Each year, the Cannes Film Festival offers an early glimpse of some of the most ambitious filmmaking about to hit the market, with a forward-facing emphasis on the art rather than the commerce of cinema. (Make no mistake, behind the scenes the latter is a key element of the festival as well.) But something about this year’s fest, which wrapped Saturday, left a sour taste.
Filmmakers seemed disconnected from reality. The of festival workers about unfair were barely covered by U.S.
journalists. And the self-congratulatory way the celebrity industrial complex kept chugging along as if nothing was amiss in the world felt ..
. amiss. At least that’s how it played out for me, taking it all in Stateside.
Apparently many of the films are quite good. I won’t be writing about that here because I haven’t seen them yet. What I can comment on is the vibe and a general sense of cluelessness emanating from the festival this time out.
Writing for the Hollywood newsletter , Claire Atkinson found that nearly everyone she spoke to “at the rooftop parties, in the street, in the see-and-be-seen hotel lobbies or even over the phone, says the same thing: This is the year that excitement about movies has returned.” That may be wishful thinking. It was business as usual at the star-studded press conferences and red carpet events.
But “the movies” as we know them are undergoing an existential crisis. What kind of theatrical life is any film destined to have? Director Sean Baker echoed t.
