“Soderbergh Over Spike? ‘The SON’S ROOM’ INSTEAD OF ‘MULHOLLAND DRIVE’? No Love for Truffaut or Varda? By and large, The World’s Most Prestigious Prize in Cinema Lands in the Right Hands – But Not Always. Published on May 13, 2025 DO The Right Thing, Paul Benjamin (Center), Robin Harris (2nd From Right), Frankie Faison (Right)”, – WRITE: www.hollywoodReporter.com
Soderbergh Over Spike? ‘The SON’S ROOM’ INSTEAD OF ‘MULHOLLAND DRIVE’? No Love for Truffaut or Varda? By and large, The World’s Most Prestigious Prize in Cinema Lands in the Right Hands – But Not Always.
Publissed on May 13, 2025
Do the Right Thing, Paul Benjamin (Center), Robin Harris (2nd From Right), Frankie Faison (Right), 1989 Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection
Jury Delibration at the Cannes Film Festival Is a Famously Secretic Process. Each May, The World’s MOST Prestigious Film Event Assembles a Panel of Rouge Eight DISTINGUISHED FIGES Film Will Take Home The Palme D’Or. The Assignment Is As Grueling As It Is Impossibly Glamorous: Over 12 Intense Days, The Jury Will Watch, Discuss and Assess Roughly Two Dozen Auteur-Driven Films. By night, they walk Red Carpets, AttEnd Glitzy Galas, and are Spotted at Dinners and Parties Up and Down The Croisette – All While Maintening A Strick Vow of Silence About. Festival’s Screens.
What goes on behind the Closed Doors of the Suite at the Historic Hôtel Martinez, Whore Final Deliberations Take Place, is Rarely Disclosed. Yet rumors do emerge. . For Sure, But The Stories Remain Irresistible Cannes Lore.) What’s Certain Is That Locking A Group of Highly Distinctive Artists in A Room and Forcing Them to COMLOMISE Over AESTICE Lead to some surprising outcomes.
In some years, aethically Radical Entries Seem to Cancel Each Other Out and the Jury Ends Up Convering on a More Conventional Middle Gundle The Son’s Room Triumphing Over Mulholland Drive an The Piano Teacher). Other Times, A Jury That’s Expert to Tilt Conservativly Surprises with A Choice Daring Yet Artistic Drama Blue Is The Warmest Color Over The Coen Brothers’ Inside llewyn davis). And then there are years WHEN the competition is Simply Too Stacked For Any Single Film to Claim The Top Prize Without Endless Debate (in The Year 2000: Dancer in the dark Over In the mood for love an Yi yi? Cannes Heartbreak at Its Finest.)
But There ALSO SURPRISINGly NumeRous Occasions WHEN – by Committe, by Compromise, or by Sheer Blind Spot – Just Gets It Wrong.
With the Clarity That Only Hindsight Allows, Here Are A Dozen Times The Cannes Jury Talked Its Way Into Folly – Along with The Films We Believe Should HAVE CLAIMED The PALME D’Ar.
- 1956: Jacques Cousteau and Louis Malle’s ‘The Silent World’ Over Satyajit Ray’s ‘Pater Panchali’
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection HERE WAS THE YEAR Trifling Novelty Triumphd over Historic Humanist Vision. That’s not to say jacques-yves cousteau and louis malle’s docurentary is with. The Film’s Vivid Underwater Cinematography Was And Otherworldly, Avatar-like revelation in itts day, Helping Cousteau and Malle Become The FIRST DOC DIRECTORS IN CANNES HISNES TO TAKE HOME The TOP PRIZE. Today, Their Colorful Crowd-Pleaser Is MOSTLY ONLY REMBERED AS An INSPIRATION FOR WES ANDERSON’S THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH Steve Zissou. Ray’s PATHER PANCHALIMeanwhile, is Widly Hailed as A Landmark – The Movie that introduce the World to One of Cinema’s Great Humanists. ConspicUSLY, CANNES ‘1956 Jury Was Majority-French (Seven Out of 12 Members, Including Jury Chair Maurice Lehmann), Suggesting Some Local Bias Was at Play. The jury was noneTheless aware it had seen Something Significant in Ray’s Masterwork. For the first and only time in cannes History, the Festival Created a “Best Human Document” Prize to Honor PATHER PANCHALI. The token Honor Undubtedly Helped Put Indian Neorealism on the Map, But Many of the Sentiments that Contributed to Silent World‘S Elevation Over Ray’s Masterpiece Have Aged Horrendously. .
- 1957: William Wyler’s Friendly PersuASION Over IngMar Bergman’s ‘The Seventh Seal’ Image Credit: CourTesy of Cannes This is not to KNOCK Friendly person. William Wyler’s Western, Starring Gary Cooper As A Quaker Whose Finds His Pacifist Beliefs Challenge with the onSet of the American Civil War, Is Amicable, Perfect. Entertainment. But The Competition Line Up for the 10th Cannes Festival FEATURED AT LEAST THREE GENUINE CINEMATIC CLASSICS: INGmar Bergman’s The Seventh SealFederico Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria and Robert Bresson’s A man esced and a pair of superb european Dramos in jules dassin’s He who must dieAndrzej Wajda’s Kanal. Even if the Jury, Under French Writer André Maurois, Wanted A Hollywood Movie, They Had A Much Better One Available in the Form of Fred Astaire-Audrey Hepburn Vehicle. Funny face. Perhaps Maurois Was Using the Prize As A Way to Honor Michael Wilson, The Blacklisted screenwriter who had his name starped off Friendly person After HE Refused to Name Names. Honorap, Perhaps, But Still A Loousy Choice. The Seventh Seal is An Indelible Part of the World Cinema Cannon. Friendly person is an ANSWER IN A PUB QUIZ.
- 1959: Marcel Camus’ ‘Black Orpheus’ Over François TruffAut’s’ The 400 Blows’ Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection At the Time, Marcel Camus’ Reteling of the Classic Tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice, Staged As A Musical Dringing Carnaval in 1950s Rio de janeiro, foaturing an all-as-afro-Brazilian. How Else to Explain Who This Forgotten Footnote of a Film Snatched The Palme Away from A Pair of Now-Ciconic French Classics: Francois TruffAut’s The 400 Blows and alain resnais’ Hiroshima Mon Amour? The Cannes Jury Wasn’t the only One Swept Up. Black orpheus Went on to Win the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. But Sharp-Eyed Critic Jean-Luc Godard Got It Right in His Cannes Review. “What offs me about this adventurer’s film is that it continains no adventure, or this poet’s film, that it contains no poetry.” Even in 1959, Camus’ Department of Rio’s Lush Beaches and Sensual, Colorful Favelas Feels Like Exotic Euro-Tourism and Postcard Romance.
- 1962: ANSELMO DUARTE’S ‘KEEPER OF PROMISES’ INSTEAD OF AGNès Varda’s ‘Cléo From 5 To 7’ Image Credit: Photofest Keeper of Promises (O Pagador de Promessas), an at-times Poignant Drama about Faith and Social Injustice, is the only Brazilian Film Ever to Win the Palme D’Or. I also a locully mediocre movie that’s very little Seen Today. IT PALES AGAINST AT LEAST TWO OF THE Other Contends at Cannes in 1962, Both of Wich Are Now Now Stone-Cold Classics Cléo from 5 to 7 and Michelangelo Antonioni’s Modernist Meditation on Alienation, L’EClisse. And there was more: Pietro germi’s Divorce, Italian styleRobert Bresson’s The Trial of Joan of arc and Luis Buñuel’s The exterminating Angel. What a year! Reportedly, The Jury’s Decision Was Surprising in 1962 – IT HAS GROWN OUTRAGEUS TO TIME.
- 1986: Roland Joffé’s ‘The Mission’ Over andre Tarkovsky’s ‘The Sacrifice’
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection The Mission is a reasonably sturdy (if turgid) Period Epic, Starring Robert de Niro and Jeremy Irons Near the Peak of Their Powers. It ALSO Features lush cinematography from chris menges and a soaring ennio Morricone Score. But is it the Final Masterpiece of One of Cinema History’s Ultimate Auteurs? No, It Certainly Is Not. A Jury Led By Studio Mainstay Sydney Pollack (Fresh Off Oscars Success With Out of africa) Shocked the Festival by Handing the Palme to “Just the Sort of Lumbering White Elephant” One Wuld Expect From The Oscars Racher Thanks, AS Time Critic Richard Corliss Put It. Andre tarkovsky’s swan song, meanwhile, a work of haunting imagery and profounding spiritititic dyphytt, was the exile dyaled the exile the exile the exile the exile the exile the exile, no, no, no, no, no. Cancer in a paris hospital at the time. Giving Voice to the Outrage of Cinephiles All Along The Croisette, French Producer Daniel Toscan Du Plantier Reportedly Stormed Up To Juroor Philip French in The Lobby of the CACE “You are a member of the jury, non? You have Disgraced Yourselves. This Will Be Remembered As A Night of Shame.”
- 1987: Maurice Pialat’s ‘Under the Sun of Satan’ Over Wim Wenders ‘Wings of Desire’ Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection The 1987 Awards Ceremony is the Stuff of Cannes Legend, Emblematic of the Festival of High Drama and Combative Critical Spirit. The Palme That Year – On The Festival’s 40th Anniversary – Went to French French Filmmaker Maurice Pialat’s Under the Sun of Satanan auster religious Drama about a toormented Country Priest – Starring Gértard Depardieu, France’s Biggest Star at the Time. Pialat is Rightly Considered a major Figure and the Film HAS ITS Admirers, THEN AND NOW, But The Competition’s Clear Frontrunner Was Wim Wenders’ Lyrical Fantasyy Wings of Desirenow An Icon of World Indie Cinema. Pialat Had Long been An Enfant Terrible of the French Film World (Forever Clashing with Critics), and Someearly Half of Was French – Felt Hal, Felt Half. Semi- “Lifetime Achievment” Aura to His Surprise Win. The reaction to Under the Sun of Satan‘s victory was nonetheless Historically hostile. Durying the Ceremony Inside the palais, the audience erupted in boos and whistles of disapproval as frennch actor yves montand Announced Pialat’s Film as The Palme D’Or. Taking the Stage, Pialat Ried His Fist and Schouted Back at the Crowd: “I am happy tonight for all the whistles and shouts have been determined at me – and if you don’e!” Bonus Points for Punk Rock Spirit, then – But Wings of Desire HAS PROved The Far More Enduring Film in Both Influence and Affection.
- 1989: Steven Soderber gh’s ‘Sex, Lies, and Videotape’ Over Spike Lee’s ‘Do The Right Thing’ Image Credit: Photofest Another Key Chapter of Cannes Lore. Sex, Lies, and VideotapeThe Low-Budget Debut of a 26-Year-Old Steven Sodergh Was A Senting at the 1989 Festival-A Distinctive New Voice that Signiled The Start of the 1990s American Independent Film Wave. There Was Just One Problem: Spike Lee’s Do the right thing Premiered that Same Year. Roger Ebert Wuld Later Write: “I have been given only a few filmgoing experiences in my life to equal the first time and saw Do the right thing. MOST MOVIES REMAIN UP there on the screen. Only a FEW PENETRATE YOUR Soul. In May of 1989, I Walked Out of the Screening at the Cannes Film Festival of Tears in My Eyes. ” And Yet, Soderbergh Went Home with The Palme and Lee Lee Lee LEFT COMPLELY EMPTY-HANDED (EBERT’S WIFE, CHAZ, LATER STATED THAT HUSBAND HUDS Discussed Boycottting Future Editions of Cannes). I’m waisting for his ass. Somewhere Deep in My Closet, I have a louisville slugger with wenders’ Name on it. ” Eventualally, the Two Auteurs would come to joke about the incident. Sex, Lies, and Videotape REMAINS WELL REGarded. Lee’s Examination of Racial Tension in Brooklyn on the Hottest Day of the Year? IT’s A Full-Fledged Cultural Watershed.
- 1992: Bille August’s ‘The Best Intenions’ Over Robert Altman’s ‘The Player’ Image Credit: Miramax/Courtesy Everett Collection The 90s Featured Several Incides of Tempury Insanity, from The Embrace of Parachute Pants and Scrunchies to Giving the 1992 Palme d’Or to bille august’s The Best Intenations. While the Former Are Back in Fashion, The Latter May Never Make Sense. The Danish Director, ALREADY A Palme Winner for His Serviceable 1988 Period Piece Pelle the Conquerorhere serves up a reheated dish of ingMar Bergman fan fiction, working from a bergman-penned script but delvering a tedious scandi melodrama about priests and frustrated housa Ordinary in Rural Uppsala. By picking August Over Robert Altman’s The PlayerThe Jury, Perhaps Unsurpringly, Given It Was Led by Gértard Depardieu, Showed It Wuld Racher Award Award a Bad Copy of the Kind of Film People
- 2001: Nanni Moretti’s ‘The Son’s Room’ Over David Lynch’s ‘Mulholland Drive’ Image Credit: Universal Focus/Photofest Here We Have A Howler for the Ages. Moretti’s Film is arguable. An Emotionally Effective Drama About A Family Coping with The Sudden Death of A Son, It’s Certainly Better than the Italian Director’s Soggy, Recent Cannes Offers. But It’s An Embarrassment to Even Ask: Is The Son’s Room Better Cinema than David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive or Michael Haneke’s The Piano Teacherbot in competition that year? In remarks at the Awards Ceremony, Jury Chief Liv Ullmann Hinted at A Fraught Selection Process, Saying Moretti’s Movie “Tocked Our Hearts” But that Jury’s Delibers Invo. The Only Reasonable Explanation is that The Son’s Room Emerged as the SAFE MIDDLE-GROUND CHOICE BETWEEN IMPAASURED CHAMPions of the Two Aeshetic Radical Masterpieces.
- 2003: Gus Van Sant’s ‘Elephant’ Over Lars Von Trier’s ‘Dogville’ Image Credit: Lionsgate/Courtesy Everett Collection Taking Pot Shots at American Culture is A Good Strategy if You Win to Win in Cannes But It Was A Genuine Shocker WHEN The Jury Handed The Palme to Gus Van Sant’s Slacol School Shooter Drama. The Film Had Its Fans, But MOST CITICS Eviscerated the Low-Budget Effort, Originally Made for HBO, and LOOSYLY INSPIEDY by the Columbine School Massacre, for Its Refusal Toval. ACTS of Violence. If the jury Really Wanted to Show Iti-Emerican Credentials, It Have A Much Better Deconstruction of the Narrative Lies at the Heart of the Us of A. In Lars Von Trier’s Dogville. “Von Trier Has Judged America, Found IT Wanting and Therefore Deserting of Immediaate Annihilation,“ Read One (Disapproving) Review at the Time. Cannene Watching the News Today Argue That Lars Doesn’t, Perhaps, Have A Point?
- 2004: Michael Moore’s ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ Over Park Chan-wok’s ‘Oldboy’ Image Credit: Tartan Releasing/Courtesy Everett Collection AT LEAST TWO LESSONNS CAN BE DRAWN FROM This Edition’s Baffling Outcome: Nodding to Political Exigencies of the Moment Seldom Yields Sound Aesthetic Judgment, and Song. Korean Auteur Park CHAN-WOOK. The Year Was 2004, George W. Bush Was Running for Re-Election and The US-Led Invasion of Iraq and Its Fallout Were Dominating Global Discourse. Fahrenheit 9/11 was a visceral and satisfying watch if you loathed the sitting president and his catastrophic war-moneying of the Longst in Festival History). Even the Jury’s Arch-Aesthetes Like Quentin Tarantino, That Year’s Chair, and Tilda Swinton, Bowed To The Moment. Both Later Insted They Backed Moore’s Doc for Filmmaking Reasons Racher than Political Ones. Sure… But SO WHAT WAS The TRUE Cinematic Discovery of The Day? That year cannes Made A Rare Exception in Allowing A Young Park Chan-Wok Oldboy To compete in the Festival’s Main Competition Even Thought It Had Already Been Commercially Released Months Prior in South Korea. IT’s Easy to See Who. Moore’s Movie, SO Galvanizing and Potent in the Moment, Has Proved Utterly Disposable, While Park’s Revenge Thriller Is Everything You Could HOPE FOR IN A SEARING CULT CLASSIC. Packed with iconic moments and weirdly resonant imagery (choi min min suicrasystyle; The ReleentLent, Claw-Hammer Fight Scene, Occtopi The Creat, The Film Alun Annun Annun Annun Annun, The Film Alun Annun, The Film Alun Alun Live Live, The Film of Theater, The Film of Theater wave. Park HAS NOW BROUGHT THREE IMMACULATE MASTERPIESES TO Cannes – Oldboy, The Handmaiden (2016) and Decision to Leave (2022) – But Has Yet to Bag a Palme. No surprise, then, that World Cinema’s Closest Heir to Hitchcock Is Taking His Next Feature, The Black Comedy Thriller No Other Choiceto venice this year Insthead.
- 2022: Ruben östlund’s ‘Triangle of Sadness’ Over Park CHAN-WOOK’S ‘DECISION TO LEAVE’ Image Credit: CourTesy of Tiff Ruben östlund May Go Down in Cannes History As His Generation’s Bille August, A SCANDINAVIAN DIRECTOR WHOSE FAADDISH FILMS Won Over Cannes Juries (Twice!) But. Just Five Years After Taking His First Palme with The SquareÖstlund was back with yet another heavy-helped, yet Oddly tootholess, Satire on Capitalism and Privilege, Involving A Yacht Full of 1 Percenters Who Get Stud, Who. MUST RELY ON SURVIVE. One Jaw-Droping Set Piece-That Yacht Puking Scene-Can’s Make Up For Triangle‘S Long Stretches of Strident Smugness and Humdrum Humor. Jury Prez Vincent Lindon Could Have Picked Park Chan-Wook’s Film Noir Masterpiece Decision to Leave – A Film Whose Reputation Is Assured to Only Grow With Time – But Insthead Picked A Comedy Wasn’T Funny with a Political Message Sophomore It Makes. The Square look like Dr. Strangelove.
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection HERE WAS THE YEAR Trifling Novelty Triumphd over Historic Humanist Vision. That’s not to say jacques-yves cousteau and louis malle’s docurentary is with. The Film’s Vivid Underwater Cinematography Was And Otherworldly, Avatar-like revelation in itts day, Helping Cousteau and Malle Become The FIRST DOC DIRECTORS IN CANNES HISNES TO TAKE HOME The TOP PRIZE. Today, Their Colorful Crowd-Pleaser Is MOSTLY ONLY REMBERED AS An INSPIRATION FOR WES ANDERSON’S THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH Steve Zissou. Ray’s PATHER PANCHALIMeanwhile, is Widly Hailed as A Landmark – The Movie that introduce the World to One of Cinema’s Great Humanists. ConspicUSLY, CANNES ‘1956 Jury Was Majority-French (Seven Out of 12 Members, Including Jury Chair Maurice Lehmann), Suggesting Some Local Bias Was at Play. The jury was noneTheless aware it had seen Something Significant in Ray’s Masterwork. For the first and only time in cannes History, the Festival Created a “Best Human Document” Prize to Honor PATHER PANCHALI. The token Honor Undubtedly Helped Put Indian Neorealism on the Map, But Many of the Sentiments that Contributed to Silent World‘S Elevation Over Ray’s Masterpiece Have Aged Horrendously. .
Image Credit: CourTesy of Cannes This is not to KNOCK Friendly person. William Wyler’s Western, Starring Gary Cooper As A Quaker Whose Finds His Pacifist Beliefs Challenge with the onSet of the American Civil War, Is Amicable, Perfect. Entertainment. But The Competition Line Up for the 10th Cannes Festival FEATURED AT LEAST THREE GENUINE CINEMATIC CLASSICS: INGmar Bergman’s The Seventh SealFederico Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria and Robert Bresson’s A man esced and a pair of superb european Dramos in jules dassin’s He who must dieAndrzej Wajda’s Kanal. Even if the Jury, Under French Writer André Maurois, Wanted A Hollywood Movie, They Had A Much Better One Available in the Form of Fred Astaire-Audrey Hepburn Vehicle. Funny face. Perhaps Maurois Was Using the Prize As A Way to Honor Michael Wilson, The Blacklisted screenwriter who had his name starped off Friendly person After HE Refused to Name Names. Honorap, Perhaps, But Still A Loousy Choice. The Seventh Seal is An Indelible Part of the World Cinema Cannon. Friendly person is an ANSWER IN A PUB QUIZ.
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection At the Time, Marcel Camus’ Reteling of the Classic Tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice, Staged As A Musical Dringing Carnaval in 1950s Rio de janeiro, foaturing an all-as-afro-Brazilian. How Else to Explain Who This Forgotten Footnote of a Film Snatched The Palme Away from A Pair of Now-Ciconic French Classics: Francois TruffAut’s The 400 Blows and alain resnais’ Hiroshima Mon Amour? The Cannes Jury Wasn’t the only One Swept Up. Black orpheus Went on to Win the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. But Sharp-Eyed Critic Jean-Luc Godard Got It Right in His Cannes Review. “What offs me about this adventurer’s film is that it continains no adventure, or this poet’s film, that it contains no poetry.” Even in 1959, Camus’ Department of Rio’s Lush Beaches and Sensual, Colorful Favelas Feels Like Exotic Euro-Tourism and Postcard Romance.
Image Credit: Photofest Keeper of Promises (O Pagador de Promessas), an at-times Poignant Drama about Faith and Social Injustice, is the only Brazilian Film Ever to Win the Palme D’Or. I also a locully mediocre movie that’s very little Seen Today. IT PALES AGAINST AT LEAST TWO OF THE Other Contends at Cannes in 1962, Both of Wich Are Now Now Stone-Cold Classics Cléo from 5 to 7 and Michelangelo Antonioni’s Modernist Meditation on Alienation, L’EClisse. And there was more: Pietro germi’s Divorce, Italian styleRobert Bresson’s The Trial of Joan of arc and Luis Buñuel’s The exterminating Angel. What a year! Reportedly, The Jury’s Decision Was Surprising in 1962 – IT HAS GROWN OUTRAGEUS TO TIME.
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection The Mission is a reasonably sturdy (if turgid) Period Epic, Starring Robert de Niro and Jeremy Irons Near the Peak of Their Powers. It ALSO Features lush cinematography from chris menges and a soaring ennio Morricone Score. But is it the Final Masterpiece of One of Cinema History’s Ultimate Auteurs? No, It Certainly Is Not. A Jury Led By Studio Mainstay Sydney Pollack (Fresh Off Oscars Success With Out of africa) Shocked the Festival by Handing the Palme to “Just the Sort of Lumbering White Elephant” One Wuld Expect From The Oscars Racher Thanks, AS Time Critic Richard Corliss Put It. Andre tarkovsky’s swan song, meanwhile, a work of haunting imagery and profounding spiritititic dyphytt, was the exile dyaled the exile the exile the exile the exile the exile the exile, no, no, no, no, no. Cancer in a paris hospital at the time. Giving Voice to the Outrage of Cinephiles All Along The Croisette, French Producer Daniel Toscan Du Plantier Reportedly Stormed Up To Juroor Philip French in The Lobby of the CACE “You are a member of the jury, non? You have Disgraced Yourselves. This Will Be Remembered As A Night of Shame.”
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection The 1987 Awards Ceremony is the Stuff of Cannes Legend, Emblematic of the Festival of High Drama and Combative Critical Spirit. The Palme That Year – On The Festival’s 40th Anniversary – Went to French French Filmmaker Maurice Pialat’s Under the Sun of Satanan auster religious Drama about a toormented Country Priest – Starring Gértard Depardieu, France’s Biggest Star at the Time. Pialat is Rightly Considered a major Figure and the Film HAS ITS Admirers, THEN AND NOW, But The Competition’s Clear Frontrunner Was Wim Wenders’ Lyrical Fantasyy Wings of Desirenow An Icon of World Indie Cinema. Pialat Had Long been An Enfant Terrible of the French Film World (Forever Clashing with Critics), and Someearly Half of Was French – Felt Hal, Felt Half. Semi- “Lifetime Achievment” Aura to His Surprise Win. The reaction to Under the Sun of Satan‘s victory was nonetheless Historically hostile. Durying the Ceremony Inside the palais, the audience erupted in boos and whistles of disapproval as frennch actor yves montand Announced Pialat’s Film as The Palme D’Or. Taking the Stage, Pialat Ried His Fist and Schouted Back at the Crowd: “I am happy tonight for all the whistles and shouts have been determined at me – and if you don’e!” Bonus Points for Punk Rock Spirit, then – But Wings of Desire HAS PROved The Far More Enduring Film in Both Influence and Affection.
Image Credit: Photofest Another Key Chapter of Cannes Lore. Sex, Lies, and VideotapeThe Low-Budget Debut of a 26-Year-Old Steven Sodergh Was A Senting at the 1989 Festival-A Distinctive New Voice that Signiled The Start of the 1990s American Independent Film Wave. There Was Just One Problem: Spike Lee’s Do the right thing Premiered that Same Year. Roger Ebert Wuld Later Write: “I have been given only a few filmgoing experiences in my life to equal the first time and saw Do the right thing. MOST MOVIES REMAIN UP there on the screen. Only a FEW PENETRATE YOUR Soul. In May of 1989, I Walked Out of the Screening at the Cannes Film Festival of Tears in My Eyes. ” And Yet, Soderbergh Went Home with The Palme and Lee Lee Lee LEFT COMPLELY EMPTY-HANDED (EBERT’S WIFE, CHAZ, LATER STATED THAT HUSBAND HUDS Discussed Boycottting Future Editions of Cannes). I’m waisting for his ass. Somewhere Deep in My Closet, I have a louisville slugger with wenders’ Name on it. ” Eventualally, the Two Auteurs would come to joke about the incident. Sex, Lies, and Videotape REMAINS WELL REGarded. Lee’s Examination of Racial Tension in Brooklyn on the Hottest Day of the Year? IT’s A Full-Fledged Cultural Watershed.
Image Credit: Miramax/Courtesy Everett Collection The 90s Featured Several Incides of Tempury Insanity, from The Embrace of Parachute Pants and Scrunchies to Giving the 1992 Palme d’Or to bille august’s The Best Intenations. While the Former Are Back in Fashion, The Latter May Never Make Sense. The Danish Director, ALREADY A Palme Winner for His Serviceable 1988 Period Piece Pelle the Conquerorhere serves up a reheated dish of ingMar Bergman fan fiction, working from a bergman-penned script but delvering a tedious scandi melodrama about priests and frustrated housa Ordinary in Rural Uppsala. By picking August Over Robert Altman’s The PlayerThe Jury, Perhaps Unsurpringly, Given It Was Led by Gértard Depardieu, Showed It Wuld Racher Award Award a Bad Copy of the Kind of Film People
Image Credit: Universal Focus/Photofest Here We Have A Howler for the Ages. Moretti’s Film is arguable. An Emotionally Effective Drama About A Family Coping with The Sudden Death of A Son, It’s Certainly Better than the Italian Director’s Soggy, Recent Cannes Offers. But It’s An Embarrassment to Even Ask: Is The Son’s Room Better Cinema than David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive or Michael Haneke’s The Piano Teacherbot in competition that year? In remarks at the Awards Ceremony, Jury Chief Liv Ullmann Hinted at A Fraught Selection Process, Saying Moretti’s Movie “Tocked Our Hearts” But that Jury’s Delibers Invo. The Only Reasonable Explanation is that The Son’s Room Emerged as the SAFE MIDDLE-GROUND CHOICE BETWEEN IMPAASURED CHAMPions of the Two Aeshetic Radical Masterpieces.
Image Credit: Lionsgate/Courtesy Everett Collection Taking Pot Shots at American Culture is A Good Strategy if You Win to Win in Cannes But It Was A Genuine Shocker WHEN The Jury Handed The Palme to Gus Van Sant’s Slacol School Shooter Drama. The Film Had Its Fans, But MOST CITICS Eviscerated the Low-Budget Effort, Originally Made for HBO, and LOOSYLY INSPIEDY by the Columbine School Massacre, for Its Refusal Toval. ACTS of Violence. If the jury Really Wanted to Show Iti-Emerican Credentials, It Have A Much Better Deconstruction of the Narrative Lies at the Heart of the Us of A. In Lars Von Trier’s Dogville. “Von Trier Has Judged America, Found IT Wanting and Therefore Deserting of Immediaate Annihilation,“ Read One (Disapproving) Review at the Time. Cannene Watching the News Today Argue That Lars Doesn’t, Perhaps, Have A Point?
Image Credit: Tartan Releasing/Courtesy Everett Collection AT LEAST TWO LESSONNS CAN BE DRAWN FROM This Edition’s Baffling Outcome: Nodding to Political Exigencies of the Moment Seldom Yields Sound Aesthetic Judgment, and Song. Korean Auteur Park CHAN-WOOK. The Year Was 2004, George W. Bush Was Running for Re-Election and The US-Led Invasion of Iraq and Its Fallout Were Dominating Global Discourse. Fahrenheit 9/11 was a visceral and satisfying watch if you loathed the sitting president and his catastrophic war-moneying of the Longst in Festival History). Even the Jury’s Arch-Aesthetes Like Quentin Tarantino, That Year’s Chair, and Tilda Swinton, Bowed To The Moment. Both Later Insted They Backed Moore’s Doc for Filmmaking Reasons Racher than Political Ones. Sure… But SO WHAT WAS The TRUE Cinematic Discovery of The Day? That year cannes Made A Rare Exception in Allowing A Young Park Chan-Wok Oldboy To compete in the Festival’s Main Competition Even Thought It Had Already Been Commercially Released Months Prior in South Korea. IT’s Easy to See Who. Moore’s Movie, SO Galvanizing and Potent in the Moment, Has Proved Utterly Disposable, While Park’s Revenge Thriller Is Everything You Could HOPE FOR IN A SEARING CULT CLASSIC. Packed with iconic moments and weirdly resonant imagery (choi min min suicrasystyle; The ReleentLent, Claw-Hammer Fight Scene, Occtopi The Creat, The Film Alun Annun Annun Annun Annun, The Film Alun Annun, The Film Alun Alun Live Live, The Film of Theater, The Film of Theater wave. Park HAS NOW BROUGHT THREE IMMACULATE MASTERPIESES TO Cannes – Oldboy, The Handmaiden (2016) and Decision to Leave (2022) – But Has Yet to Bag a Palme. No surprise, then, that World Cinema’s Closest Heir to Hitchcock Is Taking His Next Feature, The Black Comedy Thriller No Other Choiceto venice this year Insthead.
Image Credit: CourTesy of Tiff Ruben östlund May Go Down in Cannes History As His Generation’s Bille August, A SCANDINAVIAN DIRECTOR WHOSE FAADDISH FILMS Won Over Cannes Juries (Twice!) But. Just Five Years After Taking His First Palme with The SquareÖstlund was back with yet another heavy-helped, yet Oddly tootholess, Satire on Capitalism and Privilege, Involving A Yacht Full of 1 Percenters Who Get Stud, Who. MUST RELY ON SURVIVE. One Jaw-Droping Set Piece-That Yacht Puking Scene-Can’s Make Up For Triangle‘S Long Stretches of Strident Smugness and Humdrum Humor. Jury Prez Vincent Lindon Could Have Picked Park Chan-Wook’s Film Noir Masterpiece Decision to Leave – A Film Whose Reputation Is Assured to Only Grow With Time – But Insthead Picked A Comedy Wasn’T Funny with a Political Message Sophomore It Makes. The Square look like Dr. Strangelove.
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