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CANNES FESTIVAL OPENS WITH MOVIES NO ONE WILL SEE

May 14 2009

Cannes, France – The Cannes Film Festival is without peer amongst film festivals. The annual exhibition of global cinema was founded in 1946 and has run every year since, giving out perhaps the most respected and honoured of film awards in the world. The majesty of the festival is matched only by the glitz and glamour that
accompanies the premieres with stars from around the world descending onto the red carpet. In those six decades of film premieres little has changed with the glitz and glamour of the festival and just as little has changed with the selection of films.

Cannes position as the showcase for global cinema has long set it aside from Hollywood, whose celebrations such as the Academy Awards tend to focus on films made in the English speaking world, primarily from The United States. Though Hollywood celebrations have shared glamour in common with Cannes that is one of the few similarities the two disciplines have shared. Cannes, unlike American expositions, has long focussed in films of no particular interest to anyone and that are unlikely to be viewed by anyone beyond the cast and crew, a trend the latest version of the festival has done nothing to change.

“There’s a handful of films showing out of competition that people might see, like ‘Up’ but other than that the only place anyone is going to hear of these movies is on the festival website and that’s just not that same thing as watching the movie. Quentin Tarantino has a movie in the festival but nobody has really gone to see any of his movies since ‘Pulp Fiction’ despite the fact that he has continued to make them,” said Scrape TV Entertainment analyst Tracey Temple. “It isn’t just American audiences who won’t see these films, people all across the world won’t have the chance to see virtually every movie that airs in the festival and those few that do make it global likely won’t hold any interest for moviegoers. That is of course in the best tradition of Cannes.”

Throughout its history the Cannes film festival has been juxtaposed against the big and loud Hollywood films that tend to grab the majority of headlines. That separation has been all the more apparent since the advent of the big Hollywood blockbuster summer season that began in the mid 1970’s.

“It is funny that the Cannes Festival is held just as the Hollywood summer season begins. That season is without a doubt the most profitable for the studios but is essentially the opposite of
Cannes in that it is a bunch movies that people desperately want to see, sometimes for no apparent reason, and have forgotten ten minutes after they walk out of the theatre,” continued Temple. “Both are examples of very focussed marketing that appeals to, well, someone obviously. Both present themselves as essential to the medium but in my experience red carpets are the same no matter where you go and really have little to do with the medium of filmmaking.”

Last year’s Palme D’Or winner for best picture of the festival, ‘The Class’ has grossed approximately six million dollars worldwide and is not available on DVD in most countries indicating that indeed very few people have seen the movie.

“Excellent and engaging films may very well air at Cannes, just as Hollywood may put out quality and long lasting movies during the summer but because of the environment people don’t really notice. In both cases you have people interested in the glamour of the medium and not so much the medium itself,” continued Temple. “It’s great to know that in some places tradition holds true. In a time when things seem to change by the moment, there are some places where time just seems to stand still.”

Next year’s Cannes Festival line up has yet to be decided but is expected to be as poorly watched as any other. 

Samantha Dryden, Entertainment Correspondent

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