LE JOUR DE PALMES…
CANNES – This is a singularly odd Saturday at Cannes. For the first time in several years, they’ve shifted the awards to Saturday for the first time in years, which means there’s two days at the end of the festival with virtually no new films, just repeats of the Official Selection. Which would be fine, except that tomorrow, the two movies I really wanted to pick up from the Competition, Wong Kar Wai’s 2046 and Innocence: The Ghost In The Shell 2, are screening at the same time, and it conflicts with the Jury’s first ever “What the hell were we thinking?” post-awards press conference.
Aaaaaargh….
The awards, by the way, will be announced at about 7:30 local time, which is around 1:30 Eastern. By 2:30 Eastern, you should be able to read the complete results here http://www.festival-cannes.fr/default4.php, the official Cannes Festival website.
As to other awards, Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 was awarded the FIPRESCI Jury Prize, The Ecumenical Jury honoured The Motorcycle Diaries, Walter Salles’ portrait of revolutionary Che Guevara as a brooding young hunk (Gael Garcia Bernal of Y Tu Mama Tambien, whom many are favoring for the Best Actor Prize.), and the Prix d”Un Certain Regard was awarded to the octogenarian Senegalese director Sembene Ousmane for Moolade, an indictment of female genital mutilation.
The festival has offered a reasonably strong lineup this year – particularly in light of last year’s selection – so early predictions for the awards are all over the place. Look for an Asian film to take the Palme, though, probably Wong Kar Wai’s 2046, though it IF Jury President Quentin Tarantino is particularly persuasive, perhaps the hyper-violent revenge film from Korea, Old Boy. Maggie Cheung a very strong contender for best actress, and something for Michael Moore.
20 MINUTES WITH CHARLIZE THERON
And you know all those pictures of her looking fabulously tall and blonde? Well, Charlize Theron – that is Academy Award-winner Charlize Theron -- shows up in a white sundress that looks like a modernist re-think of Marilyn Monroe’s iconic dress from Seven Year Itch, and a couple of inches of heel that take her up over six feet.
It’s a press lunch, which means the press gets to eat, but the stars don’t, because then they’d risk talking with their mouths full, with the oddest appetizer I’ve ever tasted. Avocado and crabmeat, topped with ice cream fromage blanc (that’s a white cheese ice cream). I’m not making this up – it’s like five bad ideas in a single dish.
In The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers, Theron plays Sellers’ second wife, Britt Ekland, who has apparently gotten over her misgivings about Theron playing her in the movie – she came to the Cannes premiere as Theron’s “date”.
“I don’t want to make movies about real people and have it be a lie, and I really wanted her to see the film," change says Theron. "I called her and asked her what she thought, and when she said she hadn’t seen it, I invited her to see it here.
“She was a bit freaked out – a lot of my wardrobe and their bedroom in the film are copied directly from Sellers’ home movies and photographs. She told me that she felt that we’d told the truth, but remembered it as a bit worse than we’d portrayed it.”
“She was an interesting character to play. She was 21 and really fresh off the boat from Sweden, and he was 38, and she thought she’d live this fantasy life and it would all be great and two months later he turned into who he was. Britt told me that the reason their marriage lasted five years was that she was so young – if she’d been older, she wouldn’t have put up with the mood swings.
Theron’s next projects are Class Action, for director Niki Caro (Whale Rider), then the fantasy Aeon Flux, from the anime, with director Karyn Kusama (Girlfight). In a world with very few female directors ARE working on Hollywood level projects, Theron, in the wake of her Oscar for Monster, with director Patty Jenkins, seems to be cornering the market.
“I don’t set out to just work with women directors, but I tend to fall in love with a movie and tell my agent that I want to work with that director. I loved Whale Rider, and Girlfight just knocked me out. It had a level of reality that startled me. I wouldn’t get into a ring with Michelle Rodriguez. That’s how I wound up in The Yards, because I’d loved Little Odessa and wanted to work with James Gray.
“At the end of the day, you realize that you do what you do, and you do the best you can, but the director is going to make the film.”
