no-one is safe.

Indeed, it is not just filmmakers that can provoke the wrath of Cannes’ organisers. Journalists are also bound by strict protocols, the breaking of which can result in one’s festival badge being revoked. These precious pieces of colour-coded plastic, depending on their hue, can make you feel like a king or la merde de la Croisette. Some people have the luxury of sailing fairly smoothly into screenings and Press conferences, while others find themselves in a situation that creates the sensation of cattle being herded to slaughter. (The fact that some films make you wish you could be put out of your misery only adds to the effect.) Consequently, tempers have been known to flare and fists to fly.

Whether there will be any of that this year remains to be seen. On paper, though, there is much in the official line-up with the potential to get passions running high. 

Malick and Anderson, to nobody’s surprise, are not part of the programme. Even so, fans of auteur cinema should be well served by the likes of Wes Anderson, whose Moonrise Kingdom kicks off proceedings tonight; Michael Haneke, whose film Love reunites with him with his daring Piano Teacher star Isabelle Huppert; Leos Carax, whose Holy Motors is his first feature since 1999’s Pola X; and the UK’s own Ken Loach, whose Scotland-set whisky heist movie, The Angels’ Share, is a lighter and less controversial proposition than his last Cannes winner, The Wind that Shakes the Barley, six years ago. No doubt Loach’s detractors on the Right are already preparing their well-rehearsed jibes about champagne socialists hobnobbing with the conspicuously rich on the French Riviera. 

Another festival favourite, David Cronenberg, will pitch up with his hotly anticipated adaptation of Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis, which the trailer suggests is far more recognisably Cronenbergian than his recent Freud/Jung face-off, A Dangerous Method. Some fear it could be dragged down by its star, Robert Pattinson, whose recent performance in Bel Ami failed to convince many critics that there was more to him than Twilight’s Edward Cullen. Perhaps Cronenberg can help him silence the naysayers.

Meanwhile, Australia and New Zealand will go toe to toe for the top prize in the shape of The Road director John Hillcoat’s prohibition era thriller, Lawless, and Andrew Dominik’s dark tale of revenge, Killing them Softly, starring Brad Pitt, both of which should be hot tickets.

America’s Lee Daniels returns for the first time since Precious with The Paperboy, which boasts Zac Efron, Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman, John Cusack and Macy Gray among its cast. He will be joined by first-time feature director Benh Zeitlin, whose acclaimed Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner, Beasts of the Southern Wild, has secured a Competition slot. Meanwhile, Jeff Nichols, whose 2011 Sundance entry Take Shelter featured in the Un Certain Regard category last year, will also be competing for the main prize this time with Mud.    

With other Competition entries also including films from the likes of Cristian Mungiu (2007 Palme d’Or winner for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days), Matteo Garrone (Gomorrah), Thomas Vinterberg (Festen), and Jacques Audiard (A Prophet), the jury – headed by Nanni Moretti and counting Ewan McGregor, Andrea Arnold, and, surprisingly, Jean Paul Gaultier among its members – could have a tough time choosing the winner.

All will be revealed when the festival wraps on 27 May, after which the world’s media will stumble out of Cannes as if suddenly awoken from a fever dream and head back to reality. For 11 days, however, the small seaside town with hyper-inflated prices will have felt like the only place to be.

• The 65th Cannes Film Festival runs from today until 27 May.

SHOWING AT THE FESTIVAL

Cosmopolis

Robert Pattinson, probably the most famous cutie on the planet thanks to the Twilight vampire franchise, is about to become noteworthy in an entirely new way thanks to Cronenberg’s Palme d’Or contender. An adaptation of Don DeLillo’s dystopian novel, this entry from the Canadian auteur sees Pattinson as a bored, petulant, limousine-loving billionaire, gliding through Manhattan in search of kicks and a haircut. If Pattinson can hold his own alongside edgy talents like Samantha Morton, he’ll not only impress art-house audiences but prove that his charisma has real bite.

Hemingway and Gelhorn

An out-of-competition entry, but one that will get plenty of attention thanks to the presence of Nicole Kidman (as journalist Martha Gelhorn) and Clive Owen (as the infamously rough and tumble novelist), two privileged Americans brought together by their interest in the Spanish Civil War. Philip Kaufman’s film (made for TV channel HBO), is apparently full of sex. “These were two people who could make love when a building was falling down around them,” says Kidman. Lust in the dust – what a treat.

Holy Motors

Leos Carax, who’s been struggling to get big-budget projects off the ground in the past few years, makes good with a low-budget, high-concept thriller. Over 24 hours we watch an ordinary man (Denis Lavant) hop between various lives – he’s a murderer, beggar, CEO, monstrous creature and father of a family – with legends like Michel Piccoli and Edith Scob, as well as smart Hollywood vamp Eva Mendes, playing different characters in each strand. Kylie Minogue also has a small part and the soundtrack comes courtesy of Northern Irish pop group, The Divine Comedy.

Killing Them Softly

Brad Pitt and Andrew Dominik (whose last collaboration, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, was such a hit at Venice) reunite for a heist drama based on the 1974 novel, Cogan’s Trade. Note the classy male-heavy cast list: James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta, Richard Jenkins, Sam Shepard.

Lawless

Nick Cave has adapted this promising Prohibition drama about heroic, bootlegging brothers played by the usually compelling Tom Hardy and Shia La Beouf.

Love

Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) and George (Jean-Louis Trintignant) are former music teachers. Now in their eighties, their love is tested when Anne suffers a stroke and they’re forced to ask daughter Eva (Isabelle Huppert) for help. Michael Haneke (Hidden and last year’s Cannes winner The White Ribbon) loves to shock middle-class audiences – this one sounds like a welcome change of pace.

Moonrise Kingdom

Wes Anderson spins a predictably off-beat tale about 12-year-old New England lovers who in the summer of 1965 decide to elope, causing their parents (Frances McDormand and Bill Murray), the boy’s scout leader (Ed Norton), a social services doyenne (Tilda Swinton) and the sheriff (Bruce Willis) much angst.

Mud

Coming-of-age drama with Matthew McConaughey as a charming fugitive who changes the lives of two teenage boys, and Reese Witherspoon as his sweetheart.

On the Road

Sam Riley stars as horny pilgrim, Sal Paradise in Walter Salles’ competition entry. Francis Ford Coppola bought the rights to Jack Kerouac’s Beat novel back in 1979 and over the years all kinds of big names have begged to play the writer’s alter ego. Brazilian director Salles saw Riley in the Joy Division biopic Control, called him in for an audition and, two years later, gave him the nod.

Rust and Bone

Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard plays a killer whale trainer who has her leg bitten off by an orca and finds love with a homeless, bare-knuckle fighter (Matthias Schoenaerts). The trailer is heavy on tears and golden sunsets, but director Jacques Audiard may have some steely surprises in store.

The Paperboy

Lee Daniels re-works Pete Dexter’s sex-soaked novel about the potential – and limits – of investigative journalism. Zac Efron and Matthew McConaughey are Jack and Ward James, two brothers in 1960s America drawn into a tangled attempt to get a man off death row.

CHARLOTTE O’SULLIVAN