Cannes Diary: Day One

The day before the 64th Annual Cannes Film Fest felt a little like the day before the big race. The runners are journalists, bloggers, production companies, publicists, talent, photographers, festival organizers and everyone in and around Cannes who makes most of their money in the next two weeks.

As I write this, I have awakened at 3am, much to my own disappointment. Since sleep is the one thing that we have mostly no control over, I somehow hoped that jet-lag wouldn’t get the best of me. Film screenings need your full attention and if you fall asleep during them, it’s like falling asleep during geometry class: you might as well as have missed the whole thing, even if you still got a lot from it. Some is still not all.

But when you are awake at 3am, you are wide awake. Here in Cannes — as I’ve discovered from renting a car and driving back and forth from the center of town to Juan-Les-Pins, where I’m staying — goes quiet after 10pm. Perhaps in the summer time it is more lively into the night, but it was startling to drive the backstreets and see them so vacant. It is as quiet as a cathedral on the streets now, at 3am.

When you are a blogger here you are not a journalist. Even if you have a badge that lets you into screenings — mine, once again a yellow as I did not “make the pitch” to get a better badge. I stubbornly hold on to this American idea that are bloggers and journalists should be created equally. But they are not. The class system is alive and well here. It is fairly arbitrary, but you do have to make your case to get a “better badge.” I’m okay with my yellow, thank you. I am more than okay. I wear it as a badge of honor, even though it’s probably seen as a badge of shame among my journalist and blogger friends.

Last night at La Pizza, for instance, I was the only blogger at the table with a lowly yellow badge. Guy Lodge, who writes for InContention.com and other outlets, was upgraded to the blue badge. If I thought about it enough I’m sure it would start to bother me but there is nothing worse than being here and complaining about anything. You need only breathe in the sea air, listen to the gentle murmuring of French, catch the occasional breeze on your face to realize where you are.

Organized annually by Hollywood-Elsewhere’s Jeff Wells, La Pizza the night before Cannes is a tradition. I found the pizza a little too cheesy but otherwise delicious. La Pizza is all about their pastas and their pizza, not about their fish, as Indiewire’s Anne Thompson found out the hard way. A plate of sardines with too many bones was a little much to take on after a flight around the world and several glasses of ros√©. If you are going to have the fish, a waiter advises, go for the frito misto, or fried mixed fish.

Cannes will kick off officially with a screening of Woody Allen’s b at 11am this morning, followed later by a screening of Sleeping Beauty. Many journalists have already seen it but have been disallowed from writing about it. The festival screens several films a day, but within that, there are also private screenings. Many of the journalists at La Pizza were talking about those, the separate events that they’d been invited to. If you want to be everywhere and see everything you have to be a bulldog and start working angles. This has never been my style. I must, therefore, keep my eyes and ears open. Their interpretation of these events are more interesting to me than the events themselves. Or maybe I just tell myself that to feel better.

The real reason I have come, the same reason I came last year, is to be in a place where the quality of film is judged without its “Oscar potential.” In America (I blame myself as contributing to this) all of the great films that get released in a given year are put through the awards gauntlet. “Will it?” “Won’t it?” If it won’t it is quickly cast aside. If it will, it is run like a racehorse until its last gasp. This is an aspect of the film awards race that robs the film community of its opportunity to experience interesting cinema; if it’s all about awards and awards are mostly about a fickle community that votes on irrelevant things like how much they like an actor, why does “art” come up in the conversation at all?

But here, in Cannes — where it’s still about the buying, selling and marketability here — a film’s worth is not judged on its Oscar potential. Very few films here will have the staying power to last — like Mike Leigh’s Another Year which took the festival by storm last year but hardly registered on Oscar’s radar. Some of them will. When No Country for Old Men showed here it was clear what it was and what it would do. But it could have showed anywhere at any time and been just as strong of a contender. See, there I go again, talking in awards speak.

The beauty of the experience here is that you can safely take Oscar almost entirely out of the equation and focus on the films themselves. It is the only time in a given year where people will do that. Even in Venice, Oscar is already the main order of business. “Will it?” or “Won’t it?”

Still, that part of this experience is a piece of the whole. There is much competition here for wi-fi seats, for places in theaters for screenings, for access, for invites, for friendships. Now that every minute is played out on Facebook and Twitter, one gets a sense of who likes to hang around with whom. There are definitely tiers of class distinction among the critics and bloggers, too. If you’re a somebody; if you’re a nobody. Being a yellow-badged nobody puts me in the best position to watch and listen. To me, that is every bit as valuable as being a somebody. Although, again, I suppose I do just tell myself that to feel better.

To get the bigger picture here is to see the film festival in the context of the place itself, Cannes. To do that is to sometimes step outside of the city and look at the surrounding areas. Most will not do this. Most will land here, hit the ground running and write only about movies. But when you’re a seasoned Cannes-goer like Jeff Wells you can’t help but eventually look at the bigger picture. (who’s come along as my companion this year) to drive with him up into the hills, into Saint-Jeannet, where Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief supposedly took place. The beauty of that medieval village, so full of smiling faces, lounging cats, voluptuous jasmine blooms hanging off of ancient walls was the kind of sweetness that fills you up not just for a warm afternoon, but for the rest of your days.

The next thing I’ll do is try to finish sleeping. And then tomorrow, it’s back to the Palais du Festival. Back to the line for yellow badges. Back to the movies themselves, and all of the riches they might bring.