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Tag: cannes film festival

  • Sydney Sweeney Wore the Old-Money Staple That’s On Sale At Abercrombie Right Now

    Sydney Sweeney Wore the Old-Money Staple That’s On Sale At Abercrombie Right Now

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    If people think the Hamptons or Martha’s Vineyard are the most equipped locales to provide old-money style inspiration, they’ve probably never been to Cannes (or at least, seen street style from it during the French city’s annual film festival). Elegant and refined, yet effortless, the outfits that consistently come out of Cannes Film Festival are some of the chicest you’ll see on the celebrity set for the entire year. And this season’s festivities, which are going on as we speak, are far from disappointing.

    One of the buzziest names on the attendance list this year is Sydney Sweeney, who’s already debuted a handful of stunning looks, including a gorgeous peek-a-boo slip moment by Miu Miu and low-key luxury Celine bra–and–jeans ensemble that she wore to hang out on a yacht (casual). But the very best so far arrived when she left Hotel Martinez this weekend wearing a hooded, tweed micro-minidress by Miu Miu with a pair of penny loafers, tortoiseshell shades, and the brand’s Matelassé top handle bag in tow. Nonchalant yet impactful, the daytime ‘fit was Cannes street style at its very best.  

    Of course, copying the look to a T might be tricky unless you have a couple thousand dollars burning a hole in your pocket right now. However, I did some digging and found the perfect alt that just so happens to be included in Abercrombie‘s epic spring sale. Below, see the tweed mini and matching lady jacket that’s just begging to be worn with loafers and cat-eye shades for your next seaside vacation. 

     

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    Eliza Huber

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  • Natalie Portman and Todd Haynes dive into the nature of performance in ‘May December’ at Cannes

    Natalie Portman and Todd Haynes dive into the nature of performance in ‘May December’ at Cannes

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    CANNES, France — CANNES, France (AP) —

    In Todd Haynes’ tonally shape-shifting “May December,” the first announcement of the movie’s playful intentions comes with a theatrical zoom in, a few lushly melodramatic piano notes and the frightful announcement that there no more hot dogs in the fridge.

    That moment — which Haynes says signals “that there’s something coy happening in the language of the film” — is just a taste of what’s to come in “May December,” a delicious and disquieting drama laced with comedy and camp that Haynes premiered over the weekend at the Cannes Film Festival.

    Natalie Portman stars as an actor researching an upcoming film that’s to dramatize a scandal from 20 years earlier. She comes to Savannah, Georgia, to spend time with Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Julianne Moore), who years earlier become tabloid fodder for a sexual relationship with a seventh grader. Now, she’s seemingly happily married to him, Joe Yoo (Charles Melton), with kids of their own and suburban barbeques to host.

    The film, scripted by Samy Burch, takes a light but deliberate touch in navigating through thorny themes of performance and identity. As Portman’s character grows increasingly like Gracie, ethical borders begin to tumble away.

    “It was tonally such an amazing script and so rigorous,” Haynes said in an interview alongside Portman. “It kept shifting the way you felt about or trusted one character versus another. That whole process as it maneuvered through the course of the script was such a compelling experience. And I just thought: Wow, how could you translate into visually?”

    “May December,” which is seeking a distributor in Cannes, is the first time Haynes (who has regularly worked with Moore) has made a movie with the 41-year-old Portman. For her, “May December” was a chance to not only work with a director she’s long admired but explore some of her own fascinations.

    “It poses a lot of the questions I’m most obsessed by about performance, about the purpose of art, about innocence,” says Portman, also a producer on the film.

    “When you explore all those layers — playing someone who’s playing someone, making a movie of a movie in a movie — there’s so many layers of artifice, and what truth we can get out of artifice — which is the kind of alchemy of what we do,” adds Portman. “We’re using lies to tell the truth, and it’s magic.”

    “May December” has some unofficial roots in reality. Gracie isn’t very different in certain ways from Mary Kay Letourneau, a Washington State schoolteacher who went to prison after a relationship with a boy in her sixth grade class.

    Questions of identity and artifice have run through Haynes’ filmography, including the sumptuous ’50s romance “Carol,” the Douglas Sirk-inspired melodrama “Far from Heaven” and his most recent film, the documentary “The Velvet Underground.” In Portman, he found an actor who shared a similar approach to film.

    “A lot of narrative filmmaking and fiction-making has an internal desire to redeem oneself through the process, to sort of affirm one’s own aims. That’s the thing that I’m not particularly interested in as a director,” says Haynes. “And I’m drawn to actors who feel similarly, who are actually interested in creating a distance between maybe their own values and ideas and those portrayed in the character.”

    He praised Portman’s eagerness to engage with “and lean into the most disquieting aspects of the character.”

    Portman has famously played some real-life figures, like Jacqueline Kennedy (“Jackie”), which required copious amounts of research. But in “May December,” she plays an actor far more reckless than herself. Yet even in a performance that could have easily slid into satire, Portman deftly inhabits her.

    “Most artists who tell stories want to hold up their ethical standpoint in the light. It can be vampiric to take human emotion and human story and capitalize on it and tell a story,” Portman says. “But hopefully the energy that you come to it with is empathy and the curiosity to explore someone’s human behavior and someone’s inner self. That it’s an act of empathy and not an act of bloodsucking.”

    There were long conversations with Haynes and Moore as they prepared to make “May December” in a 30-day shooting spring. But, unlike her character, Portman’s preparation for the part was mostly already done.

    “Well,” Portman says smiling, “I’ve spent my whole life researching how to be an actress.”

    ___

    Follow AP Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

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  • What makes a standing ovation last 22 minutes at Cannes?

    What makes a standing ovation last 22 minutes at Cannes?

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    CANNES, France — The Cannes Film Festival is on, which means stopwatches are out.

    Nowhere are the length of standing ovations at high-wattage premieres more carefully recorded and parsed than in Cannes. Did a movie garner a triumphant eight-minute standing ovation? Or did the audience stand for a mere four or five minutes?

    How has such an unlikely metric come to reverberate around the world within minutes of a premiere? And why is everyone standing for so long? Doesn’t anyone’s hands get tired?

    Such effusive displays of enthusiasm have come to be a hallmark of Cannes and, sometimes, a bit of marketing gimmick for films looking to resonate far from the Croisette. If Cannes, the world’s largest and glitziest film festival, stands for cinematic excess, its thunderous standing ovations can seem like its greatest overindulgence. No one needs a bathroom break?

    Less widely understood, though, is how the pageantry of Cannes shapes and distorts standing ovations. When audiences rise after the credits roll in the Grand Theatre Lumière, Cannes’ biggest screen, they aren’t just standing and applauding the movie they just watched.

    Immediately after a film wraps, a cameraman swoops in and begins shooting the filmmaker and cast members, who are sitting in the middle of the theater. That video plays live on the screen for everyone inside while the camera — often very patiently — puts each prominent actor in close-up. Applause is only partly for the movie; it’s also for each star.

    When “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” recently premiered in Cannes, the camera gave Mads Mikkelsen, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Ethann Isidore, Harrison Ford and director James Mangold each their own moment to bask in adulation. In the end, trade publications — which have reporters inside the theater to keep time — clocked the standing ovation at five minutes. Variety pronounced it a “lukewarm” reception.

    Inflation may be such a scourge that it’s even affecting standing O’s. In most places in the world, a five-minute standing ovation would count as a dream response. In Cannes, it’s supposedly as tepid as a day-old espresso.

    Reviews for “Dial of Destiny” were, indeed, mixed. But it’s also possible that the audience — or the movie’s stars — had had enough after a 142-minute movie that was preceded by a much-cheered tribute to Ford. The next day, a visibly emotional Ford called the experience “indescribable.”

    “The warmth of this place, the sense of community, the welcome is unimaginable,” said Ford. “And it makes me feel good.”

    Much of how long a standing ovation endures relates to whether the film’s stars push it along or cater to the camera. At the premiere of Martin Scorsese’s “Flowers of the Killer Moon,” after the film’s expansive cast had gotten their close-ups, Leonardo DiCaprio and others in the film kept clapping, even when most of the auditorium had stopped. Then, Osage tribe members rallied more life into the applause with loud, celebratory whooping.

    Nine minutes was ultimately the call for “Flowers of the Killer Moon,” enough to mark a high for this year’s festival. Scorsese’s period epic draw the kind of headlines that every film wants out of Cannes. Movies don’t get second chances for a first impression, after all.

    And for those who experience such responses first-hand, it can be deeply emotional. In 2015, Todd Haynes’ luminous ’50s romance “Carol” launched in Cannes with a 10-minute standing ovation.

    “I don’t think we put on the poster that there was a 20-minute standing ovation at Cannes,” says Christine Vachon, the film’s producer. “But when it happens, and a movie is celebrated after a lot of hard work, of course it’s incredibly gratifying.”

    The longest Cannes ovation on record belongs to Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth,” which scored a 22-minute feting, enough time to watch an episode of “Seinfeld” without the ads. Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11,” on its way to winning the Palme d’Or at the 2004 Cannes, was applauded for 20 minutes. Jeff Nichols’ “Mud” was cheered for 18 minutes in 2012.

    A stopwatch-breaking ovation doesn’t always translate to quality. Lee Daniels’ “The Paperboy” isn’t exactly considered a modern-day classic, but it managed a 15-minute standing O in 2012.

    Cannes has long been known for its passionate responses. Some hugely revered films, like Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now,” have famously been booed at the festival. But boos are more likely to be heard in the press screenings than the gala formal-attire premieres. At those, a standing ovation is more or less a matter of etiquette.

    At this year’s festival, the most star-studded films have gone over well. Haynes’ “May December,” with Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, nearly matched the response to his “Carol,” with an eight-minute ovation. Karim Aïnouz’s historical drama “Firebrand,” starring Alicia Vikander and Jude Law,” clocked in with the same. Vikander called the high-decibel roar of the crowd a stirring, unforgettable experience.

    “I was shivering a bit,” Vikander said. “It really gets to you.”

    ___ Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

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  • Michelle Yeoh Is “Watching the Tides Turn” For Women in Film

    Michelle Yeoh Is “Watching the Tides Turn” For Women in Film

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    If anyone is in a position to reflect on how Hollywood has changed when it comes to opportunities for women, it’s Michelle Yeoh. The Oscar-winning star of Everything Everywhere All At Once got to do just that Sunday night in Cannes when she was honored with Kering’s Women in Motion Award. “I have watched the currents throughout my entire career, and I am watching the tides turn now,” Yeoh said.  

    Yeoh, who also won a Golden Globe and SAG Award this year, was given the Women in Motion Award in front of seated guests who included Leonardo DiCaprio, Isabelle Hupert, Rebel Wilson, Alfonso Cuaron, Salma Hayek, jury president Ruben Östlund, jury members Paul Dano and Brie Larson, President of the Festival de Cannes Iris Knobloch, and Director of the Festival de Cannes Thierry Frémaux. The elegant dining experience set below hundreds of twinkling lights on a hilltop above Cannes is an annual celebration of the accomplishments of women in culture and the arts. 

    “For too long we as women have been left out of rooms and conversations. We have been told the door is closed to us,” she said. “Well, Virginia Woolf once said, ‘there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.’ Our ideas are endless. Our passion is infinite. And we have come to knock that door down.”

    Yeoh went on to mention several of her most iconic characters “who are strong, capable and unafraid to stand up for themselves,” including Wai Lin from Tomorrow Never Dies, Yu Shu Lien from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Evelyn Wang from Everything Everywhere All at Once. “They have taught me so many lessons about how I would like to move through the world: with integrity, with perseverance and above all with fierce compassion,” she said. 

    Yeoh, who has been filming the Wicked movie adaptation in London, attended the world premiere of Firebrand earlier that evening wearing a show-stopping green Balenciaga gown. That night, she wrapped up her acceptance speech — one of so many she’s given over the past year and a half — by looking at what lies ahead when it comes to opportunities for women in film. “There is still work to do. We have a long way to go before we can say we are on equal footing.” she said. “So what I would like to say is keep fighting, keep pushing, keep telling your stories. Your voices are important and your vision is vital.” 

    Yeoh at the Cannes premiere of Firebrand.

    Gisela Schober/Getty Images

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    Rebecca Ford

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  • A first-time filmmaker makes a mark in Cannes competition with a Senegalese drama

    A first-time filmmaker makes a mark in Cannes competition with a Senegalese drama

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    CANNES, France — Most filmmakers in the Cannes Film Festival’s top-rung competition lineup are well-known directors who have been around for decades. One dramatic exception this year is Ramata-Toulaye Sy, a French-Senegalese filmmaker whose first film, “Banel & Adama,” landed among the 21 films competing for the Palme d’Or.

    “It’s only now that I realize that being in competition means being in a competition,” Sy said, laughing, in an interview shortly after “Banel & Adama” premiered in Cannes. “Now that we’re really in the middle of it, I realize there’s a lot of passion going around.”

    Sy, 36, is the sole first-timer in Cannes’ main lineup this year. She is also only the second Black female director to ever compete for the Palme, following Mati Diop, also a French-Senegalese filmmaker, whose “Atlantics” debuted in 2019. For the Paris-raised Sy, it’s not a distinction of significance.

    “I’m a filmmaker and I really wish we stopped being counted as women, as Black or Arab or Asian,” said Sy.

    In “Banel & Adama,” also the only Africa-set film competing for the Palme this year, Sy crafts a radiant and languorous fable tinged with myth and tragedy.

    Banel (Khady Mane) and Adama (Mamadou Diallo) are a deeply in love married couple living in a small village in northern Senegal. In their intimate romantic idyll, they wish to pull away from the local traditions. Adama is set to become village chief but is uninterested in doing so. Banel dreams of living outside the village, in a home buried under a mountain of sand.

    While Banel and Adama slowly work to sweep away the sand, their yearning to live on their own causes angst in the village, especially when a draught arrives that some take as a curse for their independence. Though often opaque, the film stays largely with the psychology of Banel, whose single-mindedness grows increasingly dark.

    “I was quite reluctant at the start to acknowledge that Banel is me,” says Sy. “Now I have to confess that it’s definitely me. I see myself, my questions, my struggle in her journey. How to do become an individual inside a community is really my own question.”

    Sy began writing “Banel & Adama” in 2014 as a student at La Fémis, the French film school. Sy, the daughter of Senegalese immigrants, says she was first drawn to literature. Novels like Toni Morrison’s “Sula” and Elena Frenate’s “My Brilliant Friend” inspired “Banel & Adama.”

    “The love story was a pretext for to deal with myth,” she says. “I wanted to have this kind of mythological female character that you find in Greek tragedy.”

    Sy co-wrote Atiq Rahimi’s “Our Lady of the Nile” and Çagla Zencirci and Guillaume Giovanetti’s “Sibel” — both of which played at international festivals. Her first short film, “Astel,” was well-received.

    But little prepared her for the stresses of shooting in rural Senegal. Along with heat, sandstorms and bouts of illness among the crew, Sy struggled to find her Banel. In the end, she found Mane while walking around.

    “We had all the cast except for her. We started five months before shooting and one month before shooting we still didn’t have her. One day I was walking down the street and my eyes locked on this girl,” says Sy. “It was the way that she looked at me. Her gaze had something a bit wise and a bit crazy.”

    ___

    Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

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  • Cannes: First Look at Jude Law as Henry VIII in Firebrand

    Cannes: First Look at Jude Law as Henry VIII in Firebrand

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    We’ve seen Jude Law take on many looks over the years, starring in the Sherlock Holmes and Fantastic Beast franchises, along with everything from The Talented Mr. Ripley to The Young Pope. But audiences have never quite seen him like this.

    As his new film Firebrand debuts at the Cannes Film Festival, Vanity Fair has the first look of Jude Law in his transformative role as Henry VIII in an exclusive image and video.

    The competition film centers on King Henry VII’s sixth and final wife, Katherine Parr, played by Oscar winner Alicia Vikander.  Law plays the increasingly ailing and paranoid King, who returns from fighting overseas to see that his Queen is attempting to transform the court based on her radical Protestant beliefs. Tensions rise between the pair, as seen in the short clip below.

    Directed by Brazilian artist Karim Aïnouz, Firebrand is described as a reimagining of a period film, more closely resembling a psychological horror film or a political thriller. It is based on Elizabeth Fremantle’s novel The Queen’s Gambit, and centers on the ambitious Parr, the queen who survived. Law captures Henry at the end of his life, when his physical strength was waning and influencing his mental state in dark ways. It’s a visceral, menacing performance, along with a transformation we haven’t seen from Law before. 

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    Rebecca Ford

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  • Mads Mikkelsen on His Indiana Jones De-Aging: “I Sense a Smell of Plastic”

    Mads Mikkelsen on His Indiana Jones De-Aging: “I Sense a Smell of Plastic”

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    At the red carpet gala premiere for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny in Cannes, Mads Mikkelsen seemed right at home, which is no surprise since he’s a Cannes veteran. But just because he seemed to be the one guiding the other members of his cast — which includes Harrison Ford and Phoebe Waller-Bridge — doesn’t mean he wasn’t overwhelmed by it all.

    “You’re standing this way doing photos and [the photographers] keep screaming, it’s just fucking insane,” he tells me. “And it has also a fraction of it that’s just embarrassment.” 

    Mikkelsen has been to Cannes multiple times, with films like Another Round in 2020, The Salvation in 2014, Michael Kohlhaas in 2013 and Casino Royale in 2012. He was a member of the jury in 2016 and won the Cannes Film Festival Best Actor Award in 2012 for his work in Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt.

    Even so, The Dial of Destiny has been something special. “Everybody loves Indiana Jones, and for good reason,” he says. “The charm of it, the skill of the filmmaking, Harrison himself, the music. It’s everything. It’s just the full package.”

    With his special abilities at playing villains (he’s done so in a James Bond film (Casino Royale), a Star Wars film (Rogue One) and a Harry Potter film (replacing Johnny Depp in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore), playing the baddie in an Indiana Jones film — a genius Nazi scientist named Jürgen Voller — was a major check on his bucket list.

    Vanity Fair caught up with Mikkelsen the day after the Cannes premiere of the James Mangold film to talk about how he crafted his villainous character, what it was like working with Ford, and what he and Depp said to each other when they ran into each other on opening night.

    Vanity Fair: Were you an Indiana Jones fan growing up?

    Mads Mikkelsen:  I grew up with it. I was just 15 years old, rented the movie box, watched them all with my brother. We watched Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark 10 times. It had a mind-blowing effect on us. We’d never seen anything like it. I’ve been fans of other things, like Bruce Lee, but as a film, it was just out of this world. We wanted to be up there on the screen, finding artifacts. It had an enormous impact. 

    How did this project first come to you?

    I have a funny story because the week before, a friend of mine was just listing the franchises I’ve been in as a baddie. He was like, “surreal.” I’ve been in that and that and that. And I’m Danish, it doesn’t make sense. What the fuck? How did that happen? And then he said, “So now all you need to do now is Indiana Jones,” and he laughed. And then a week later, I got that call, so I couldn’t wait to hang up to tell him.

    Your friend is psychic, apparently. 

    It’s really funny. I did read the script, but on the first instinct, it was like, “Yeah, you want to be part of that.” Then I read it and then I thought that the adventure was there, the charm was there. And they took into consideration his age in really appropriate ways. They didn’t step on it constantly. They just bumped into it occasionally, which I thought was great because if it was too much, it would be annoying. And then the ending was just beautiful. I was like, “That’s interesting. This is quite touching for an Indiana Jones film.”

    Portraying a Nazi in film can be difficult as they can often come off as cliched. How did you shape this character?

    I think that obviously there’s a story to be told about somebody who’s just draped in ideology, but that’s not the story we’re telling. We’re telling a story about a man who is a scientist in the 30s and 40s in Germany. He’s German, and so obviously he will be part of that party. There’s no way around that. But his love and his dreams are in the scientific department. But if the ideology can be part of it, it’s a good day at the office. But first and foremost, he is not unlike Indy: He’s driven by his passion for his science.

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    Rebecca Ford

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  • Stepping into Spielberg’s shoes, James Mangold takes Indiana Jones on one last adventure

    Stepping into Spielberg’s shoes, James Mangold takes Indiana Jones on one last adventure

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    CANNES, France — When the lights came up after a screening on the Walt Disney lot of “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” Steven Spielberg was incredulous.

    “Damn!” he said. “I thought I was the only one who knew how to make one of these!”

    “Dial of Destiny,” which premiered Thursday at the Cannes Film Festival, is the first Indiana Jones film without Spielberg behind the camera. After years of development, Spielberg and Lucasfilm decided to pass the reigns to James Mangold, the “Ford vs. Ferrari” filmmaker, who was 18 years old when he saw “Raiders of the Lost Ark” in a Hudson Valley theater on opening day in 1981.

    “When I got over my initial hesitation of just: holy s—- this is a big challenge to step into these very big shoes that Steven Spielberg is leaving, the opportunity, on a very selfish level, to collaborate and learn and have the tools and the resources to play on this level was hard to resist,” Mangold said.

    Mangold was being tasked with not only restoring the luster of one of the most beloved film series after a disappointing fourth film in 2008’s “Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull,” but giving Harrison Ford a poignant send-off in his last performance as the character.

    While no one is saying “Dial of Destiny” matches “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” the consensus in Cannes was that it betters “Crystal Skull” by a wide margin. Mangold certainly has Ford’s endorsement.

    “He more than filled the shoes,” Ford told reporters. “He made, for me, a beautiful movie.”

    Before “Dial of Destiny” opens in theaters June 30, Mangold spoke about the challenges of capturing “Indiana Jones” tradition and carrying it forward. After a 1940s-set opening with a de-aged Ford, “Dial of Destiny” moves to the ’60s and finds an aged Jones weary and on the cusp of retirement. The space race has made him a relic of a bygone era.

    And the notion of who Indiana — an Errol Flynn-like hero forged in the moral clarity of WWII — would be in a more complicated time, without the spryness of youth, factored heavily into Mangold’s thinking on “Dial of Destiny.” Remarks have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

    AP: How did you respond when this opportunity arose?

    Mangold: When Harrison and Kathy (Kennedy) and Steven came to me about this — you’re talking about just heroes of my life. George Lucas. John Williams, too. The idea of being invited to not only play in an all-star game with that kind of team, but also take the mound and be the pitcher, is beyond. So you flash forward to this moment where I’m kind of stepping in to the director’s chair, and it’s a chance for me to both try and carry forward what I feel like I’ve been learning all my life from Steven’s work. And at the same time carrying my own voice, but wanting very much to work within the same kind of golden-age vernacular that he’s operating in. It’s pressure because you can’t be playing at a higher level with a headier crowd of luminaries around you. You either have to rise to the occasion or not.

    AP: Were you surprised the job was even open? During the film’s long development, it was long assumed that Spielberg would direct.

    Mangold: I don’t think directing an Indiana Jones film is a job. It is a lifetime commitment. There’s too many luminaries and too much involved. When they came to me they were very laser focused on me stepping in. The idea for me was that I wanted to write a script that I could get behind. I wanted to really retool the existing script pretty aggressively, almost entirely. But when they first came to me? It was a complete shock. I was numb. But I’m also not new at this. There’s a kid in me that’s tickled and flattered — the romantic in me. And then there’s the rational person who’s survived these movies up to this and knows how to make a picture like this.

    AP: And so much of the what defines “Indiana Jones” is the ingenuity of the filmmaking: the clever reveals, the ingenious blocking.

    Mangold: These are love letters to Golden Age cinema. You’re making a narrative and you’re making a movie about characters who have to feel real, but you’re also making a movie that in and of itself is about enjoying the sheer beautiful spectacle of movie making. The way shots move together, the way sequences are constructed, the way you kind of unwind the onion of a revelation in the movie. These are all things where you’re taking your guidance from the classics.

    AP: You’ve described wanting to make “Dial of Destiny” about “a hero at sunset.” How did age relate to your intentions for the film?

    Mangold: When they approached me, I immediately found myself faced with making an Indiana Jones with a hero in his late 70s. There’s no way around the fact that the audience is going to be confronted with Harrison’s age. They’re going to see a man they’ve grown up with in his late 70s. To me, it’s not about what I’m doing, it’s about what I’m not doing. I’m not going to allow myself to be in denial that this is going to be a huge factor in the audience’s mind.

    AP: So even though you begin with a de-aged Indiana, you wanted to embrace who Ford, 80, is today.

    Mangold: The movie becomes about the very thing that is undeniable. What is it like to be a hero, to be a kind of swashbuckling, mischievous, demanding, fearless, but also fearful? What I thought about, even in relation to some of the struggles they had with “Crystal Skull,” was that it’s very challenging to carry a kind of golden-age character forward past the dividing line after modernism arrived. The optimism and clarity of purpose with which characters operated in the ‘30s or ’40s is not the same environment that they’re operating in in the ‘50s, ’60s and ’70s. The arrival of modernism has brought realpolitik and a kind of lack of clarity about who are enemies and who our heroes are. It’s brought a kind of cynicism into the world about easy heroes. Science has replace mysticism, and we’re landing on the moon where nuclear weapons are all around us.

    AP: Was it moving to shoot Ford’s last scene as Indiana?

    Mangold: We shot his last shot and everyone applauded and we all drank champagne. And it is very moving. But you’ve been through almost a year of making this movie together. To do a good job making a movie like this, you can never sink completely into that way of thinking. Because if you did, you’d be lost in kind of the symbolism of each moment. Indiana Jones is a part of Harrison, so in a way, I don’t think he’s ever saying goodbye to the character because he carries this character. It’s very close to who he is.

    ___

    Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

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  • See the Best-Dressed Stars at Vanity Fair’s Cannes Party

    See the Best-Dressed Stars at Vanity Fair’s Cannes Party

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    Vanity Fair

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  • Killers of the Flower Moon review: Scorsese’s handsome Western is ‘too slow’

    Killers of the Flower Moon review: Scorsese’s handsome Western is ‘too slow’

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    Other alternative protagonists keep drifting into view. The film is adapted from David Grann’s book, which is subtitled “The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI”, and yet the main agent responsible for cracking the case, played by Jesse Plemons, isn’t introduced for two hours. Incidentally, the lawyers in the subsequent court case, played by John Lithgow and Brendan Fraser, don’t turn up for another half-hour after that. Or what about Mollie, who trusts Ernest, but is also a proud, cool-headed, perceptive woman who is determined that justice be served? Might the film have had more purpose if it had concentrated on her? There are fascinating revelations about how the Osage people are infantilised, and how they conduct their business, but these should have accounted for a bigger chunk of the three-and-a-half hour running time.

    The last half-hour in particular prompts mixed feelings because, despite some touching, sober scenes, it becomes a Coen Brothersesque farce about just how stupid criminals can be. It’s the most enjoyable part of the film, but also the most questionable. If Scorsese was set on making a blackly comic romp featuring a patronising gangster and his numbskulled nephew, maybe he shouldn’t have used the real massacre of Native Americans as its subject.

    ★★★☆☆

    Killers of the Flower Moon is on general release from 20 October.

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  • Scorsese debuts ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ in Cannes to thunderous applause

    Scorsese debuts ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ in Cannes to thunderous applause

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    CANNES, France — Martin Scorsese unveiled “Killers of the Flower Moon” at Cannes on Saturday, debuting a sweeping American epic about greed and exploitation on the bloody plains of an Osage Nation reservation in 1920s Oklahoma.

    Scorsese’s latest — starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro — is one of his most ambitious. Adapting David Grann’s nonfiction bestseller, it stretches nearly three and a half hours and cost Apple $200 million to make.

    Nothing has been more anticipated at this year’s Cannes Film Festival than “Killers of the Flower Moon” — a historical epic, a bitter crime film and a Great Plains Western — which appeared to meet those expectations. It drew a lengthy standing ovation and repeated cheers for Scorsese, 80, who premiered his first film at Cannes since 1985’s “After Hours.”

    “We shot this a couple of years ago in Oklahoma. It’s taken its time to come around but Apple did so great by us,” Scorsese said, addressing the crowd after the screening. “There was lots of grass. I’m a New Yorker.”

    The red carpet drew a wide spectrum of stars. Along with the film’s expansive cast, attendees included Apple CEO Tim Cook, as well as actors Cate Blanchett, Salma Hayek, Paul Dano and Isabelle Huppert.

    Though Grann’s book affords many possible inroads to the story, Scorsese and co-writer Eric Roth center their story on Ernest Burkhart (DiCaprio, in his seventh collaboration with Scorsese), a WWI veteran who falls for Mollie Brown (Gladstone), the member of a wealthy Osage family.

    Since finding oil reserves on their land, the Osage were then the richest people per capita in the country. But that wealth is closely controlled by appointed white guardians. A series of murders prompts increased panic among the Osage, who are preyed on by a host of greedy killers.

    Though Grann’s book devoted many pages to the connections between the cases and the birth of the FBI, less time is spent in Scorsese’s film on the murder investigations. (Jesse Plemons plays an agent from the just-formed Bureau.) Instead, “Killers of the Flower Moon” captures the manipulation and murders of Native American people through the dynamics in Ernest and Mollie’s relationship.

    “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which is playing out of competition in Cannes, opens in U.S. theaters on Oct. 6.

    ___

    Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

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  • Martin Scorsese Has Never Made a Movie Like ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’

    Martin Scorsese Has Never Made a Movie Like ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’

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    Over the course of a storied career, the director Martin Scorsese has used gangsters—particularly those connected to the Mafia—as a way to talk about America. Coded in the ring-a-ding patter and bloody outburst of Goodfellas or Casino is a simulacrum of our country’s make-or-break greed, its manic excess, its ornate history of violence. Though he has made other kinds of movies, Scorsese has returned to the criminal fringes again and again, seemingly unable to shake his fascination with America’s dark economy.

    With 2019’s The Irishman, it seemed that maybe Scorsese was closing a loop, crafting a wintry portrait of a gangster at his end. But for his next act, the director has merely gone further back in time to examine another organized brutality. With Killers of the Flower Moon, which premiered here at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, Scorsese adapts David Grann’s nonfiction bestseller, a chronicle of the murders of Osage people in 1920s Oklahoma. Over three and a half hours, Scorsese maps out a sprawling injustice, adding another piece to his grand collage of a nation’s cruelty.

    Leonardo DiCaprio plays Ernest Burkhart, a World War I veteran of simple aims who has arrived in Osage County to work for his uncle, William Hale, a wealthy and respected rancher played with creeping slime by Robert De Niro. Hale isn’t in the oil business, but he’s surrounded by its wealth. The Osage people have discovered oil on their land, and have been granted access to much of its profits. Their home is one of the most monied places per capita in the world, its residents chauffeured around in fancy cars, bedecked in fine furs and jewelry on their way to and from well-appointed homes.

    The Osage oil boom was a rare instance of Native Americans finding themselves in control of resources, which of course was anathema to many of the white people flocking to the county to work the oil fields. Their barely clandestine efforts to steal this Native wealth are grimly laid bare in Killers of the Flower Moon, perhaps Scorsese’s most tragic, condemnatory film to date.

    Courtesy of Cannes Film Festival 

    Ernest meets a rich Osage woman, Mollie Kyle, who catches his attention for her serene beauty and playfully cool demeanor. She’s played by Lily Gladstone in a performance of quiet, but forceful, dignity; Mollie is, in some senses, the hero of the film, though she is sidelined by illness both natural and manufactured. Killers of the Flower Moon suggests a true affection between Mollie and Ernest, perverted by the rapacious predation of Ernest and his clan. The film tracks the systematic dehumanization of Mollie, her family, and her community as they are dispatched one by one—with guns and poison and bombs—and their oil rights are transferred to white people, often the husbands of Osage women.

    It’s a genocide in miniature, essentially, through which Scorsese addresses the much larger displacement and eradication of Native Americans. Unlike his other mobster pictures, Killers of the Flower Moon is never giddy about its violence. Some scenes have a propulsive energy, but the film is often as solemn and ruminative as Silence, Scorsese’s whispery epic about extreme faith. Still, by the end, the film has spoken plenty loudly about the long horror of colonialism, its horrifying reach and ruin.

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    Richard Lawson

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  • Steve McQueen on Expectations: ‘I’m Happy to Defy Them’

    Steve McQueen on Expectations: ‘I’m Happy to Defy Them’

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    The Cannes Film Festival holds a special place in Steve McQueen’s heart, because it’s where his directorial debut Hunger made its way into the world back in 2008. He remembers the 15-minute rapturous applause of an audience who had just discovered a promising new director, taking the stage with star Michael Fassbender afterwards for a Q&A—and the conversation the next day around the festival, which was all about why the film wasn’t in the Competition lineup. 

    “That’s another story. One day I will tell that story. Not now,” McQueen tells me as we sit down in a corner booth at a bustling restaurant in Cannes. 

    McQueen, who went on to make 2011’s Shame (also starring Fassbender), 2014 Oscar best picture winner Twelve Years a Slave, and 2018’s Widows, has a different story to tell today: about his first documentary, a four-hour exploration of the past and present set in Amsterdam. The film, which played out of Competition at the festival, is based on his wife Bianca Stigter‘s book, Atlas of an Occupied City, Amsterdam 1940-1945, which meticulously chronicled the Dutch city’s occupation by the Nazis.

    For the documentary, McQueen filmed slice-of-life moments in modern-day Amsterdam, and paired them with voiceover that describes the atrocities committed in those exact locations by the Nazis. It’s an uncomfortable juxtaposition — and that’s exactly what McQueen was going for. “I thought that it would be a radical idea to do that, to make a picture without archive footage. Just the present day, being illustrated by the past,” says McQueen. “For me, Occupied City is not a history lesson. It’s an experience.”

    McQueen’s film is radical in many ways, not only for being a documentary without the traditional talking heads or archival footage, but also because of its 262-minute running time (with an intermission). “I want to push things because the form isn’t done,” he says. “Everyone says, ‘this is a documentary. This is how you’re doing a feature film.’ Well, no.”

    Occupied City isn’t the first time McQueen has pushed the boundaries of how a film is defined. His last Cannes contribution was in 2020, when two of the films in his Small Axe series were included in the line-up. (The festival had to shift to a virtual program due to COVID-19.) The five-film series, which aired on BBC One and Amazon Prime, landed a Golden Globe nomination for limited or anthology series but also appeared on the Los Angeles Film Critics Association’s award for best picture. At the time, McQueen stated that it was always intended for TV. But when I talk to him now, he calls them films. It’s clear McQueen won’t be boxed in by these sorts of labels. “Well, that’s not my debate, that’s your debate,” he tells me, looking me square in the eye. “I make this stuff.”

    For Occupied City, McQueen actually captured 36 hours of footage as he filmed every setting featured in the book starting in 2019. But then he had to cut it down to four hours. “It was a process. It was a long process, but it was wonderful to have all these things at your disposal you could grab here and there, there was nothing I didn’t have to work with,” he says. “So it was a lot of work, but it was defiant. It was wonderful.”

    He made the film to be shown in theaters (it’s being distributed by A24), and when I ask him if he’s concerned at all that the run time will scare people off, he’s unconcerned. “I didn’t make this to be long. I made it to be right,” he says. “As an artist, you’re just trying to do the best thing for the subject matter. The subject that is asking for a certain kind of length, or some kind of how it wants to be presented.” He admits that at first, he wondered if A24 would be okay with the lengthy running time, but they never had an issue with it. “People maybe have expectations of me. I’m happy to defy them. You have to push yourself in ways which are not neat and tidy, or not what people want from you or expect.”

    He’s also aware that it can be demanding to absorb both the present day visuals and the horrific stories being told. He doesn’t expect audiences to take in both at every moment — that’s part of the experience. “Sometimes you are in it and it’s too much information, and you’re just looking and you’re not listening. Sometimes you’re listening, and you’re not looking at the images,” he says. “It’s just going to classical concerts. You’re not holding it all in the head. It’s ungraspable.”

    McQueen, who has had a home with his wife in Amsterdam for 27 years (they split time between there and London), says he didn’t have any trouble gaining access to people’s homes. Many of the residents allow him to capture intimate moments from their lives, from quiet days at home to COVID weddings in empty hotel rooms over Zoom. “I think when we’re talking about the second World War, people are very open,” says McQueen. “That’s why when you walk in the streets of Amsterdam you look in people’s houses, see them cooking and washing up and doing things because the people are sort of like, what have you got to hide? There’s nothing to hide.”

    The film also captures modern day Amsterdam during the COVID-19 lockdown, including the anti-vaccination protests. But McQueen says he wasn’t necessarily trying to draw a parallel between a city under siege in the 1940s and the same city being locked down today; he was simply capturing the present moment in time. “One is not necessarily to illustrate the other,” he says. “But life does that. You can look at the military police there and think of the Nazi occupation, but at the same time you might not. So it’s one of those things where it’s a situation where life is a weird thing where you could drift in and out.”

    McQueen, who is currently in post on his next feature film—Blitz, a WWII-set drama—has a lot of thoughtful answers about Occupied City, speaking about it with a fast cadence and a sort of frenetic energy. But toward the end of the conversation, I mention that it seems brave to make a movie that breaks from the traditional format of a documentary. That there’s a risk to it. He seems stumped in how to respond, other than telling me he wouldn’t use the word brave. He pauses, quietly thinking it over for a couple minutes. “It’s not done. It’s just not done. Things are not done yet,” he says. “Our responsibility is not to be comfortable, but to push. You have to throw yourself off kilter.” For McQueen, it’s not brave. He simply has no other choice.

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    Rebecca Ford

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  • In Cannes, Harrison Ford bids adieu to Indiana Jones

    In Cannes, Harrison Ford bids adieu to Indiana Jones

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    CANNES, France — As the Cannes Film Festival crowd stood in rapturous applause, a visibly moved Harrison Ford stood on the stage, trying to keep his emotions in check.

    The warmth of the audience and a clip reel that had just played had left Ford shaken.

    “They say that when you’re about to die, you see your life flash before your eyes,” he said. “And I just saw my life flash before my eyes — a great part of my life, but not all of my life.”

    If last year’s Cannes was partially defined by its tribute to “Top Gun Maverick” star Tom Cruise, this year’s has belonged to Ford. This time, it’s been far more poignant. Ford, 80, is retiring Indiana Jones, saying goodbye to the iconic swashbuckling archeologist more than 40 years after he first debuted, with fedora, whip and a modest snake phobia.

    It’s been a moving farewell tour — most of all for Ford, who has teared up frequently along the way. Speaking to reporters Friday, Ford was asked: Why give up Indy now?

    “Is it not evident?” he replied with a characteristically sheepish grin. “I need to sit down and rest a little bit. I love to work. And I love this character. And I love what it brought into my life. That’s all I can say.”

    “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” the fifth Indiana Jones film, premiered Thursday night in Cannes, bringing an affecting coda to the franchise begun with 1981’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” While that film and the next three were all directed by Steven Spielberg from a story by George Lucas, Ford’s final chapter is directed and co-written by James Mangold, the “Ford vs. Ferrari” filmmaker.

    The gala, one of the most sought-after tickets at Cannes this year, also included an honorary Palme d’Or given to Ford. The next day, Ford was still struggling to articulate the experience of unveiling his final turn as Indiana Jones.

    “It was indescribable. I can’t even tell you,” said Ford. “It’s just extraordinary to see a kind of relic of your life as it passes by.”

    Following the disappointment of 2008’s little-loved “Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull,” the possibilities for a fifth film lingered for years and went through many iterations. Ford said he was intent on seeing a different, less youthful version of Jones. “Dial of Destiny” is set in the 1960s and finds Indiana as a retiring professor whose long-ago exploits no longer seem so special in the age of space exploration.

    “I wanted to see the weight of life on him. I wanted to see him require reinvention and support. And I wanted him to have a relationship that was not a flirty movie relationship,” said Ford, who stars alongside Phoebe Waller-Bridge. “I wanted an equal relationship.”

    Ford is clearly deeply pleased with the movie. He was especially complimentary of his castmates and Mangold, whom he said did more than “fill the shoes that Steven left for us.”

    “Everything has come together to support me in my old age,” said Ford with a wry grin.

    The movie begins with an extended sequence set back in the final days of WWII. In those scenes, Ford has been de-aged to appear much younger. Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy was quick to say that an AI-crafted Ford won’t be used by the company in the future. Ford called the employment of a de-aged version of him “skilled and assiduous” — and didn’t make him jealous.

    “I don’t look back and say I wish I was that guy. I’m real happy with age,” said Ford. He then added, with an expletive, that it could be worse. “I could be dead.”

    Ford isn’t retiring from acting. He has two ongoing TV series (“Shrinking,” “1923”) and he said he remains committed to working.

    “My luck has been been to work with incredibly talented people and find my way into this crowd of geniuses and not get my ass kicked out,” said Ford. “And I’ve apparently still got a chance to work and I want that. I need that in my life, that challenge.”

    Ford, like Indiana, isn’t departing without his hat. He’s kept one, Ford said, but he more prizes the experience of making the films. “The stuff is great but it’s not about the stuff.”

    And Ford can still turn heads. One female reporter declared that the 80-year-old was “still hot” and asked Ford — who briefly appears shirtless in the movie — how he stays fit. After a few chuckles and some mention of his avid cycling, Ford answered with mock pomposity.

    “I’ve been blessed with this body,” he replied. “Thanks for noticing.”

    ___

    Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

    ___

    For more on this year’s Cannes Film Festival, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/cannes-film-festival

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  • In Cannes, Harrison Ford bids adieu to Indiana Jones

    In Cannes, Harrison Ford bids adieu to Indiana Jones

    [ad_1]

    CANNES, France — As the Cannes Film Festival crowd stood in rapturous applause, a visibly moved Harrison Ford stood on the stage, trying to keep his emotions in check.

    The warmth of the audience and a clip reel that had just played had left Ford shaken.

    “They say that when you’re about to die, you see your life flash before your eyes,” he said. “And I just saw my life flash before my eyes — a great part of my life, but not all of my life.”

    If last year’s Cannes was partially defined by its tribute to “Top Gun Maverick” star Tom Cruise, this year’s has belonged to Ford. This time, it’s been far more poignant. Ford, 80, is retiring Indiana Jones, saying goodbye to the iconic swashbuckling archeologist more than 40 years after he first debuted, with fedora, whip and a modest snake phobia.

    It’s been a moving farewell tour — most of all for Ford, who has teared up frequently along the way. Speaking to reporters Friday, Ford was asked: Why give up Indy now?

    “Is it not evident?” he replied with a characteristically sheepish grin. “I need to sit down and rest a little bit. I love to work. And I love this character. And I love what it brought into my life. That’s all I can say.”

    “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” the fifth Indiana Jones film, premiered Thursday night in Cannes, bringing an affecting coda to the franchise begun with 1981’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” While that film and the next three were all directed by Steven Spielberg from a story by George Lucas, Ford’s final chapter is directed and co-written by James Mangold, the “Ford vs. Ferrari” filmmaker.

    The gala, one of the most sought-after tickets at Cannes this year, also included an honorary Palme d’Or given to Ford. The next day, Ford was still struggling to articulate the experience of unveiling his final turn as Indiana Jones.

    “It was indescribable. I can’t even tell you,” said Ford. “It’s just extraordinary to see a kind of relic of your life as it passes by.”

    Following the disappointment of 2008’s little-loved “Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull,” the possibilities for a fifth film lingered for years and went through many iterations. Ford said he was intent on seeing a different, less youthful version of Jones. “Dial of Destiny” is set in the 1960s and finds Indiana as a retiring professor whose long-ago exploits no longer seem so special in the age of space exploration.

    “I wanted to see the weight of life on him. I wanted to see him require reinvention and support. And I wanted him to have a relationship that was not a flirty movie relationship,” said Ford, who stars alongside Phoebe Waller-Bridge. “I wanted an equal relationship.”

    Ford is clearly deeply pleased with the movie. He was especially complimentary of his castmates and Mangold, whom he said did more than “fill the shoes that Steven left for us.”

    “Everything has come together to support me in my old age,” said Ford with a wry grin.

    The movie begins with an extended sequence set back in the final days of WWII. In those scenes, Ford has been de-aged to appear much younger. Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy was quick to say that an AI-crafted Ford won’t be used by the company in the future. Ford called the employment of a de-aged version of him “skilled and assiduous” — and didn’t make him jealous.

    “I don’t look back and say I wish I was that guy. I’m real happy with age,” said Ford. He then added, with an expletive, that it could be worse. “I could be dead.”

    Ford isn’t retiring from acting. He has two ongoing TV series (“Shrinking,” “1923”) and he said he remains committed to working.

    “My luck has been been to work with incredibly talented people and find my way into this crowd of geniuses and not get my ass kicked out,” said Ford. “And I’ve apparently still got a chance to work and I want that. I need that in my life, that challenge.”

    Ford, like Indiana, isn’t departing without his hat. He’s kept one, Ford said, but he more prizes the experience of making the films. “The stuff is great but it’s not about the stuff.”

    And Ford can still turn heads. One female reporter declared that the 80-year-old was “still hot” and asked Ford — who briefly appears shirtless in the movie — how he stays fit. After a few chuckles and some mention of his avid cycling, Ford answered with mock pomposity.

    “I’ve been blessed with this body,” he replied. “Thanks for noticing.”

    ___

    Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

    ___

    For more on this year’s Cannes Film Festival, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/cannes-film-festival

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  • Sean Penn, backing WGA strike, calls Producers Guild the ‘Bankers Guild’ at Cannes Film Festival

    Sean Penn, backing WGA strike, calls Producers Guild the ‘Bankers Guild’ at Cannes Film Festival

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    Sean Penn has strongly backed the current Hollywood screenwriters strike while speaking at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday, saying the dispute over Artificial Intelligence is “a human obscenity.”

    ByJAKE COYLE AP Film Writer

    Sean Penn, left, and director Jean-Stephane Sauvaire pose for photographers at the photo call for the film ‘Black Flies’ at the 76th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Friday, May 19, 2023. (Photo by Scott Garfitt/Invision/AP)

    The Associated Press

    CANNES, France — Sean Penn strongly backed the current Hollywood screenwriters strike while speaking at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday, saying the dispute over Artificial Intelligence is “a human obscenity.”

    Penn addressed the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike in a press conference for his new film, “Black Flies,” director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s harrowing, gritty drama about New York paramedics. Asked about the strike, Penn said “the industry has been upending the writers and actors and directors for a very long time.”

    “There’s a lot of new concepts being tossed about including the use of A.I. It strikes me as a human obscenity for there to be pushback on that from the producers,” said Penn, a veteran writer-director in addition to being an actor.

    Film and TV screenwriters earlier this month began striking after talks with producers broke off. The WGA is seeking better pay, new contracts for the streaming era and safeguards against the use of AI-scripted work-arounds.

    “The first thing we should do in these conversations is change the Producers Guild and title them how they behave, which is the Bankers Guild,” added Penn. “It’s difficult for so many writers and so many people industry-wide to not be able to work at this time. I guess it’s going to soul-search itself and see what side toughs it out.”

    Penn’s comments come as the potential for a wider work stoppage in Hollywood may be growing. The Directors Guild is also negotiating a new contract with producers. The board of SAG-AFTRA, the actors union, this week voted to ask members for strike authorization as it prepares to enter negotiations for a new contract.

    In Cannes, the strike been a regular topic for American stars. On Thursday, Ethan Hawke wore a shirt that read “Pencils Down.” On the festival’s opening day Tuesday, juror Paul Dano said he planned to join his wife, Zoe Kazan, on the picket lines soon.

    “My wife is currently picketing with my 6-month-old, strapped to her chest,” said Dano. “I will be there on the picket line when I get back home.”

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  • Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny review: ‘Gloomy and depressing’ final act

    Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny review: ‘Gloomy and depressing’ final act

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    Besides, everything is smaller and cheaper than it was in the original trilogy. Indy up against the military might of the Third Reich in 1936? We could all get behind that. But Indy up against one scientist and his silent, interchangeable henchmen in 1969? It’s just not such a big deal. Mangold and his team dutifully crank out the action sequences, but it’s often hard to tell what’s happening or why, and there is a shortage of surprising, rip-roaring moments to make you stand up and cheer, despite the best efforts of John Williams’ rousing classic theme. Take an early chase in New York, for instance. It’s set during a ticker-tape parade for the three astronauts who were on the Apollo 11 moon mission, so you can imagine the high jinks that Spielberg might have cooked up: some slapstick with Buzz Aldrin, perhaps, or a giant papier-maché moon rolling down Fifth Avenue like the boulder in Raiders of The Lost Ark. But Mangold and his team do so little with the parade that you wonder why they bothered staging it.

    It’s the same with the scenes in which Indy is face to face with some snake-like eels, and when he finds his way into Archimedes’ tomb. The jokes, the zest and the exuberance just aren’t there, so instead of a joyous send-off for our beloved hero, we get a depressing reminder of how much livelier his past adventures were. Considering that the screenplay is credited to four writers – Mangold, David Koepp and Jez and John-Henry Butterworth – couldn’t they at least have thought of something cool for Indy to do with his whip?

    Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is released on 30 June in the UK and US

    Love film and TV? Join BBC Culture Film and TV Club on Facebook, a community for cinephiles all over the world.

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    And if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called The Essential List. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Worklife and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.

     

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  • Cannes 2023: Up Close and Personal With Uma Thurman, Catherine Deneuve, and More

    Cannes 2023: Up Close and Personal With Uma Thurman, Catherine Deneuve, and More

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    Some photos from Cannes are instantly recognizable—from a star in a dramatic gown on the Palais red carpet to a film’s cast at a daytime photo call, smiling in front of the azure sea. But there are other photos that capture moments no one else gets to see, the kind of intimate, one-of-a-kind close-ups that only Saskia Lawaks can capture. Ahead, see the 2023 Cannes Film Festival through her lens.

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  • Johnny Depp comeback: ‘Jeanne du Barry’ met with mediocre reviews at Cannes – National | Globalnews.ca

    Johnny Depp comeback: ‘Jeanne du Barry’ met with mediocre reviews at Cannes – National | Globalnews.ca

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    Johnny Depp is back, but critics aren’t thrilled with the star’s latest performance.

    Depp, 59, appeared at the opening night of the Cannes International Film Festival on Tuesday for a screening of his new French-language film, Jeanne du Barry, in which he plays the former King of France Louis XV.

    King Louis XV is the first movie role Depp has stepped into since winning a high-profile defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife Amber Heard last year. He sued Heard over a Washington Post op-ed in which she referred to herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” Depp was awarded US$10 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages.


    Click to play video: 'Jury awards Johnny Depp $15 million in damages in defamation suit against Amber Heard'


    Jury awards Johnny Depp $15 million in damages in defamation suit against Amber Heard


    Almost a year later, Depp stood before a cheering crowd at Cannes, who gave the teary-eyed actor a seven-minute standing ovation after the film’s screening.

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    Depp coyly winked at the camera in the room and appeared grateful as the French audience proved they are still head over heels for the American actor.

    However, despite the festivalgoers’ reactions, critics have published tepid reviews about both Jeanne du Barry and Depp’s performance.

    According to a Variety critic, though the film “demands to be taken seriously,” Depp fell short and appeared “strangely uncomfortable in the role — adequate but not especially engaged.”

    “Depp’s the kind of player who delivers practically every performance with a wink, so it’s odd that even when his Louis is actually supposed to be winking (at Jeanne), the sparkle isn’t there,” wrote Peter Debruge.

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    Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the movie a middling three-star review. He called the film “an entertaining spectacle, only partly aware of its own vanity.” As for the acting, Bradshaw wrote that Depp was better than a simply stunt-casted actor, but claimed all of the performances were “a little opaque.”

    A review from Jordan Mintzer of The Hollywood Reporter called the film “sumptuously made” but “kind of bland.” He wrote that Depp’s performance “offers a few early thrills and then mostly yawns.”

    Still, Depp appeared staunch about his faith in Jeanne du Barry — and altogether unbothered by those who have questioned his comeback.

    At a press conference for the film on Wednesday, Depp — who was 42 minutes late to the event — said “abstract whispers” about his personal life shouldn’t cloud the film.

    “The majority of what you have been reading the last four or five years … with regard to me and my life, what you’ve read is fantastically, horrifically written fiction,” Depp said.

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    Depp was also asked if he felt “boycotted” by Hollywood amid the years-long dramas of his defamation lawsuits. (As well as Heard, Depp also sued the British tabloid The Sun over an article was published calling him a “wife beater.” In 2020, he lost the trial when a U.K. judge decided The Sun’s claims were “substantially true.”)

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    “Did I feel boycotted by Hollywood? You’d have to not have a pulse to feel like, ‘No. None of this is happening. It’s a weird joke,’” Depp said. “When you’re asked to resign from a film you’re doing because of something that is merely a function of vowels and consonants floating in the air, yes, you feel boycotted.”

    Depp was most notably asked to step down from the Harry Potter spin-off franchise Fantastic Beasts. Now, though, he says he’s not interested in returning to studio projects.

    “I don’t feel boycotted by Hollywood, because I don’t think about Hollywood. I don’t have much further need for Hollywood, myself,” Depp continued. “It’s a strange, funny time where everybody would love to be able to be themselves, but they can’t. They must fall in line with the person in front of them. If you want to live that life, I wish you the best.”

    Depp’s presence at the Cannes Film Festival has been the subject of fierce debate. Buzz about his attendance has pretty well usurped all other conversations about the festival, especially online. Even actors starring in unrelated films have had to face questions about whether Depp should have been invited to the festival.

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    Jeanne du Barry is the story of Jeanne Bécu (played by French actor and the film’s director, Maïwenn), the illegitimate daughter of a monk and a cook who becomes a social pariah and King Louis XV’s final mistress.

    — with files from The Associated Press

    &copy 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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    Sarah Do Couto

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  • Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke’s Gay Cowboys Take Cannes

    Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke’s Gay Cowboys Take Cannes

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    The promise of a gay Western starring Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke and directed by Pedro Almodóvar proved to be catnip to Cannes audiences when the short film Strange Way of Life premiered at the festival Wednesday. Not even a steady rain kept the crowds away—despite having to wait in line, getting drenched, for close to an hour. 

    When Almodóvar took the stage to introduce the film—one of his few forays into English-language cinema—he was joined by Hawke and a quartet of hunky actors (among them Manu Rios, from the hit Spanish teen soap Elite). It all seemed to set the stage for something vivid and sensual in the style of so many other Almodóvar films. 

    And it was borne out, albeit in limited ways, in the actual film. Hawke plays a small-town sheriff, Jake, who is investigating the murder of his sister-in-law at the hands of her lover. Pascal is Silva, an old friend of Jake’s who rides into town for shadowy purposes. At least part of his intention is romantic: Jake and Silva had a two-month fling in Mexico some 25 years previous, a brief and wonderful giving-in to forbidden desire that seems to have haunted the two men ever since. Silvan wants to pick up where they left off, while Jake halfheartedly resists. 

    In that sense, Strange Way of Life is a melodrama, with lots of heavy talk about the sweet, erotic gleam of the past and all the bitter compromises of the present. Hawke and Pascal find the right tone to handle all this florid emoting, with Almodóvar mostly getting out their way. Though he does let Alberto Igelsias’s swelling score rush in at the lovelorn pair, a dash of old Hollywood flare at once mournful and swooning. 

    There is eventually a shootout, of sorts, but it’s not played for fun. And it’s ultimately in service of a poignant conclusion. Strange Way of Life cuts through its grizzle to arrive at something soft and sentimental, a vision of how Jake and Silva could have been had they allowed passion to win out over convention and the harsh strictures of life in the old world. 

    There is a small bit of sexy stuff too, particularly a dreamy and wine-soaked flashback to what was perhaps the beginning of Jake and Silva’s first carnal release. It’s brief, just like the sexual epiphany flashback in Almodóvar’s Pain and Glory. Also helping raise the vapors level are those handsome Spanish fellows, who are barely in the film but add to the film’s heady, hot-and-bothered air nonetheless.

    It’s a kick to see Almodóvar’s gay gaze applied to a Western, though at only 31 minutes, the film leaves us wanting quite a lot more. One hopes that this might be a mere demo reel for a full feature film; Almodóvar has said he is gaining confidence directing in English, so perhaps he might feel ready to pursue a more substantial story with Pascal and Hawk. There’s more to be explored here, more conventions of the Western to be turned on their heads—or, rather, expanded to include new narratives. With Strange Way of Life, Almodóvar, such a full-throated and singular filmmaker, proves just the right man to lead that revolutionary charge.

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    Richard Lawson

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