Getting Started

For the next few days, I’ll be posting blogs on my trip to Cannes where my film “Arc of a Bird” is in the Short Film Pavilion. (For those who don’t know, “Arc” is an 11-minute film that received a Production Fund Grant from the Independent Film Producers in Chicago. Since its premiere in November 2008, we’ve been in roughly ten film festivals and won four awards.) This is my starter entry (of the blog) before I hope on a plane, so some preliminary thoughts/reflections may be in order; and if they’re not, check back on Thursday after I land….

For most folks, I suppose it’s not all that important to know that Chicago is the Algonquin word for “stinky onion” or that “Detroit” means “a strait or river” as in le détroit du Lac Érie – but I’ve been curious about Cannes for a couple of reasons, probably the most pressing being I’m still not sure how to pronounce it. Good friends who’ve had enough French to know tell me it’s “Kahn” but inogolo.com which specializes in such things tells me (I mean, literally tells me) it’s “can” – as does the “Festival Virgin’s Guide” at www.cannesguide.com/festival/. So, if anyone has irrefutable proof beyond these, let me know.

The only reason this seems like a big deal to me is that I’ve been saying it with the more pretentious “ahhhhh” for years now and pronouncing it with the nasal Midwestern “can” feels like I’m intentionally mis-pronouncing it!

In terms of history it seems that before they began the film festival, Cannes was your basic sleepy little Mediterranean fishing village – the most excitement coming in the Dark Ages, around the 10^th century, when Saracens decided to invade. Right around that time the city became known as Canua which, according to uncomfirmed sources, is derived from canna, the Latin word for “reed”. Monks who were under attack fled island monasteries; they constructed a castle for protection in what by then was called “Cannes”. Fast forward 10 centuries… (I’m cribbing most of this from Wikipedia, so feel free to jump ahead to “So what”…)

Turns out the British and Americans were big supporters of starting a film festival in the south of France. Filmmakers had been complaining for years about the influence exerted by the Fascist Italian and German governments over what was THEN the biggest international festival in Venice (in 1932). But plans for a Cannes Festival were put on hold in 1939 when the Germans decided to try the Saracen approach of world domination and invaded Poland on September 1 of that year.

Flash forward to 1946 where the first Canne Film Festival was held in the old Casino. The venue was moved to the Palais des Festivals in 1947; unfortunately, the roof was unfinished and blew away in a storm. The 1948 and 1950 festivals were cancelled due to financial problems.

So what? So who cares about some Frenchie film festival which doesn’t get aired on any major network and has never had Johnny Carson, Whoopi Goldberg or Jon Stewart host it – much less Wolverine sing and dance at it? Isn’t this just artsy-fartsy nonsense?

I don’t know if I knew Martin Scorcese’s Taxi Driver had won the Palme D’Or back in 1976. The first film that definitely sticks in my mind as being awarded this international prize was Wim Wenders’ and Sam Shepard’s Paris, Texas in 1984. Everything about that film – the soundtrack, Shepard’s dialog and story, the cinematography, and performances by Harry Dean Stanton, Dean Stockwell and Nastassja Kinski – knocked me out. It was really the first time I recall associating the golden palms in the movie poster with the kind of film it was. Although I’ve probably seen it a half dozen times since then, I wonder if the film would have ever gotten the distribution it did, if I ever would have seen it at all in a theater (I has seen Wenders’ films on college campus but not in a mainstream movie theater.)

Knowing that The Mission, Soderbergh’s sex, lies and videotape, Barton Fink, Jane Campion’s The Piano, and Pulp Fiction have all won awards there (but none for Best Picture at the Academy Awards) I’m not sure what to say about any common thread among them, anymore than you can really make sweeping generalizations about the Academy Awards.

Arc of a Bird may not be in the formal competition, but since it IS in the Short Films Pavilion (more on this later), and since The Producer and I have an opportunity to be there in a year where Jane Campion, Quentin Tarantino, Pedro Almodovar and others are premiering their films I’m excited to be going. I cashed in all my membership reward points to get the ticket to Nice and will be leaving at 3 PM today. More later.