Well. Now that the official lineup of this year’s Cannes Film Festival is out, and the blogosphere du cinema is all abuzz with excitement over the lineup, while more mainstream outlets predictably tut-tut the marked meagerness of American fare in the competition (to which I say, [yawn], and “Shut the fuck up”), I suppose it’s a good time to inform you, faithful reader, that I will not attend the festival—my favorite, in a leisurely stroll along the seaside—this year.
To be brief, I did the math, and it doesn’t quite work. I was planning on begging, borrowing, and stealing to get there if The Girlfriend Experience was gonna be over there (come on, you would too if you were me), but it ain’t, and hence my pretext for going nuclear on my bank account doesn’t exist. Too bad; it looks like a very exciting program this year—new work from Resnais, Campion, Tarantino, Bong, To, No, Bellocchio, and many other exciting veterans. I’m glad to see that Andrea Arnold, whose Red Road made such an impression there a couple of years back, is returning. I’m flummoxed that Jim Jarmusch’s new film won’t be there—Cannes is the perfect venue for it.
I’m assuming Limits of Control isn’t showing there because it’s being released *before* the festival. May 1st is the limited release date.
Yes, I know. I’m not usually in the business of second-guessing distributors, but if I were running Focus (what I concept), I would bring the film to Cannes, let the opprobrium and controversy start roiling, and then screen it for some Big Hollywood contributors to really get the outrage machine going. No such thing as bad publicity!
Despite, admittedly, an exceptionally strong selection (with Haneke, Noe, and Tsai as my favorites), the absence of Bruno Dumont’s “Hadewijch”, Todd Solondz’s “Forgiveness”, and the latest by Hong Sang-soo is stunning to me.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Hong is a late-breaking addition to Competition, Rob. They’ve done this with a few of his films.
Does this make LIMITS the only Jarmusch feature besides his wan debut PERMANENT VACATION to not play at Cannes? Boggles the mind.
Keep an eye on the Mia Hansen-Love film in Un Certain Regard. Her first work, ALL IS FORGIVEN, is a stunner.
Oop, actually, it seems the Hong is in Fortnight, which, along with TETRO and new films from Costa and Alain Guiraudie, looks to be having quite the year.
And a new Luc Moullet! It’s almost worth breaking the bank for those titles alone.
I’m actually very disappointed that Bruno Dumont’s “Hadewijch” was not selected. I know that Dumont completed the film a while ago and was really holding onto it with his sights set on a Cannes première. Let’s hope now it doesn’t take two years to hit North American screens. The two films representing the USA look exceptionally weak. Lee’s film looks like an episode of that network drama “American Dreams,” and the more clips and stills I see of the Tarantino, the worse and more offensive it looks. Seriously, where are the Coppola and Jarmusch films in the Official Competition? Also, does anyone know if the new Coen Bros’ film was not completed on time?
Jarmusch’s “Night on Earth” did not première at Cannes either, but instead the ’91 NYFF, I believe.
Is there any advance word on Campion’s Keats biopic? Looks poorly cast to me …
Listen to Wells. All Is Forgiven is *great*, and the fact that it was barely seen continues to astonish me.
In other news, and I mean this as politely as possible: Bruno Dumont. Who cares. It is a *blessing* he’s not in comp.
Condolences, I guess. This is turning into a micro-trend. Mike D’Angelo wasn’t going to be able to go to Cannes, either, until he decided to hit up his friends for donations – a thoroughly tasteless ploy that, unfortunately, is quite in keeping with his personality. Don’t even think it, Glenn!
I’ve never been to Cannes myself, so there is an outward limit to my sympathy. And yes, I was once a minor member of the paid critical fraternity (eons ago). I can’t for the life of me figure out how, moving forward, anyone is going to make money off criticism sufficient to the cost of attending festivals (any more than newspapers can figure out how they are going to be paid for their news-gathering; it’s a weird transitional time). There are just too many people out there who are willing to write about film for nothing – and some of them are even semi-capable, and a few have bankrolls.
Perhaps the last two stanzas of Robert Frost’s “Two Tramps in Mud Time” are apropos here. Your love and your need are one, but since your chosen profession has effectively disappeared, that still leaves the question of the rent.
Nothing on either side was said.
They knew they had but to stay their stay
And all their logic would fill my head:
As that I had no right to play
With what was another man’s work for gain.
My right might be love but theirs was need.
And where the two exist in twain
Theirs was the better right–agreed.
But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future’s sakes.
@topbroker: I don’t know Mike D’Angelo, but how he gets to Cannes is plainly his own business unless he decides to knock over a bank. If he’s got friends willing to pitch in, what on earth is that to you and why snipe at him for it? I suspect there’s a Robert Frost poem that covers this case, too, but can’t lay my hands on it at the moment.
Hey, it’s the Internet. You send in the attack ferret whenever an opportunity presents itself.
The reason I pointed this out as a micro-trend is that both Mike D;Angelo and Glenn Kenny, in posting about their inability to get to Cannes (which is a significant decision in itself, to post about it), hit the same note of slightly wounded entitlement and trucking for sympathy. I mean, look at Glenn’s wording:
“Besides all the films I won’t be seeing right away, I greatly regret that I’ll be missing the company of friends I don’t see often enough, folks with whom I always have, like, the best time ever…And all those French people. Sigh.”
If I was going to be really cynical, I’d just say, Cry me a river.
D’Angelo took it one step further (again, in a public forum, and by choice) and said, But you can make it all better by sending me money. He had a Paypal thing set up, and it did work for him. D’Angelo has assembled over the years, at a microscopic level, a group of loyalists akin to Pauline Kael’s old gang of “Paulettes.” I snipe at it because (a) I think it’s undignified and not a model for anyone else to follow, and (b) I’m only human, and there’s a history. (Undoubtedly Frost did write about that.)
The game is muddled right now. What had been Mike’s and Glenn’s and many others’ “work for gain” does not have the look of being that any more – I’m not being snippy in bringing that up because, again, they have both written about it at length. They now find themselves in the awkward position of being re-categorized from vocational practitioners to avocational practitioners of their craft. I think a certain amount of flailing about on their part is to be expected, and it is happening. They don’t want to “yield to the separation,” and I get that. But it’s a tough world out there these days for many people.
@topbroker: I am afraid you misread me in several respects. I’m not asking for anyone’s sympathy. Here’s how it works: I used to be a professional film critic. I now make my living (and it’s not a bad one, albeit a little unsettled) doing…mostly other stuff. I maintain this blog as a hobby—“avocationally” if you will. Now there actually were quite a few years when I was working as a full-time film critic at Première that I didn’t cover the Cannes Film Festival, and then in 2005, thanks to Peter Herbst, I went for the first time, and have been going ever since. Only not this year. Hence, when the Cannes lineup gets announced and everybody on the blogosphere is getting excited about it, if I choose to post about the lineup, well, it behooves me to inform my readership, which might be expecting some Cannes coverage from me, to inform them that I’m not going. SImple as that.
I’m sorry you chose to interpret what was meant as a wistful (if you’ll pardon the phrase) shout-out to some colleagues that I won’t be hanging out with, followed by what we in the industry call “a joke,” as some sort of extended whinge.
In other words: don’t put me on the defensive, bro. Don’t force me to go to Cannes just to spite you.
And believe me, next week you’ll be seeing more than enough posts about how I RULE, and how great my life is.
If you want to go and it makes you happy, go – by all means. I like your writing and, as long as it’s free (I don’t pay for Internet content), I’d read your dispatches from Cannes with interest.
(The “not paying” thing is key. I don’t mean it to be brutal, it’s just that there is more free – and good – content on the Internet than I could ever handle, so why should I pay for any of it? That’s the way we live now.)
Wistful shout-outs to colleagues can be accomplished through private email, of course, so when you put it out there in a blog, people will read it as they will. I don’t think that I put an ounce of weight on your words that wasn’t there. There was no “misreading,” and in any case, as you well know, once the words leave the writer’s pen and make it to the public, the writer no longer has real say in what those words “mean.”
@topbroker: Right on, man. Somebody has to keep these internet critics in line, especially when they’re all “wah wah wah, I wanna go to Cannes, I can’t make money from my vocational practitioning, it’s become avocational practitioning, boo hoo.” I know, I know: It can be brutal. It’s a hard, cold world out there, and if you hurt some feelings whilst soothsaying, then So Be It. Another poet (perhaps it was Lowell) once said: The truth’s a bitch. Or the truth hurts. Or something like that. You’d think Glenn would be a little more grateful for your kicking down to him some good ol’ homespun wisdom, but no. He’s got to go and be all “humorous” and “flippant” – all while you were just Telling It Like It Is. Don’t let him try to defend or clarify his words – that’s just lame, dude – like paying for internet. Which I don’t do either.
Seriously, I don’t pay for internet content. Ever. Never have, never will.
Boo-yah.
Zach, that is just hilarious. So hilarious, I’d almost consider paying for it…
…almost.
Great Cannes article
http://www.examiner.com/x‑6449-NY-Entertainment-Industry-Examiner~y2009m4d25-Cannes-Film-Festival-selections-make-statement-on-status-of-international-film
As topbroker has chosen to post anonymously, I have no idea what our alleged history may be. Sorry I pwned you dude.
In any case, the idea behind my Cannes pledge drive—which was conceived on a whim, and which I never for a moment thought would succeed—was that folks who were eager to read my coverage from the festival would pay in advance whatever amount they felt that coverage was worth to them, since there was no other way I could possibly attend. I suggested $10, though most people gave more. I also dug around until I found a site that wouldn’t charge anyone unless and until I reached the goal amount ($2000), so that nobody would get screwed in the (likely, I thought) event that I fell way short. The subsequent outpouring of generosity from longtime readers truly overwhelmed me, and if I balk at this miracle being termed “tasteless” and “undignified” it’s primarily on their behalf. Certainly there are any number of critics, including Glenn, whose trip to Cannes I’d happily subsidize in some small way if the alternative was not getting to read their coverage at all.
That’s Ed, I agree that this is in no way a viable business model, and plan to say so tomorrow when I’m interviewed about this whole deal for a story Studio 360 is doing on the future of film criticism.
Just for the record, Mike, I’m with tc on this “controversy,” and I say “mazel tov” to you. And, incidentally, marvel at the idea that you’re going to be able to do the whole thing for only two large.
I think topbroker has made it clear who he is by noting that there’s a “history” between him and Mike. But let’s let him pretend to hide behind his faux-anonymity for the time being.
I contributed money to Mike’s campaign, and I did so because Mike is actually quite thorough w/r/t his coverage from Cannes. As in, he pretty much writes something about everything he sees. At least, everything he sits through, and he doesn’t walk out of Cannes competition titles. If I thought the money was merely going to finance a trip to Cannes and then a bunch of 52s on his retarded 100-point grading scale, then I wouldn’t have bothered.
I agree this isn’t a viable model for everyone, but if other critics (like, say, Glenn) tried the same thing, then I’d contribute money to them, too. Given the fact that I have very little money, that probably makes me a sucker. But at least I’ll be a sucker who got to read the coverage HE wanted to read, and not the coverage that some clueless, temporary editor of some dying alt weekly wanted him to read.
I’m glad to know that even D’Angelo’s fans agree that that 100-point rating scale is retarded. Maybe we can start a pledge drive to get him to stop using it?
FWIW, I believe it was D’Angelo who coined the term “retarded 100-point rating scale.”