CANNES – Has this ever happened before? Last night at ten, Asia Argento’s new film, The Heart is Deceitful...Above All Else (Bible, Jeremiah 17, 9), was screening in the Director’s Fortnight. At the same time, The Cardplayer was playing in the Market. The Cardplayer was directed by Italian horrormeister Dario Argento, Asia’s father.
Given the utter rarity of father-daughter director combos – I can think of five and only three where there’s a career overlap – what are the odds of that happening? (The other four are Mohsen and Samira Makhmalbef, Francis and Sofia Coppola, John and Anjelica Huston and Xan Cassavetes, John’s daughter, has her first film (Z Channel – A Magnificent Obsession) playing at Cannes this year. The Cassavetes and Huston connections, just as an interesting trivia note, also includes sons who direct, Danny Huston and Nick Cassavetes.
ANOTHER BRAIN TEASER – I don’t have a definitive answer on this yet, but Gerald Peary of the Boston Phoenix brought it up. Who is the living American director with the oldest extant film, and the answer is not Robert Wise, who made his first films in 1944.
MORE MICHAEL MOORE NEWS – Michael Moore makes it hard to stay on his side. Taking to the streets with the CGT union protesters, Moore announced that.......
"A job is a human right, a living wage is a human right. This is a human right," he told the workers.
"I am here today in solidarity with the French workers who are here to seek a living wage,"
Unfortunately, the “unemployed cultural workers” aren’t talking about jobs and a living wage, they’re talking about cuts to one of the fattest unemployment packages any union has anywhere. They’re discussing, in effect, a living wage for not working. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I wouldn't mind getting a living wage for not working.
I ran into Allen Franey from the Vancouver Film Festival, and he told me that the protestors managed to shut down Market screenings at the Star Cinema yesterday afternoon with a sit-in. I was thinking that there's been several screenings over the years that I wished that had happened.
QUENTIN COMES THROUGH – Earlier this year, Quentin Tarantino announced that he was pushing Miramax to release the full director’s cut of Zhang Yimou’s Jet Li/Donnie Yen/Maggie Cheung sword movie, Hero, which the company had been sitting on for so long that buyers had a choice of DVDs from Hong Kong and Taiwan readily available for order over the web. That version, which Zhang had cut at Miramax’s suggestion, runs about 90 minutes. Miramax has just announced a press screening here for tomorrow morning at ten. Running time? 109 minutes. Nice to see someone in Hollywood using his powers for good.
SPEAKING OF RUNNING TIME – The Gate Of The Sun, the really long Palestinian film screening out of competition – indeed, screening as I write this – has mysteriously gone from an announced running time of 278 minutes to an updated running time of 292 minutes. Since I know a couple of people who are actually in that screening right now, I’m curious to see if it actually tops the five hour mark.
YOU KNOW YOU’RE IN TROUBLE WHEN – The best quote you can find to put in your trade paper ad is “More gloomy than Twin Peaks – Il Messagero”. The film in question is Follow The Shadows, an Italian picture screening today in the Market. (The ad is on page 54 of Screen International.) Perhaps it sounds better in Italian. Perhaps in Italy “More gloomy than Twin Peaks” is the highest form of praise.
MORE DVD NEWS – They’ve announced this year’s additions to the Cannes Collection DVD list, and it’s an interesting assortment. American titles include The Alien Quadrilogy, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Special Edition, Kieslowski’s The Decalogue, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Extended Edition, City Lifhts, Miramax’s Pulp Fiction Special Edition and The Pink Panther Box Set. European titles include Sunrise, the French Special Edition of Gus Van San’t Elephant, which is quite different from the American edition, including a full disc of extras, A new box of Maurice Pialat films, and a European Warner edition of Tex Avery’s cartoons, which I have. It’s pretty good, except it’s all of Avery’s MGM cartoons. So it has all the Droopy Dawg’s and Screwy Squirrels – Avery’s blatant attempt to create his own Bugs Bunny – but the great black and white cartoons Avery did at Warner remain in silver disc limbo.
