Michael Barker is not only a prime moving force in indie film distribution, but one of the funniest raconteurs alive. He and Tom Bernard, also a funny man, have been the co-presidents of Sony Pictures Classics since 1992, which qualifies them as the Methuselahs among studio heads. Their films have won 24 Academy Awards and 101 nominations. He knows everybody and takes little mental notes, resulting in an outpouring of stories I could tell you, but then I would have to shoot you.
Like many funny people, he exerts a magnetic attraction for funny experiences. He attracted one just the other day, when he went to see the new Paul Verhoeven film. "I'm looking at the screening schedule and I can't believe my eyes," he was telling us the other night. This was at dinner on the Carlton Terrace with Richard and Mary Corliss, Chaz, and our granddaughter Raven. "I'd never heard anything about this. I mean, Verhoeven just made 'The Black Book,' for chrissakes!
"It's titled 'Teenagers,' and it's screening in one of those little marketplace theaters in the Palais. I figure it must be a rough cut under another title or something. The place is jammed. People are fighting to get in. I'm able to get a seat. There are people sitting in the aisles, standing against the wall, flat on their backs on the floor in front of the screen. You can't breathe.
"The lights go down, they have some titles with names I've ever heard of, except for Paul Verhoeven. The movie starts, and a kid takes off his shirt. This is not the Paul Verhoeven I know. There's a stampede for the exit. People on the floor are almost trampled. I finally get out and the director is standing by the door. Sure enough, it says Paul Verhoeven on his badge. I ask him to his face if he stole the badge.
"You're thinking of the other Paul Verhoeven," he says. "He's my cousin."¶
It's been a slow year for sales, what with the economy and all, but Baker and Bernard bought the rights to Jacques Audiard's "A Prophet," Michael Haneke's "The White Ribbon" and "Jan Kounen's "Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky." They were up-front investors in "Broken Embraces" by Pedro Almodovar, his ninth film they've released.
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We have our first winners. The jury for the Un Certain Regard section, which votes a day ahead of the Palme jury, has given its Grand Prix to Dogtooth, by Yorgos Lanthimos of Greece, about three children raised by their parents in a house behind a wall and taught to remain childish, fear the outside world, and learn nothing about it.
Iranian musician
The Jury Prize went to "Police, Adjective," by de Corneliu Porumboiu of Romania, more evidence of the remarkable recent renaissance in Romanian cinema. It's about a cop who is reluctant to destroy a life by making a marijuana arrest.
There was a Special Prize for "No One Knows About Persian Cats," by Bahman Ghobadi of Iran, about two hip-hop musicians in Tehran who scheme to gain passports to Eurpope even though they have prison records. Another special Prize went to "Le Pere de Mes Enfants" ("Father of My Children"), by Mia Hansen-Love.
The Iranian film has generated much discussion simply because it is from Iran, a nation with a great cinematic richness that is much more diverse and complex than many Americans realize.
¶
Faithful readers will recall that after I filed an early report from Cannes, I received this message from a reader named Scott Collette:
I am currently in Cannes, working out of an office on the Croisette across from the Palais. Work ends Tuesday/Wednesday and I am here until the end of the festival and I am very worried that when all is said and done, I will have attended the largest film festival in the world and will have not seen any films. This is already probably the longest I have gone in my life and I'm going through withdrawals. I have no credentials as they are very expensive.I took sympathy. No reader of this blog should come to Cannes and return home empty-handed. Cannes is not a public festival but a business convention. However, our granddaughter Raven blogged about getting a ticket to a screening in the Lumiere. She joined the throngs of hopefuls outside the Palais at every screening, holding up signs saying: Invitation, si'l vous plait!"
Saturday afternoon, Chaz, Carol Iwata and I were leaving after the screening of "Map of the Sounds of Tokyo." Standing there in the lobby was Scott Collette, proudly holding up his ticket. "I got in!" he said. I asked him how. "What Raven did," he said. "I begged."
¶
Newcomers to screenings in the Auditorium Debussy may be puzzled by an event that frequently takes place just after the lights go down. A voice, sounding like a dog baying at the moon, cries out despairingly: "Raoul! Raooouuulll!"
It is possibly a different person every time. This is an ancient Cannes tradition. Legend had it that one day in the infancy of the festival, a guy was saving a seat for his pal Raoul. The screening was packed and he was having trouble defending the seat. In desperation, he called out.
The fact that this practice has survived for 35 years that I know about, kept alive by people who have never met one another, explained to each curious new festivalgoer, is an excellent demonstration of the Richard Dawkins theory of memes. A meme is an idea, phrase, cliché or tune that leaps from one mind to another in its attempt to survive, just as genes leap from body to body.
Someday years from now, somebody reading this will call out for Raoul at a festival. Who knows. Maybe it will be Scott Collette. Remember: Only the Debussy. Never the Lumiere. I can't begin to explain how gauche that would be.
¶
I am much disturbed that for the first time in at least 20 years I have not had a Leopard Lady sighting. Perhaps I haven't been in the right place at the right time. These are a mother and daughter who live in Lisle and for years and years have made an annual pilgrimage to Cannes for the purpose of walking up and down in their matching leopard skin dresses and being photographed as the famous Leopard Ladies.
No, they are not looking for handouts. They're simply enjoying their 15 minutes. I have always seen them walking. Never seated. One year the daughter said she had a short in the competition. They never reveal their names. What are they seeking at Cannes? Maybe leopard hunters.
¶
I have appended one of my Leopard Lady photographs from over the years. Also, a lot of other photos from the last decade or so. I have no idea why they are all of are of beautiful women.
Because the Movable Type blog software tends to mix up captions of long assortments of photos, I have thrown up my hands in despair, and posted them without captions. Most of them explain themselves. The subjects you should be able to recognize. These photos are copyrighted by moi, but by the masterstroke of not captioning them, they will elude Google searches.
As always, every photo can be enlarged by clicking. The newer ones are much improved. The older ones reveal their how small their files are. Posting these helps me pass the time as we await the Sunday night awards ceremony.
¶
Here you will find a trailer for "Teenagers," by the other Paul Verhoeven.
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Thanks for all the lovely stories and the lovely pictures from Cannes. Having once lived there, and missing it much, what I have been salivating for in your Cannes dispatches is a report that you have eaten again at Pizza in the Port, a/k/a La Pizza, and news of how it was. Did you eat there? How was it? And just a few meters from the old port, the ancient men playing boules under strings of electric lights -- do they still go at it, is there space for them, during the festival? Be well.
Ebert: As it happens we have just now come from there. It remains a clean, well-lighted place, the food seemed identical, and the prices were very reasonable. I told our waiter he looked like Francois Cluzot, and he recoiled in horror. No! Alain Delon!
Hmm. It appears that Mr Ebert is branching out into becoming a casting director....
It’s always interesting what you can gather from the looks people give you. In the work of a photographer (take Annie Leibovitz or Peter Lindbergh) you again and again see the models giving the camera a similar look. And even though I’m against interpreting this too much, it speaks of the attitude the photographer has towards his subjects and also of the atmosphere he creates. And here with Sarah Polley or Emily Watson or Tilda Swinton or Charlize Theron there’s always this smile and the twinkle in their eyes, and I think it says that they really like you. And, furthermore, I think I see you in there as well. A peculiar thing that is.
Ebert: Maybe it's 'cause they know I really like them.
As an aspiring writer / director, I often wonder if I would have more success with a surname like "Spielberg", "Hitchcock, or "Orwell". Now, I know that it certainly might open some doors for me, but it would probably be the doors of the theater as the audience walked out.
Glad you had a good time at Cannes, wish I could've been there,
-Luke Bailey
The trailer link isn't working for me, but I dug the URL out of the source, and it works.
http://www.imdb.com/video/wab/vi3793224473/
Ebert: Changed, and I thank you. Now it works. Strange, since I pasted the URL directly...
Ebert: Maybe it's 'cause they know I really like them.
And what's not to like...especially Sarah Polley...a natural beauty.....In regards to your waiter (or anyone else, for that matter), an Alian Delon comparison would be a daunting, and, probably, impossible feat.
Interesting collection of photos. Thank you.
But why do so many of these women have the sealed-lips look? (excepting Vanessa Redgrave and one of the others?)
If you really want to elude Google searches, don't you need to avoid having the subject's name in the filename? For instance I didn't recognize the former star of Dynasty until I moused over the photo and saw the filename.
I'm sure others have wished this, but I would love to see a movie about the little stories of Cannes, like Scott's and Raven's quest for l'invitations, for example, or any of the other smaller stories of movie lovers who long to get in to see one of the Cannes films. This blog, however, is also wondrous for those of us who are experiencing the festival from afar. It really does make us feel like we are there.
Usually when I read blogs I wonder how much of my life I've spent reading them. After reading Roger Ebert's Journal, I feel so incredibly fortunate to have had the chance to read it all. I think I would have gotten less out of Cannes if I had gone myself. Thanks.
"My Date with Film" or "Cannes, mon amour" ?
:evil grin: niiiiiiiice...
Good for Scott! I'm glad he got in. I've always said that to get ahead in life you have to follow the four B's: Bribery, Blackmail, Blowjobs and Begging. Just be glad you only had to beg Scott, hehe.
Funny about the Raoul tradition. A very similar thing occurs at the Fantasia Festival in Montreal where people always yell "DANIEL!" when the lights go down before a film, after one of the most well liked Festival guys. The apocrypha is that during the first year of the festival Daniel had gone on stage and been so nervous that he... well, I won't embarrass the man. I seriously doubt the veracity of the explanation anyway. I think these sort of things survive because strangers find that creating a common bond by sharing some strange tradition, no matter how silly, with others is comforting. For one ephemeral moment we're all family.
"Also, a lot of other photos from the last decade or so. I have no idea why they are all of are of beautiful women."
Roger, you dawg you. Of course you know. It's because they are all beautiful women.
Glad you had fun at Cannes. One day I shall go as well. As all devout Muslims must make one pilgrimage to Mecca in their lives, all genuine film buffs must go to Cannes. I'm sure the French will love my country fried Quebec rube accent, which to their ears make me sound like a Francaise version of Terance Stamp in the Limey.
I've never heard the Raoul story! Fabulous. Thanks for continually sharing these little anecdotes to us fellow cinema lovers. And I'm curious, did you see the guy who incessanly tried to get you a copy of his movie a couple years ago?
Um where are the movie reviews?
Ebert: Check out Cannes #8.
Is that Fairuza Balk? Stunning. Hard to believe this is the same woman that so convincingly played a crazed neo-nazi.
Ebert: I was pleasantly surprised by how nice she was. The actor is not the character, thank God.
This is great and all, but did you see "Enter The Void" or "Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus"? I'm quite anxious to hear what you think of those.
Ebert: I added a short review of "Enter the Void" to Cannes #8. In the daily Le Film Francais poll, it is performing near the bottom. I saw "Imaginarium." Works on the level of art design.
Noticed you have a picture of Sarah Polly. Watch out for a film she is going to direct titled Seventy Times Seven. I wrote it. Unfortunately she doesn't know she's going to direct it yet. ;)
Ebert: Hope she doesn't notice you spelled her name wrong. :)
I wonder if people feel more alive in a milieu like Cannes for the same reason some will struggle for decades trying to break into acting in Hollywood working menial jobs in the meantime. Namely, because we feel freer when playing a rôle than being the mystery of our own self.
It is form of transcendence, of spirituality, that probably goes all the way back to the mystery cults (Walter Burkert) or dithyrambics of Dionysus (Girard's Violence and the Sacred).
You can take the worshipers out of the religion, but you'll never take the religion out of the worshipers. Cheers
Re: the Un Certain Regard Grand Prix:
"children raised by their parents in a house behind a wall and taught to remain childish, fear the outside world, and learn nothing about it"
After the critical bashing that M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village" has taken from yourself and others, it's surprising to see it finally get an award at Cannes these many years later...
It seems like maybe there was another viewer of the film, who, like myself, liked the underlying concept of Shyamalan's film a bit better than the execution.
Ebert: That award inspired widespread dissent here.
Ha ha! I thought the picture of Fairuza Balk was a picture of Rachel McAdams! I hope I just flattered both of those women with that comment. Great picture of Tilda Swinton too. I think it shows off a sweet personality shading that, for whatever reason, doesn't seem to be shown much. And what year was that picture of Elizabeth Taylor taken?
This is completely arcane, unrelated and probably irrelevant, but how do you prefer to pronounce Cannes, Roger? Like "a tin can," like "Genghis Khan" or some other fashion?
Yeah, I noticed that right after I hit "submit." D'oh!
Mr. Ebert should have included Anna Karina, the iconic Danish-French actress, the muse of the French New Wave, on his list of Cannes beauties. She was at the filmfest to introduce a restored print of "Pierrot le Fou".Pictures of her show her looking stunning and glamorous, and not at all like David Thomson's recent comment about her looks in the May issue of Sight & Sound. She was escorted by Costa-Gavras, the Greek director and current president of Cinematheque Francaise, to the premiere of "Une prophete".
Ebert: It's not a listing of great beauties but a selection of photos I was lucky enough to take.
To quote Terry Gilliam's Baron Munchausen: "Beautiful, beautiful ladies." I'm tempted to shout, like Uncle Teo in Amarcord, "I want a woman!" but it's too difficult to pick just one--besides, my wife might point out I've already made my choice. Still, thanks for the pix, Roger.
Mr. Ebert,
Did you attend the screening of Sam Raimi's latest film, "Drag Me To Hell"? The advance word has been excellent, i.e. that Raimi has returned to genre form with this film, and that it's a nod/throwback to earlier genre pictures, complete with an old Universal logo that opens the film.
I too spent most of the Festival wondering where the Leopard Ladies were. I was worried but decided that I was rarely walking along the Croisette since it is much faster taking back streets to avoid crowds, and I missed them. I remember when the daughter was a baby in a stroller in a baby leopard outfit.
They usually have credentials around their necks and one year while talking with them I asked their names and they proudly showed me their badges. But I have forgotten now.
What we are concerned about...the bottom line is their whereabouts in 2009. You will be happy to know I spotted them walking along the Croisette Friday afternoon as I rushed to a screening at Palais Stephanie/Noga/Theatre Croisette (they keep changing the venue's name). No time to stop and say "hello."
Roger....your Cannes coverage this year may be the best ever. Thanks.
Ebert: They did attend!
I wonder why they got credentials since they have never been seen at a movie. I thik they were Marche credentials, not cheap.
You look at that picture of Charlize Theron and have an answer to all of the religious debates on this site.
Also, I zipped over to your recent reviews and was unnaturally gratified to see that you hated that utter piece of sh*t Night at the Museum 2. I understand it's a sequel made for one reason, but for God's sake, have some sort of basic standards!
I like a lot of children's movies (hell, I enjoyed Monsters vrs Aliens), but I hated this movie so much I can't tell you. Nothing in AntiChrist can be as painful as watching Hank Azaria in this thing.
The people in the mostly empty theater just wanted a couple hours of peace at the end of a long school year, and were DYING to laugh, and at least 50% of the "jokes" got no response at all. Total silence.
And the "comic tone" of the movie was so hatefully post-snark. Just the worst.
Hey, I did spot the leopard ladies this year in La Croisette. Funny because as my first time in the festival didn't know anything about them and now I read your post...
cheers!
As one of Scott Collette's friends from college-- where we were both fellow film school geeks who talked movies endlessly, sometimes for hours-- I have been very jealous of both his being at Cannes and having the opportunity to meet you. If I had to pick, I was probably more jealous of the latter. And I've told him as much, at least in my not wanting to discuss movies with him quite so heatedly (we disagreed heavily on Last Chance Harvey and I just couldn't bring myself to engage him).
But I'm over it now, and I think you're spot on that Scott will be back at Cannes someday. Not as a fan, and possibly not as a distributor, but as a professional writer-- and hopefully a director. He is by far one of the most talented screenwriters I've ever read, and his imagination is much like QT's in that it seems to know no bounds or contain no limits. Something I envy in my own writing, which tends to be perhaps too grounded. I sincerely hope you have the chance to review one of his movies some day, I think you'd probably enjoy it.