As the lights come up after another bewildering whirlwind of a Cannes Film Festival, The Red Bulletin crunches some historic numbers about this world-famous event.
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The Festival’s main award, the Palme d’Or, is given to the director of the best film, as chosen by a jury of nine film industry professionals. The jury changes every year, and being selected as its president ranks as one of cinema’s great honours. Robert De Niro is in charge for 2011 – a solid choice, given that he’s been running his Tribeca Film Festival in New York since 2002, founded Qatar’s Doha Tribeca Film Festival, and starred in the Palme d’Or winners of 1976 (Taxi Driver) and 1986 (The Mission). Plus, because ‘De’ means ‘of’ in French, he’s one-third native.
2,300...
The festival was created by the French government in opposition to the influence of Fascist regimes at other European film festivals – then World War II broke out on September 1, 1939, leading to the postponement of the first Cannes, due to begin that very day. The festival got underway in 1946. This year’s opening film was Woody Allen’s Midnight In Paris, screened at the Grand Théâtre Lumière to a full house of 2,300.
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It would have been impossible for a film festival held on the French Riviera not to develop into a two-week jolly for its attendees. Nightclubs like the VIP Room and Baoli host lavish parties thrown by film companies, luxury brands and A-listers. The harbour fills with yachts and superyachts. The fashion designer Robert Cavalli likes to do Cannes from his 134ft boat, named after himself (worth £30m), and who can blame him?
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A hearty “bravo” is a common sound at the ballet. A music festival crowd is dotted with slogan signs and topless fans. The Cannes audience is world cinema’s most emotional. If a film is bad, there will be booing. Conversely, when the room says je t’aime en masse, standing ovations result. In 2004, the crowd rose after Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 and applauded for 20 minutes, the longest tribute in Cannes history. The film went on to win the Palme d’Or; those who saw it just got red-raw palms.
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Since 1959, the festival has also been home to the Marché du Film, the world’s largest commercial movie market. While Clooney and co sip in the sunshine, about 10,000 film industry grunts take up every bit of dingy desk space in the town, selling straight-to-DVD features and the sort of no-budget movies only shown on TV on a Tuesday at 3.30am. It’s big business. On average, about 20 films are selected and screened for the Palme d’Or each year. At the market in 2010, 876 movies were up for grabs.
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Despite contrasting French opinions on the impact of Hollywood on the fabric of le cinéma, US films have been awarded the top prize at Cannes jointly or outright, 17 times, Pulp Fiction, M*A*S*H and Apocalypse Now among them. There has been a home win on nine occasions. In 1946, 11 films, including a French and US picture, were jointly awarded the Grand Prix du Festival, the forerunner of the Palme d’Or, which today is a 24-carat gold palm leaf. Oscars are just gold-plated…
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Want more?
- Official Cannes website www.festival-cannes.com
- The latest from Chris Sullivan in Cannes
- Lars Von Trier demonstrating what not to say at Cannes on YouTube
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