Cannes 2013

[bdlover]

Every year people speculate on what film will win based on who is running the jury and the prejudices that they project onto that person, and every year it doesn't end up mattering worth a shit

Unless you make money out of it every year that is

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Hadn't Huppert been gunning for Antichrist, though? Or do I have my gossip mixed up?

No, that was the gossip. So if it was true, the people who bet on The White Balloon were right for the wrong reasons.

[bdlover]

No, that was the gossip. So if it was true, the people who bet on The White Balloon were right for the wrong reasons.

It would be a common tactic in such a situation to use a film no-one else wants as a bargaining tool to gain ground for a slightly more acceptable choice, eg. lobby heavily for Antichrist - the worst nightmare of many of the jury members - then eventually offer up the Haneke as a 'compromise'. Having said this, Antichrist clearly WAS the best film in Competition that year, but then the best films are often the most divisive and rarely win top festival honours.

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

That same gossip had James Gray calling Huppert a fascist bitch. Ah halcyon days.

[John Cope]

Having said this, Antichrist clearly WAS the best film in Competition that year, but then the best films are often the most divisive and rarely win top festival honours.

LOL. If Antichrist was clearly the best film in Competition that year we have way more to worry about than silly backbiting rumors.

Anyway, meanwhile, in Gray we trust.

[bdlover]

So as we approach the final stretch, Kechiche has stolen the advantage with odds of 5/4 (having started at 33/1). But Sorrentino is making a last minute dash, now at 4/1, up from 8/1 yesterday (and still my own pick for the Palme). Having inexplicably led the bookies field for most of the race, Farhadi has slipped back to 5/1 in third place.

Screen describes the Gray as "fatally dull". It now strikes me that Gray's persistent misuse of Phoenix is one of the reasons I was so surprised by the brilliance of his performance in The Master.

Palme d'Or: The Great Beauty, Sorrentino
Grand Prix: The Past, Farhadi
Jury Prize: A Touch of Sin, Jia + Kechiche, Blue is the Warmest Colour
Director: Payne, Nebraska
Screenplay: Coens, Inside Llewyn Davis
Actor: Douglas, Behind the Candelabra
Actress: Exarchopoulos, Blue is the Warmest Colour

Edit: Results still not in, adjusting predictions slightly.

[Finch]

With Spielberg and Lee in the jury I wouldn't count against Kore-eda's Like Father Like Son getting a prize although it's gotten merely solid reviews from the majority of the critics. Will there be a late surprise from Polanski?

[JabbaTheSlut]

Palme d'Or: Blue is the Warmest Colour
Grand Prix: A Touch of Sin
Jury Prize: The Immigrant
Director: Coens
Screenplay: Farhadi
Actor: Douglas, Behind the Candelabra
Actress: Exarchopoulos, Blue is the Warmest Colour

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Palme d'Or: Blue is the Warmest Colour

Actress: Exarchopoulos, Blue is the Warmest Colour

The Palme winner can't receive anything else. The only way a film can get more than one prize is by combining Best Actor/Actress with Best Screenplay or the Jury Prize.

[JabbaTheSlut]

Barton Fink. But if that's not possible anymore: Tilda Swinton.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Barton Fink was the tipping point that prompted the festival to impose limits on multiple prizes. It seems they initially allowed Palme winners to receive one additional prize, but at some point that was changed as well (2004 at the earliest, since Elephant got the Palme and Best Director in '03). The current rules are available here:

The prize list must not contain more than one joint award. The Palme d'Or can never be awarded jointly. No film can receive more than one award. However, the award for the Best Screenplay and the Jury Prize can be combined with a Best Performance award, on special dispensation of the Festival's President.

[TMDaines]

Why can't the most deserving film in each category just take the prize, instead of this silly tokenism?

[thirtyframesasecond]

Is there likely to be a live broadcast of the awards somewhere on the web?

[Amy Racecar]

You should be able to stream it here at around 7:00 pm CET, i.e. GMT +1. You'll need to change your computer's time zone to CET for it to work properly. If it doesn't show up there you should be able to find a link from this page once the ceremony has started.

[rs98762001]

Ilo Ilo by Singaporean director Anthony Chen won the Caméra d'Or
Bruce Dern won the best actor award
Bérénice Bejo won best actress
Jia Zhangke won best screenplay for A Touch of Sin
Like Father, Like Son by Hirokazu Koreeda won the jury prize
Amat Escalante won best director for Heli
The Coen brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis won the Grand Prix
Abdellatif Kechiche won the Palme d'Or for La vie d’Adèle (Blue is the warmest colour)

[Calvin]

Abdellatif Kechiche won the Palme d'Or for La vie d’Adèle (Blue is the warmest colour)

It was also awarded to the lead actresses, Adele Excharopoulos and Lea Seydoux.

[ianungstad]

IFC picked up the rights to Blue is the Warmest Colour. I think it's pretty safe to speculate that Criterion will release it next year.

[JabbaTheSlut]

Can't wait to see "Blue"! The Secret of the Grain is a masterpiece, and great that Kechiche will now get the wider international attention he deserves.

[Finch]

That's two Mexican directors scooping Best Director in succession, and again it's a surprise choice. Biggest upset clearly Dern winning instead of Douglas. Called it on the Kore-eda. \:D/

All things considered, Spielberg's jury seems to have made better across the board decisions than Moretti's gang last year (the slight Angels' Share winning third prize). Looking forward to seeing Blue is The Warmest Colour, Inside Llewyn Davis and the Jia.

[bdlover]

Bradshaw called both the Palme and the Grand Prix, well played!

[JamesF]

My own personal Cannes scores (copy and pasted from Twitter so obviously brief, but can elucidate further if needed!):

Blood Ties: solid, starry 1970s-set crime/action saga that's still too kitschy/unconvincing to justify its 2.5 hour running time

Grand Central: haunting, well-directed and often erotic (hel-looo, Lea Seydoux!) drama, great scary nuclear powerplant milieu

Shield Of Straw: Mid-tier Miike, fun action thriller for first half then overwrought debate on ethics of revenge in latter half

We Are What We Are: Best US horror film of 2013? Could be. Brilliant work from Mulberry St/Stake Land's Jim Mickle & Nick Damici

Only God Forgives: looks and sounds great and Kristin Scott Thomas is enjoyably hammy, but it's otherwise deeply tediously empty

Nebraska: Fairly US-indie-by-numbers but ace B&W photography and it's a treat to see Bruce Dern & Stacy Keach in big roles again

Blue Is The Warmest Colour: Jaw-dropping lengthy lesbian sex scenes aside, moving and compelling drama w/ great performances

Magic Magic: Low-key psychological thriller that never quite comes together. Looks like the cast had a nice holiday out of it

Jodorowsky's Dune: everything I hoped it'd be. Hilarious account of a grand cinematic folly and good intro to Jodo for beginners

The Immigrant: boasts an absolutely incredible final shot, shame the preceding 100 mins is just a rather uninspiring melodrama. Gray repeatedly uses Tavener's "Funeral Canticle", couldnt stop thinking Malick used it better in Tree Of Life

The Last Days On Mars: tense but familiar SF/horror elevated by a strong cast. Not sure why it's in Director's Fortnight though

The Dance Of Reality: despite some iffy CGI and a low budget, a triumphant, hilarious, outrageous return for Jodorowsky.

Top picks (in no particular order) - We Are What We Are, Blue Is The Warmest Colour, Jodorowsky's Dune, The Dance Of Reality, and then Nebraska and Grand Central would probably tie for fifth place.

Believe the hype about Blue... The first (and longest) sex scene between Seydoux and Exarchopoulos got a stunned applause at the screening I attended!

A small girl was sat in the front row for The Dance Of Reality - her (grand?)parents looked rather sheepish after the film finished with all its golden showers and cattle prod-genital torture

Saw some good stuff on the Market too, including this documentary about the great Harry Dean Stanton.

[Foam]

Surprised at how little commentary there's been on the Denis.

[Oedipax]

Surprised at how little commentary there's been on the Denis.

Cannes always feels a bit like that to me, as a distant observer - first the immense anticipation, then a lot of brief, cursory reactions made by critics who are overloaded by the pace of screenings and review deadlines (which Twitter and the internet in general certainly exacerbates), then things go more or less silent post-festival, until suddenly a film gets a true theatrical run (or screens at a less-harried festival) and suddenly everyone realizes someone made a masterpiece (or not). It's almost as if the films at Cannes are hallucinations or premonitions, hazily recalled and impossible to glean much insight from.

[yoshimori]

Cannes always feels a bit like that to me, as a distant observer - first the immense anticipation, then a lot of brief, cursory reactions made by critics who are overloaded by the pace of screenings and review deadlines. ... It's almost as if the films at Cannes are hallucinations or premonitions, hazily recalled and impossible to glean much insight from.

Well-put and fair enough. Though my initial reactions are usually also my last ones, either because I never think about a particular film again or because, upon further thought or subsequent viewing, my basic reactions change little. Which is to say, I'm much less interested in "insight" than in the Sontagian "erotics" of film. And what relevant-for-me "insight" does evolve over time NEVER comes from film criticism.

That said, I was surprised by the mixture of indifference and scorn heaped on Bastards by the press here. The 15 major French critics polled in Le Film Francais gave it fewer than .5 stars (out of 4), placing it below even the Miike film. [In fact, I think Denis' film received the lowest score of all 38 polled.] The feel of the film - elliptical, creepy darkness - suggests a Denis veering even further into the David Lynch zone. The narrative, involving underage sex trade, S&M video production featuring unhusked corn, and incest, is perplexingly non-linear.

[JamesF]

Cannes always feels a bit like that to me, as a distant observer - first the immense anticipation, then a lot of brief, cursory reactions made by critics who are overloaded by the pace of screenings and review deadlines (which Twitter and the internet in general certainly exacerbates)

How is this different from any other film festival? Hell, I'd say the sheer amount of time you have to spend queuing at Cannes (i.e. lots) is enough time to think hard about what you've seen previously.