Why Is The Cannes Film Festival So Important?

Starring: Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josee Croze, Anne Consigny Director: Julian Schnabel Year Of Release: 2007 Plot:Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor of Elle France, wakes up in hospital, completely unable to move, except for one eye. He discovers that he’s had a massive stroke is now suffering from locked-in syndrome, a rare condition where patients are almost completely paralysed, but they’re conscious and their mental function are left intact. Slowly Bauby learns to communicate by blinking his left eye, and we experience his memories of his previous life, as well as his fantasies of being whole again and his exhausting attempts to write his autobiography (on which the film is based

While film festivals go on all around the world, some small and some large, there’s little doubt that Cannes is the most prestigious. Other festivals screen more movies, some have larger film markets, and most are more open to the public (most screening are only for the industry and press), but Cannes is the place where film as art meets film as commerce and as a result it’s become the biggest international event in the movie calendar.

It just goes to show the kudos and the potential commercial windfall a Cannes screening is seen to have, that Fox delayed the release of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps by six months this year, just so it could play out of competition at the French film festival.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly played in competition at Cannes in 2007 and deservedly won Julian Schnabel the Best Director prize. So as the 63rd festival is taking place in France right now, it’s a good excuse to take a look at the Festival De Cannes, and exactly why it holds the place it does.

Cannes’ position as the world’s greatest film festival was secured as much by accident as a concerted effort on the part of the organisers. In the 1930s, the biggest European festival was in Venice, however the likes of Britain, the US and France couldn’t help but feel the fascist powers in Germany and Italy were putting pressure on the festival organiser to only show films that fitted with their politics. It was therefore decided to start a new major festival outside fascist control.

France took on the job with gusto, looking at various towns before deciding that Cannes was the place to hold it. The first festival was planned for 1939, but in one of the worst cases of bad timing in history, the initial Festival De Cannes was scheduled to begin on September 1st, 1939, which turned out to be the day Germany invaded Poland. It was immediately apparent this would probably mean war in Europe and so the festival ended before it began, with France and Britain declaring war on Germany two days later, on September 3rd.

Partly because of the symbolic nature of the Cannes Film Festival being cancelled by the start World War II and the fact it was meant to begin the day the war pretty much started, once the Nazis had been defeated, the French were keen to stage the event which had to be so abruptly cancelled. It was organised for September 20th, 1946, making it one of the first great Global cultural events after the war, and a major marker in showing that after its liberation, France was back on its feet and ready to lead  the artistic world again.

However in its early days, money problems and competition from other festivals meant it wasn’t assured that Cannes would become the pre-eminent event it is today. Venice was still the most important festival in the world, with Cannes its upstart sibling. However it was in the 50s and 60s that the French festival took its place as the pre-eminent film event, largely because while the Venice Festival stayed fairly doggedly non-Hollywood, concentrating on arty films and international movies, Cannes wasn’t averse to a bit of glamour.

Brigitte Bardot famously gambolled on Cannes’ sandy beaches in a bikini at the 1953 festival, garnering herself massive media attention and marking the start of Cannes as being as much about commerce as art. Since then, stars and scantily clad wannabes posing for photos have become as much a part of Cannes as the festival itself, with the Croisette attracting thousands who have nothing to do with the official events, but who are all looking for attention from the hordes of press who descend on the resort.

Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria parades in front of the press at this year's Cannes Opening Night Gala, even though she has nothing to do with the featured film, Robin Hood.

By the end of the 50s, Cannes had also set up its film market, which has now become one of the biggest platforms in the world for movies looking for funding or distribution.

It didn’t hurt either that the French New Wave was sweeping the cinema world in the late 50s and early 60s, making France the chic place for the movie world cognoscenti to hang out. Hollywood quickly realised that sending directors and stars to Cannes wasn’t just a good way to get publicity by parading them in front of the assembled press, but that a sheen of arty prestige rubbed off on those who attended. Get a movie screened at Cannes wasn’t just an ego boost for the producers, but increased the box office potential, due to the implied seal of quality it gave a movie.

Nowadays studios lobby hard to get their movies shown at Cannes, and while they’re aware they’re unlikely to get them in competition (in general, the selectors only pick one movie per country), even getting it screened out of competition is seen as a massive PR boon. This is why Robin Hood opened this year’s festival, as it’s good for the organisers because it ensures Cannes gets loads of attention of its opening day, and good for the film as it gives the movie a sense of prestige it might otherwise have lacked (and which the reviews suggest it didn’t deserve). And of course both sides get saturation press coverage. Other big films getting a boost from a Cannes screening this year, even if they’re not up for a prize, include Stephen Frear’s Tamara Drewe, Woody Allen’s You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger and Gregg Araki’s Kaboom.

Although many debate the actual merit of the festival, and whether it’s really just a bit of a dog and pony show (rarely a year goes by without many commentators noting that despite the anticipation, most of the films shown in competition have been disappointing, and already this year is no exception), it’s no doubt incredibly good on a commercial level for the movies that get screened. Whether they’re really the best the movie world have to offer is debatable, but the likelihood of an otherwise marginal world cinema film getting international distribution increases massively if it’s screened in one of the competition segments. And if it wins one of the main prizes, particularly the Palm D’Or, it’s almost guaranteed to be shown around the world, with Cannes being one of the few festivals that can give a world cinema movie that kind of exposure.

It is this mix of art and money that’s ensured Cannes’ success. It becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s seen as the pre-eminent festival because everyone agrees it is, rather than because it does anything intrinsically unique and special. Likewise its reputation for glitz and glamour attracts the press (beyond merely the film press), and the masses of press attracts the glitz and glamour. To a large extent it is the perception of what Cannes is, as well as its willingness to mix art with commerce, that makes it so important – people believe it is the pre-eminent film event and so that’s what it becomes.

It may be more about putting on a show than genuinely celebrating film as art, but they certainly put on one hell of an event.

TIM ISAAC

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