Cannes Film Festival on The Huffington Post

Diane Tucker: Women-Made Films Mostly Ignored by the National Film Registry. Why?

2009-11-09T12:27:35Z

Of the 500 films archived in the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress, less than two dozen were directed by women. As I bemoaned this shameful statistic to everyone within earshot, my colleagues reminded me that very few women have ever written or directed a major Hollywood movie. They're right, of course.

The situation for women who want to make movies is grim. Despite the fact that film schools graduate as many women as men, just 4% of Hollywood directors are women. That's roughly the same minuscule percentage of women archived in the National Film Registry. (You can help change that by voting below.)

The movie business "is absolutely consistently more difficult for women from beginning to the end," said Debra Zimmerman, executive director of the nonprofit organization Women Make Movies.

How difficult? Did you know that a woman has never won the Oscar for best directing? Maybe more to the point, only three have ever been nominated: Lena Wertmuller for 1975's Seven Beauties, Jane Campion for 1993's The Piano, and Sofia Coppola for 2003's Lost in Translation.

"It always comes back to male being treated as the default state of humanity, and female a deviation therefrom. This creates a culture in which men's stories are considered human stories to which everyone is expected to relate, while women's stories are considered an inferior subset," said cultural anthropologist Melissa McEwan, who writes about the political marginalization of gender-based groups on the Web site Shakesville.

When a woman's story is dismissed as "less than," it makes women "others" and makes them seem mysterious to men, explained McEwan. "This underwrites the justification for ignoring women's stories on the ground they are inaccessible and uninteresting to men."

The majority of women directors today are indie, arthouse, or experimental filmmakers -- a creative bunch, however, the statistic also suggests women are being denied access to financial backing. Filmmaker Cristina Cassidy told The Huffington Post, "I honestly believe my current film would have gotten backing in a snap if I was a guy. I know that sounds like sour grapes, but it's true."

Even Nora Ephron, the writer-director (and fellow HuffPost blogger) whose hit movies include Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail, has difficulty getting studios to greenlight her screenplays. "I always think every movie should begin with a logo that says, for example, Warner Bros. did everything in its power to keep from making this movie," scoffed Ephron.

It's a self-reinforcing cycle that results in women-centered films being branded genre films, McEwan told The Huffington Post. "Nora Ephron makes 'chick flicks,' but Michael Bay doesn't make 'dick flicks,' he just makes movies."

Hollywood is still an old boys' club. But does the National Film Registry have to be? Maybe not, because you can nominate films for inclusion. The Washington D.C. chapter of Women In Film & Video (disclosure: I am a member) has nominated the following women-made films to the Registry in 2009:

-- The Big House (1930), written by Frances Marion

-- New Sensations in Sound (1949), animated and produced by Mary Ellen Bute

-- Growing Up Female (1971), written and directed by Julia Reichert and Jim Klein

-- Will (1981), produced by Jessie Maple

-- Big (1988), directed by Penny Marshall

Clockwise from upper left: Penny Marshall, Jessie Maple, Mary Ellen Bute, Frances Marion
(Not pictured: Julia Reichert)

Why these women?

Frances Marion was the first woman to win the Oscar for an original screenplay, and is still the only screenwriter (male or female) to win back-to-back Oscars in this category. She is often cited as the most renowned female screenwriter of the 20th century.

Mary Ellen Bute was a pioneer in the use of abstract animation to "show" sound. Her short film New Sensations in Sound predates Disney's Fantasia, yet it is rarely seen today.

Julia Reichert's Growing Up Female is considered the first film of the modern women's movement. It's a vital resource for young women who have no idea how much has changed for women in just one generation. Since feminist films are not yet represented in the Registry, this movie would be the first one.

Jessie Maple is included in nearly every who's who of film except the Registry. Will is the first post civil rights feature-length film produced by an African-American woman. (Hollywood guilds are more than 80% white.) Maple's film received the Special Merit Award at the Athens International Film Festival.

Penny Marshall is the first woman to direct a film that earned in excess of $100 million at the U.S. box office. The film, Big, also received a nomination for Best Original Screenplay and gave Tom Hanks his first Oscar nomination. Marshall's long career as a producer, director, and actress deserves recognition by the Registry.

Vote today to include more women in the National Film Registry

The Registry has been charged with illustrating the vibrant diversity of American filmmaking, but how can they possibly achieve this goal if the stories they archive are almost exclusively told from a man's point of view?

To nominate the work of Frances Marion, Mary Ellen Bute, Julia Reichert, Jessie Maple, and Penny Marshall to the National Film Registry, click here through November 20, 2009.

Please do vote. (You, too, fellas!) The number of public votes a film receives is a factor seriously weighed during the selection process by the Librarian of Congress and members of the National Film Preservation Board.

Hollywood billboard courtesy of the Guerrilla Girls in 2006.

Melissa Lafsky: Antichrist Might Be God-Awful, But That Doesn't Make It Misogynistic

2009-10-29T14:51:44Z

This review originally appeared on The Awl.

I don't have to tell you that Antichrist sucks. Plenty of highbrow places like the New York Times and Slate have already done so, their writers leaping to slather disdain on this latest morsel of art-horror crap. Oh, it's so distasteful! And offensive! And (gasp) misogynistic! Though it all begs the question: If this audience-chafing, Cannes-enraging glob of rubbish is so irredeemable, why the hell is every publication still in existence racing to write about it, as opposed to, say, The Gay Bed and Breakfast of Terror (now out on DVD)? The answer is twofold: Antichrist was made by Lars Von Trier, and it's probably the only film ever screened at Cannes that centers entirely on penis mutilation.

Here's a rundown (since I don't expect anyone to actually subject themselves to this movie): We open with snooty black-and-white shots of a toddler leaping from a window to his death while his parents get it on porno-style (Get it? Having sex after procreation will KILL your CHILDREN! As will reading and/or contributing to mommy blogs). Mother is despondent, father emotionally void. From then on, their itinerary looks like this: Sit in bed and have conversations where she pulls out stereotypical fuck-with-your-head comments like "You never loved me" while he sits there like a rock. Have graphic sex. Have more retarded conversations. More sex. Head to their summer cabin, which is apparently located at Camp Crystal Lake. More sex. Then the wife has a few communing-with-nature moments, starts channeling Jack Torrance, and predictably goes postal. Cue more sex, and the much-ballyhooed genital mutilation scene - which, at the very least, means no more sex.

Yes, it's as awful and pointless and self-indulgent as everyone says. But it KNOWS this. It is a movie aware of its own awfulness - Von Trier practically admitted as much. This film was his therapy, and was made on a depression-addled whim. So when you take it on those terms, it actually does a few interesting things. Case in point: It's not often you see a woman smash a penis on film. Most directors won't go within a mile of penis smashing (perhaps because 95% of them have penises themselves), and the ones that do usually steer clear of the full smash. Sure, Hostel II had a graphic penis cut (more on Eli Roth's Portnoy-esque complaint later) and Hard Candy got about 15 yards from the end zone (girls, for a good time, watch that one on a bad date). And of course, there's always Teeth. But here, the Danish wonderdirector goes for that rarest of things: the full-contact smash. He sets it up so blatantly, you could almost call a play-by-play: And the wife is starting to really lose it now...she's going for the blunt instrument...she...could...go...all...the...WAY!!! (Ahem -- not that I'm condoning penis smashing. I don't have one myself, but I certainly understand that those in possession of penises have a highly vested interest in not seeing them smashed. In fact, I thought the scene was one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen on screen. As did the guy I was watching it with, who shrieked and ran out of the room.)

As for the whole feminist debate, come on people - let's reserve the "misogyny" battle cry for stuff that's meant to be taken seriously. This is a marginal movie about a marginal viewpoint - our society has come far enough that it's no longer a commonly-held view that women are hysterical nutbags bent on destroying men. These reviewers crying lady-hate manage to be as pretentious as the movie itself, by making this silly film into something that deserves our feminist attentions. Misogyny? How 'bout we talk about mainstream Hollywood, where practically EVERY movie marginalizes female roles? At least Von Trier has the balls (intact, one hopes) to be laughably blatant about it, and to vent his lady-anger in a forum that limits the physical and emotional violence to one short crappy film. After all, it's just a movie, people - no one's ever gonna force you to watch it.

Except me (sorry Steve).

David Parker: Nous Sommes Tous Americains: France Times

2009-10-07T17:51:12Z

While in Germany and the Czech Republic, I met only one other American: a college student who told me he'd once gone swimming with Michael Phelps. It seemed that the rest of America had stayed home, or at the very least, were avoiding the shadowy bars and clubs where I'd been spending all my time.

As soon as I started making my way towards France, however, I began encountering Americans. I think most of them had been hired by Al-Qaeda to damage America's reputation abroad.

At the airport in Prague, I sat next to two young American businessmen. They wore identical black suits and were talking loudly about Nintendo Wii, which quickly turned into an equally loud conversation about a sexual parlor game involving a group of men and a baked good. Before I boarded my flight to Paris, the last words I heard were, "Sure, I'd play. But eat that cookie? No way, bro. No way."

A few days later, while visiting the Musee d'Orsay, I was joined in a gallery by an American family. I was looking at paintings and statues and nodding meaningfully; they were involved in a lengthy discussion about the merits of the "he who smelt it, dealt it" theory of flatulence.

That evening, I found some Europeans. First, I had a forty-dollar drink at the Hotel Plaza Athenee; then, I went to a club where young Parisians were dancing to Kanye West. One Frenchman was standing on a banquette, waving a bottle of champagne, and rapping poorly; his shirt was almost completely unbuttoned and even though I couldn't smell him, I knew in my heart he was wearing a lot of cologne.

But soon enough I was back among my countrymen. On the train from Paris to Marseille, I saw a American woman point to her group of rowdy friends and say to an elderly Frenchwoman, "Uh...we...va...etre...annoying? So I think you might want to move." I looked at her friends. They were all in their forties.

Between Marseille and Nice, this same woman described the Cote d'Azur with a common barnyard epithet and the observation that "San Diego is nicer." Then she and her friends began shouting out euphemisms for male genitalia. They seemed particularly fond of the term "skin flute." They finally got off the train at Cannes, or as they called it, "cans."

As soon as they were gone, there was a burst of applause. Children celebrated; couples kissed; someone pulled out a trumpet and played "La Marseillaise."

Later on, in Antibes, on the French Riviera, I met an American woman who introduced herself as a political exile. She told me she'd thought about moving to France after George Bush was reelected but didn't pull the trigger until Barack Obama became President.

My summer of European adventures finally drew to a close with Negronis on the terrace of the Hotel Cap in Cap d'Antibes. As I gazed out on the Mediterranean, I imagined my own expatriate fantasy: become an outlandishly famous writer, marry a flighty woman prone to intense psychiatric episodes, and then move to France and befriend Ernest Hemingway, who would write about me in A Moveable Feast. When you have four gin-based cocktails before noon, anything seems possible.

Erica Abeel: Splendors and Challenges at the New York Film Festival

2009-10-04T17:19:19Z

Perhaps no film event, with the possible exception of Cannes, comes in for more scrutiny than the New York Film Festival. Unlike other fests, the NYFF has no agenda other than to present what its selection committee considers the best in global cinema. So the lineup inevitably invites the question, Why this film and not another?

But this year's 47th edition, unspooling from September 25th to October 11th at a spiffed-up Alice Tully Hall, has engendered outright bursts of hostility. And this despite an exciting lineup of films by artists working deep within their own vision. Last Saturday's screening of AntiChrist by Lars Von Trier was greeted with derisive titters and groans of disgust. And at the Q & A following the screening of The Art of the Steal, Don Argott's doc about the priceless Barnes collection of art, one audience member yelled "elitist bullshit."

The perception of elitism has long dogged the fest, presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, because, except for donors and other deep pockets, tickets have been hard to score. (Mara Manus, the Society's new Executive Director, is working to expand access, beginning with a half price rush line). Then, too, the fest's lineup is heavily tilted toward the work of European auteurs -- an "elite" of filmmakers -- many drawn from Cannes, and often perceived as inaccessible to all but initiates.

Yet why the hostility among the event's usually reserved audience? Chief among the reasons, I suspect, is that this year's films are especially challenging, both formally and thematically. For the culturally insecure, the implication might be, You don't like "the best?" Then you're an idiot. For every batch of culturally savvy New Yorkers, you can find another out of touch with their own taste, who rely on the judgment of a few critics to tell them what they think.

Other attendees are turned off by the relentlessly dark tenor of the films dominating this year's edition. After viewing in succession AntiChrist, Lebanon by Samuel Maoz, and Trash Humpers by Harmony Korine you might conclude the planet is one great hell-hole.

Cinema, though, has a way of reflecting back the state of the world. Some of the best films out of Toronto slammed economic inequities and corporate skulduggery in America. But those films' revelations were offset by the implicit hope that lucidity -- the ability to name the enemy -- lays a seedbed for change.

No such hope offered by one of my faves at the NYFF, Harmony Korine's nightmarish Trash Humpers. But it's a confoundingly original -- and often funny -- nightmare, a one-of-a-kind "found object" that captures an underbelly of America you never dreamed existed -- or exists only in the fevered imagination of its creator.

"The title is to be taken literally," reads the deadpan description of Trash in the Playbill. It follows a band of loonies in grotesque masks as they also hump trees, hydrants, whatever; spank the upended bottoms of fat ladies in garters; brutalize dolls -- taking time out for the odd tap dance -- all the while reciting moronic ditties, cackling insanely, and grunting like rutting boars. The film is shot with cruddy disposable cameras to echo the degraded content.

Korine was inspired by a place he grew up in near Nashville and some shady locals who scared and horrified him, he told Richard Pena, Programming Director of the NYFF, during a Q & A. "I don't even want to call it a movie," Korine added. "I wanted to make an artifact that was found, like, in a ditch." Some viewers saw echos of the painter Francis Bacon, others saw elements from Freddy Krueger horror movies or The Theater of Cruelty. But Korine claims he was referencing no one, just into the idea of making a film "as quickly as I could think."

A damn shame Trash hasn't yet been picked up by a distributor. Any takers out there? Fortunately for cinephiles, the peerless Sony Pictures Classics has stepped up to the plate and acquired Venice's Gold Lion winner Lebanon by Israeli Samuel Maoz. The entire film unspools deep inside the iron belly of a tank imprisoning four Israeli soldiers during the '82 Lebanon war. The dynamic is altered by the arrival in their midst of a Syrian captive. Revisiting the same conflict so memorably limned in Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir, Maoz draws on his own trauma sustained during that war.

With claustrophobic intensity and a thunderous soundtrack, the film offers a snapshot of camaraderie and terror, spiked with gallows humor. It's so vivid you all but smell the stench inside that tank. Inevitably, Lebanon will trigger comparisons with that other account of wartime horrors, Kathryn Bigelow's Hurt Locker. But Lebanon is the larger film. Hurt Locker examines a particular -- masculine, I might add -- adrenalin rush that addicts fighters to living a heartbeat away from death, while Lebanon is emotionally compelling and more in the mode of classic humanism, exploring matters of conscience and the ironies of fate.

In a wrenching moment at the end, a character in the tank pisses at length and in real time. How, you ask, does a filmmaker get an epiphany out of that? Trust me, he does.

CINEMA: Cannes do! Two film festivals this weekend show that Brooklyn is ready for a close up

2009-10-01T00:16:52Z

Note: More media content is available for this story at BrooklynPaper.com.

By Ben Muessig

The Brooklyn Paper

We might not have the stars of Sundance or the clout of Cannes, but for a few days each fall, Brooklyn becomes the cinematic capital of the world.

Two acclaimed film festivals will take place on different ends of the borough this weekend, and both will pay homage to the neighborhoods — and the county — they call home.

The ninth annual Coney Island Film Festival has earned its reputation as a festival that, like many Coney Island beachgoers, lets it all hang out.

“We are a no-holds-barred film festival,” said festival director Rob Leddy. “We will play anything from family films to films that would probably make a porn star blush.”

Cinephiles can expect a wide range of movies including pictures that mesh with the People’s Playground’s campy history and its and garish sideshow, such as the sci-fi romp “ATTACKAZOIDS, DEPLOY!!” or the randy burlesque-themed noir “Slim and Lena.”

Locals can also look forward to movies that honor the people and places that make Coney Island tick, like “The Prince of Mermaid Avenue” — a documentary on a legendary butcher at Major Meats — or “The Poor Man’s Follies” — a cinema verite-style study of neighborhood characters including the community’s unofficial mayor Dick Zigun and major landowner Joe Sitt.

But the most anticipated event at the festival — which was once named one of the nation’s 25 coolest by MovieMaker Magazine — is the annual screening of “The Warriors.”

When the Coney Island gangland masterpiece comes on the screen, the theater becomes Brooklyn’s own “Rocky Horror Picture Show,” said Leddy.

“It’s like a rock concert — the audience really is totally into it,” he said. “They clang the bottles during the ‘Warriors — come out to play’ scene.”

Meanwhile in Red Hook, the Red Hook International Film and Video Festival will screen movies about, filmed in, or related to South Brooklyn.

“The films are essentially Brooklyn-centered art pieces this year,” said festival founder Daniel Durning. “There is a real focus around anything having to do with the Gowanus Canal or Red Hook.”

At the festival, which is entirely free, movie lovers can enjoy a medley of Red Hook-focused films like “Mr. Brooklyn,” a 14-minute short that juxtaposes an “On the Waterfront”-era dockworker against the backdrop of modern day Red Hook; and “Moment,” which depicts three Red Hookers sharing a life-altering encounter in Valentino Park.

There’s also a screening of films detailing the nearby Gowanus Canal, including a tribute to Robert Guskind, the late blogger behind the legendary Web site www.gowanuslounge.com, and a rare showing of the seminal documentary “Lavender Lake: Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal.”

Despite the festival’s the hyperlocal angle, organizers told The Brooklyn Paper that some non-Brooklyn films — including pictures about industry in Los Angeles, lesbian relationships in the Bronx, and the closing of a San Francisco nut store — were selected because they address issues that relate to Red Hookers and Brooklynites in some way.

Fittingly, the festival will end with a screening of “Brooklyn Boondoggle,” a documentary about the controversial Atlantic Yards development.

Comment on this story.

Read more: Cannes, Home News

QuickShots | Polanski, "Precious," Cinereach Fellows, Thessaloniki News

2009-09-29T18:00:20Z

New Philippine Cinema spotlighted at 50th Thessaloniki Fest Thirteen films will be screened and the guest directors attending the 50th TIFF will participate in a Roundtable on their national cinema. The Philippines has had a high profile recently with the Cannes win of Brillante Mendoza’s “Kinatay” and newcomer Pepe Diokno’s Engkwentro winning the Luigi De Laurentiis and Venice Horizons Awards in the Venice Film Festival. Cinereach Names 2010 Reach Film Fellows Cinereach has announced the names …

Photo by Rania Richardson

Read more: Cannes, The Philippines, Home News

Erica Abeel: New York's Ear-Splitting Restaurants

2009-06-29T11:40:31Z

Never mind the number of stars garnered by an eatery or even the tab. The main criterion for me when it comes to New York dining (and New York East aka the Hamptons) is whether you can hear your dining companion(s). To judge by noise levels in the city's restaurants, it's apparently de rigueur to have one or more women on hand shrieking like banshees. It's never the men shrieking -- one of their many virtues -- just the women.

I was recently at a Tribeca tavern where the crowd kicking back on a Friday after work included the requisite screechers. Now why, I wondered, as I responded to a question swallowed by the racket, couldn't the mayor institute a stiff fine for screaming in restaurants, like the one for spitting in subways? Bloomberg could both strike a blow for civility and siphon the bucks into the MTA. The same evening I fled to an East 9th Street Italian that attracts more of an altecocker crowd, anticipating a lively conversation with a charming friend -- but no! the screechers had followed me. Or else all New York restaurants simply rent a few for the evening to create an aura of "energy."

This brings me -- and sorry to sound curmudgeonly -- to France. As a film critic, I go to France every year to cover the Cannes Film Festival. Not this year -- busy promoting my novel Conscience Point, or at least loitering near the shelf at Barnes & Noble where it prominently resides. And this year I gave Cannes a pass, like many of my compatriots, because the bankers were fiddling with derivatives while the country melted down.

But here's the thing: for all the crowds and mayhem that overtake Cannes during the fest, they don't shriek there when they eat. Nor do they in the rest of France. I once dined in a 2-star near the Eiffel Tower, where voices, like the sauces, were a reduction, a civilized murmur, a digestif in itself. Wouldn't it be nice if we could import -- along with the Vuittons and Chopards and sixty dollar sun cream -- the luxury of that quiet? The only problem: you'd better be on good behavior. In the 2-star near the Eiffel Tower, the then boy friend took issue with l'addition and in loud and execrable French proceeded to make that known at excruciating length to the waiter. Need I describe the reaction in the room? Oh, les Americains ...

Anne Naylor: How Service In Prison Brings Forgiveness And Healing

2009-06-27T10:00:00Z

"Prison isn't a place... It's a state of mind."

Freedom To Choose is a 22 minute documentary based on the 7th workshop conducted at Valley State Prison for Women at Chowchilla California in 2007. This film won the award in the Documentary category, Emerging Filmmaker Showcase at the American Pavilion at this year's Cannes Film Festival.

In 2004, responding to a request for help from an inmate of Valley State Prison, a group of 30 volunteers from the University of Santa Monica in California took a 2 day workshop into the prison for 60 of the inmates. Valley State Prison is a high security correctional institution, housing some 4,000 women. These people are deemed dangerous.

The workshop consisted of processes, including counselling, used by students in their graduate courses. Such an initiative had never before been undertaken by a university. Would it work?

When you make a mistake, do you punish yourself? Do you criticize, judge and condemn? When others make a mistake, do you want to "punish" them, to get back or get even? A child, spouse, boss, a parent?

What if, as one workshop volunteer did, you threw a picture frame at your partner. It missed and crashed against the wall. Or what if, as an inmate, you had a loaded gun, fired at your partner, resulting in their death and your imprisonment. The outcome may be different. The emotion is the same. These two people were part of a counseling group of three, examining what led up to their choices.

"Between stimulus and response, there is a space.
In the space is the power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
Victor Frankl

There is a division in the correctional system. A significant number of people within it view prison as a place of rehabilitation, while others focus on punishment. The division is about 50/50. Does punishment serve to correct? What can be learnt such that rehabilitation takes place?

Could prisons become places of education and healing, in which inmates discover that they are not victims? That they are responsible for inappropriate choices they have made. That no matter the consequences of former choices, they may nevertheless retain the most fundamental human choice, as did Victor Frankl when a prisoner of war: that of attitude.

The inmate could choose to use her circumstances for her learning, growth and development; to own and be responsible for her choices; to forgive herself. Does this work?

A prison culture breeds hopelessness, low self-esteem and conflict. Workshop participants have reported a change of attitude: viewing their prison experience as an opportunity. Many have attended several workshops. They learn how not to get involved in altercations, to stay out of fights, to not take sides. Their human dignity is restored. So far, over 1,000 people have been involved in the project. One woman declared: "I am free inside - the prison does not know it yet."

"The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity."
Leo Tolstoy

The benefit to the University volunteers is deeply transformational. Many have assisted at workshops more than once, donating their time and expenses. They take in with them a consciousness of loving acceptance. It is this loving that heals ancient hurts, both within themselves and those they serve. Volunteers return to their normal lives in profound silence, as if they had been on a sacred retreat.

"The high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule..."
Albert Einstein

On June 22nd, President and Michelle Obama launched a summer initiative going through to September 11th and beyond: United We Serve. Whether or not you live in America, it is a call worth responding to.

Give yourself a few minutes to write down and spontaneously complete the following statements:

1. One way I could be of greater Service to myself is . . . . .
2. One way I could be of greater Service in my family is . . . . .
3. One way I could be of greater Service in my community is . . . . .
4. One way I could be of greater Service in the world is . . . .

You might read over what you have written and then, if you were inspired by it, go out and do the thing you recognized you could do. You will be glad that you did.

"The purpose of human life is to serve,
and to show compassion and the will to help others."
Albert Schweitzer

The University of Santa Monica embraces a culture of giving. Students learn the skill of "prizing" - to appreciate and celebrate each other's innate essence, independent of beliefs or behavior. It is in this light that they learn to meet the world, and any part of it, with a compassionate heart.

Have you ever made choices that hurt you, or someone else?
How do you think that serving others might help you to heal?
How could you best enrich yourself in this summer of service?

I welcome your comments and thoughts, either below here or by email: clearresults@mac.com.

Look out for my blogs every Saturday. Check Become a Fan at the top.

Follow me on Twitter @Anne4Joy.

Michael Giltz: Theater: London Summer Roundup

2009-06-24T16:52:38Z

Before and after the Cannes Film Festival I spent some time in London catching up on theater and museums. Here's a roundup of what I saw, beginning with the shows that are still running so if you're headed to Europe you can act on some of these suggestions. Other shows -- like the revival of A Little Night Music and probably War Horse -- are headed to NYC in the future. Ben Brantley of the New York Times offers his own take on the London theater scene here. But he saw his shows for free while I am indebted to the Leslie Giltz Foundation for subsidizing my days in the West End.

WAR HORSE *** (out of four) -- Michael Morpurgo's beloved young adult novel -- the story of a farm dragooned into WWI and told from the horse's perspective a la Black Beauty -- is now a smash hit musical that began at the National and is ensconced in the West End. It's an ideal second show to take children who were wowed by The Lion King. Like that show, War Horse makes brilliant use of puppetry to let the horse take center stage. (You can check out the promotional clip here to get a glimpse of how they do it.) Joey is the horse and Albert is the farm lad who befriends him. Kit Harrington makes his debut as Albert and I'm not certain if he's a major new talent or just ideally suited for this particular role, but he's wonderfully understated as the rough, simple but sweet kid who is devastated to find his dad has sold the horse to the military and joins up just so he can find Joey and bring the animal home safely. While definitely a family show, it's not very the very young or the easily upset because you do see battle scenes and death. (As with most audiences, the kids I saw it with barely murmured while men in the trenches died but were visibly moved when one of the horses is injured or killed.) Well into it's run, the show is in solid shape, with the puppetry excellent and the cast solid. Songs from the period serve as a Greek chorus and there's no softening of Albert's drunken loser of a father. But by and large it's a charming tale of a spirited animal amidst the chaos of war. Any kids entranced by the show should enjoy Morpurgo's novel. But the nominal sequel -- Farm Boy -- is little more than a longish short story fleshed out with drawings and not terribly interesting at any length. It's in an open-ended run.

A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC *** 1/2 (out of four) -- The Chocolate Factory had a major success with their revival of Stephen Sondheim's Sunday In The Park With George and lightning has struck twice with A Little Night Music. While many consider My Fair Lady the greatest musical of all, there are those who would argue that Night Music is a perfect one. Every tune is in 3/4 time and those more sophisticated than I delight in how each piece of the puzzle plays off one another musically. The story is inspired by Bergman's Smiles Of A Symmer Night (which also inspired Woody Allen's A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy). Lovers meet at a country estate, complications ensue, true love triumphs and wisdom is earned. The cast is superlative and apparently will NOT be crossing the pond when the show transfers to NYC. (I'll especially miss Gabriel Vick as the young lover Henrik -- he looks like the younger brother of Campbell Scott and the major discovery Hannah Waddingham, who is famous in her own country but new to most of us.) And of course there's the music: "Now," "You Must Meet My Wife," "Every Day A Little Death," "Night Waltz" and of course "Send In The Clowns." Each tune is a delight and delivered with aplomb. Nothing terribly bad could happen in such a witty, enchanting world and yet everything seems at stake when love is at issue. I missed the recent one-night benefit concert production of this show in NYC but now I don't regret it so much. This production was an excellent way to see this show for the first time. They've just extended the run again through September.

ENGLAND PEOPLE VERY NICE *** (out of four) -- The National has a remarkable subsidized program where many of their shows have most seats (including some of the best) available for 10 pounds. At that price, literally ANYTHING they're producing is worth checking out. It's cheaper than a movie ticket and these are not bare-boned readings but fully staged shows with -- often -- large casts that would make them impossible to produce commercially on the West End. Case in point: England People Very Nice, a shambling play about immigration. if I'd paid 60 pounds, I might be less ready to appreciate the virtues of this show by Richard Bean. But when you're not selling a pint of blood to see a show, it's easier to accept the pretty good rather than being disappointed at not seeing great. Certainly ambitious, it covers the fate of immigrants to the UK from the 1500s to the present and is framed as the production of immigrants today being held in detention while they wait to hear whether their requests for asylum have been granted. At first, it's rather sketchy, with wves of French and then Jews and then Irish and Indians and so on all coming to England, only to be greeted with disdain by the matron of a pub who invariably begins a scene with, "Fucking Micks!" Or "fucking Paki's" or whichever insulting term is available. The joke of course is that each new wave gets assimilated only to treat with anger and annoyance the next group of immigrants. Real details are sometimes remarkable: one house of worship has apparently changed hands from the Catholics to the Jews to the Muslims. It feels a bit too schematic at first, but as the years pass and we zero in on the struggles of particular families in the present, the story gains a little weight (one recurring bit has two lovers kept apart throughout the centuries as they reincarnate into new bodies). A Greek chorus of a band does an admirable job of offering up a wide range of ethnic tunes and the large fine cast turns the broad brush strokes of the story into sometimes specific and moving moments. Ambitious, fitfully amusing and -- for 10 pounds -- quite the bargain. The show currently runs through early August.

PETER PAN (no rating) -- I saw this new production of Peter Pan on the very first night of its run, so it wouldn't be fair to give a genuine rating. I'll just offer up a description so you know what to expect. Personally, I love the novel Peter Pan by JM Barrie. I know it began as a play but the novel is where it reached its greatest realization. Children can enjoy it, of course, but adults who read it will laugh with rueful pleasure and be deeply moved by the end. Almost no stage or film version has ever come within a mile of its sophisticated scope, except for a Mabou Mines production involving one live actress playing Wendy and puppetry for all the other roles that is one of the best nights of theater in my life. The Disney animated film has cheap animation and dreadful songs, the standard theatrical version is too kiddie-ish (with the odd tradition of a woman playing Peter a terrible conceit) and this new production is no exception. It's very much in the panto tradition with a few twists: there's lots of wire work and a nifty 360 degree screen circling the crowd to give the audience the sensation of watching the characters fly across London to Neverland. Unfortunately, the design of the images is rather cartoonish and nondescript (I don't mind critiquing it because that surely can't change during the run.) The effect works well but the images are too pedestrian to really let your imagination take flight. What made this show irresistible in concept was the fact that it's actually staged IN Kensington Garden under a giant tent. The actual show is very conventional. Ciaran Kellgren is developing a fine Peter, Jonathan Hyde was admirably restrained as Mr. Darling and Captain Hook while Karen Ascoe was already mining emotional gold out of her small role as Mrs. Darling. Still, it all plays as very very typical, though parents with small children will find it painless. Two tips: one, leave a lot of time to get there since it's NOT located near the actualy Kensington Gardens by the tourist site that you (or at least I) might expect and the park itself is huge so unless you get out at the right subway stop, it can take ages to figure out exactly where it is; two, book seats not down front but in the middle rows about four or five rows back from the front for the best views. You don't want to be at the top or the bottom, but in the middle for this in-the-round production. The show is currently set to run through August.

THE CONTINGENCY PLAN: ON THE BEACH *** (out of four) -- The Bush Theatre is a tiny space a bit out of the way and always a dependable source of intriguing work by new playwrights. Their most recent production was The Contingency Plan, two plays by Steve Waters nominally linked to global warming. I saw nominally because while global warming does in fact dominate the proceedings, it's not really "about" global warming just as no really good play is about the issues it addresses but in fact uses those issues to illuminate characters and the human heart. In On The Beach, an old couple lives in an out of the way home on the coast and are surprised by the sudden return of their son from his work in the Antarctic and the even more sudden appearance of a girlfriend/fiance when he's never had so much as a date in the past. The son is continuing his father's work but in fact we realize his discoveries have underminded pop's lifelong conclusions about global warming. If there's a problem here dramatically, it's that we soon realize the son has confirmed pop's suspicions about global warming, all of which were suppressed at the time by ambitious colleagues in a manner that undermined him to the point of mental collapse and cutting himself off from the world. Act One conveys everything beautifully and when it ended I had an uncomfortable feeling. Surely I knew everything I needed to know about these people? The play felt complete and yet there was another act to go. You get this feeling every once in a while and indeed Act Two was utterly unnecessary, with a dramatic storm looming with symbolic purpose and the aging parents working out their feelings and generally seeing the show spin its wheels. it didn't quite undermine the accomplishments of the first half, just showed how sometimes enough is enough. Still, the four member cast was very strong, especially Robin Soanes as the father. Time Out London singled out the other play, in which the son joins the government to try and affect policy, as the stronger of the two so I'm even sorrier I didn't catch it. However, there was a bonus to seeing only this show: It begins with the dad playing a cassette tape of Neil Young's On The Beach, a long lost album by the prolific Canadian that he disavowed for many years but which critics have increasingly mentioned as one of his best. I even owned the recent reissue but hadn't found the time to give it a go. Hearing two or so tunes during this show -- not to mention the dad arguing for its brilliance -- whetted my appetite and now I can't stop playing the CD. It really has a shambling greatness akin to his best "quiet" work like Harvest and Harvest Moon. As far as soundtracks go for the end of the world, this one's a corker. Unfortunately, the environment isn't the only thing in danger: the Bush Theatre is being threatened with eviction (and in this economy) after years of basically getting a rent-free space above a pub that probably is useless to anyone else. They deserve support and really can't exist without subsidized housing, so go to their plays or visit their gift shop or support them in any way you can.

DEATH AND THE KING'S HORSEMAN *** 1/2 (out of four) -- Another remarkably inexpensive production at the National (only 10 pounds) and this one of a classic play by Wole Soyinka I'd never seen before. In it, the king has been dead for one month and it's time for his Horseman, Elesie (Nonso Anozie) to commit suicide and join him in the afterlife. Set during WW II (those based on events that took place shortly after the war ended), the tension arises when the British colonials in power discover the plan and arrest Elesie to prevent him from performing such a barbaric act. Though filled with humor and satire (the British colonials are played to devastatingly funny effect by black actors in white face), the play has the reach of a Greek tragedy as all the events tumble on top of one another in one terrible night. The women of the marketplace are the Greek chorus, deriding the black locals who work for the British, praising Elesie, demanding the traditions be observed and so on, often with delightful banter and captivating songs. And the arrival of Elesie's son (who has been "kidnapped" culturally by the British and gone to the UK to study and become a doctor) has an unexpected impact. (I thought I knew where the play was headed but was wrong.) I don't know how much of the staging and devices employed here are original or the traditional approach to this play, but it was excellent nonetheless. It so happened that I read China Achebe's Things Fall Apart just after seeing this and it's the perfect companion piece for another devastating look at colonialism. This production has ended and is probably too expensive to travel to the West End or the US, which is one more reason why you should always go to the National when in London and see whatever you can there.

Seattle Celebrates Its Own With 35th "Never-Ending" Fest

2009-06-08T12:20:20Z

It traveled the globe from Sundance to Cannes, but “Humpday” finally came home on Friday night. As the Centerpiece Gala at the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF), Lynn Shelton’s unequivocal crowd-pleaser about two straight guys attempting to make a gay porn undoubtedly fit the surroundings. Shelton, a native Seattlite, hung the plot around a real amateur porn festival that takes place in the city under the auspices of local alt-weekly The Stranger. The situations and characters …

The Egyptian Theater in Seattle, site of the Seattle International Film Festival. Photo by Eric Kohn.

Lita Smith-Mines: My Message To Tom Brokaw: We're New Yorkers & We'll Whine If We Want To!

2009-06-01T18:07:00Z

I saw you briefly on Morning Joe Monday morning, and with all due respect, if my understanding of what you said is accurate, you set a low threshold for Baby Boomers, and wish New Yorkers would shut up.

It sounds like you said we were whiners and it looked like you grimaced when a fellow guest opined that today's economic hardships might be creating another great generation of Americans. If I have it right, Mr. Brokaw, you implied that the middle of the country Americans you spoke with are approaching financial adversity properly, and that no generation that follows can ever be as great as those who successfully vanquished Hitler's evil.

I admire you, Mr. Brokaw, and hope you are have no worries about paying your bills or keeping a roof over your family's head. But there are tens of thousands of us (maybe many more than that) who have seen the businesses we have built or the careers we have chosen or the companies we have toiled for crumple around us while the bills continue to stream in. We don't all have the ability to turn that devastation into a prime-time special or a news series, like you do, but we certainly can jabber on and on about our fears and our mounting financial troubles out loud, on the pages of the NY Times, on blogs, and on talk radio.

New Yorkers by nature (and I know I'm generalizing) talk about everything excessively. We are not a stoic bunch like those who get up the morning after a flood and replant the fields, figuring there's no use in ranting against Mother Nature. We are competitive and talkative and frankly flabbergasted that we have all seen the comforts of our world demolished not by natural forces but mainly by market manipulations.

Am I defending excesses and greed and those who chose to live beyond their means? Not by a long shot. But I am defending our right to talk! We find venting therapeutic, and many of us feel comforted to learn our fellow New Yorkers are in the same adrift boats. You should also know that while we're whining, as I think you put it, we're also working our tails off to get back on our feet, even reinvent ourselves if we need to. No one I know is motionless while we are moaning.

Mr. Brokaw, I have as much admiration as you for the generation that fought World War II and came back to achieve spectacular things in the US. But many of us born after the war thought we had achieved personal success and on the whole made beneficial changes in the fabric of our country. Though your opinion is only one of many, why shake your head as if we are all sub-par and not worthy of accolades? If my parents and their friends were still alive today, I truly believe they would be proud of many of the ways we've expanded on the world they saved for us.

Sorry, Mr. Brokaw, if our bellyaching bothers you. I personally think it's great.

Cannes Street Style: What People Wore Off The Red Carpet (SLIDESHOW)

2009-06-01T18:02:23Z

Cannes's red carpet may have showcased the season's glitz and glam, but here are ten street chic looks snapped by Elle.com that show real style. When dressing for warm weather, take some tips from these filles, and pick up leather bombers, sunglasses, headgear and bright colors, all summer essentials á la mode.

Check out more fashions from the south of France with 11 Award-Worthy Looks and the film festival's best- and worst-dressed slideshow.

For 22 more street chic looks from Elle.com, click here.

*Follow Huffington Post Style on Twitter and become a fan of Huffington Post Style on Facebook*

Cannes '09: Red Bucket Films Buttons, Part 7 - 8

2009-05-31T10:05:17Z

Filmmaker Josh Safdie recently approached indieWIRE about hosting a collection of 47 short videos that he, his brother Benny Safdie, and colleague Alex Kalman created at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival where their new film, “Go Get Some Rosemary,” had its world premiere. “With these small observations from a place and time where most of the humanity exists on a screen in a dark room, we (Alex, Benny and Josh) thought we’d find comfort in our …

Read more: Cannes, Home News

Cannes '09: Red Bucket Films Buttons, Part 1 - 3

2009-05-31T09:20:16Z

Filmmaker Josh Safdie recently approached indieWIRE about hosting a collection of short videos that he, his brother Benny Safdie and colleague Alex Kalman created at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival where their new film, “Go Get Some Rosemary,” had its world premiere. “With these small observations from a place and time where most of the humanity exists on a screen in a dark room, we (Alex, Benny and Josh) thought we’d find comfort in our pocket …

Read more: Cannes, Home News

Karin Badt: Most Hated Director at Cannes: Lars Von Trier as Antichrist or Shaman?

2009-05-29T10:31:24Z

It was the most controversial -- and hated -- film at Cannes this year.

The audience at the premiere press screening of Lars Von Trier's Antichrist booed -- with loud hisses (and a few hoots of laughter). "How dare he show us this!" exclaimed more than a few. The film is about a marital relation gone awry, following the death of a child --a rapport marked by anxiety, cruelty and an endless dynamic of power manipulation. The climax is a clitorectomy, executed with a pair of scissors, right in the audience's face.

Yet, I liked it. Von Trier is known for films simmering with mental torment. Antichrist just happens to be his most autobiographical -- his most raw. It is as if someone had excised his mind and played his nightmare right there, for the public, and what one sees is -- indeed -- quite ugly. As perhaps it would be for many of us.

Von Trier noted at the press conference that he had made this film following a "deep depression". As for what it is about -- a question posed by an irate British journalist ("I demand that you justify your film now!") -- he stumbled, raised his hands helplessly, and stumbled again.

I intuited what it was about. I had interviewed Von Trier four years before and in the middle of our conversation, on the terrace facing the bright Mediterranean sea, he had spurted out, with some humorous self-deprecation and no small degree of anger, that his mother would not let him dye his hair when he was a kid. The hurt was palpable. And evidently still alive...

Indeed, the first shot of Von Trier's new movie is a remarkable scene (everyone loves it) in slow motion to Handel's music of two parents making love, while a little boy (in an allusion to Freud's Wolfman) quietly watches and then climbs out a window to his death. One cannot help but hate the mother who orgasms as her son splatters in the snow. It is this mother who becomes the centerpiece of the film as she suffers anxiety attacks for her "guilt".

"Are you the little boy whose mother lets him die?" I asked Lars Von Trier, pointblank, once more facing him before the Mediterranean sea in Antibes.

"Yes, that is it," Von Trier -- spiffy in his white undershirt -- readily admitted. "My mother didn't give me a childhood. She was magical to me of course, but she did not take care of me. If I were to say, will I die tonight, she would say "Perhaps." Her ambition to tell the truth was more important than protecting me. If my children ask the same question, I say no, you will not die. There is a lot of guilt in my female character."

He added: "I guess I wish that my mother would feel guilty."

Yet the psyche is more complex than that. Charlotte Gainsbourg, who plays the mother (in a genius performance), met me later and told me that she is Lars Von Trier in the film. "The anxiety attacks the mother has after the death of her child: this is Lars." Gainsbourg defended the film as a veritable journey into madness -- "something I don't want to connect with," she added.

A calm healthy young woman, dressed casually in faded black denim, with a single diamond pendant hanging on her gray t-shirt and no-make-up on her boyishly pretty face, Gainsbourg -- legs hooked up akimbo on her wicker chair -- seemed an unlikely actor to play such a tormented malevolent soul.

"I don't know why he picked me," said Gainsbourg. "It is obscure."

As for Von Trier's reputation as a cruel director with a misogynist streak -- who tortured Nicole Kidman and Bjork before her -- Gainsbourg smiled and shrugged. "I find Von Trier intimidating," she said with her appealing soft-spoken British accent. "He has a quietness and a shakiness that I respect. No he is not at all brutal with his actors, as rumors portray. It is tense to make a film with him though: we knew he could have an anxiety attack and leave the set at any moment. I needed him, yet I could not protect or help him in any way."

A moment later she confessed there was one hard moment on the set. "The strangulation scene was the worse. Lars made me watch strangulation videos on the internet."

"Real strangulation scenes? Snuff films?"

"Oh, oh..." she paused flustered. "I don't know. He wanted the shot to go on for ever. He would take me to the limit, stopping only if I needed to breathe. I was willing to go very far. I was willing to be out of breath."

Yet, despite being strangled, true to misogynist logic, Gainsbourg's character is the evil one, not her husband named "He". She is the archetypal Eve (indeed the movie takes place in "Eden") who writhes sexually like a snake -- and even makes love to a bloody penis.

Indeed, she may or may not -- the movie suggests -- be a witch.

"Are you a witch?" I asked directly.

"No, I don't think so," said Gainsbourg. "I don't know who I am. I am just 'she'. She comes out of nowhere. I would prefer to think she invents the idea of a witch because of her own feeling of guilt. But I do not know."

I asked Von Trier the same question. "Is she a witch?"

"Like all women." Von Trier retorted.

"Are you sure you want me to publish that?" I said, giving him a second chance.

"Go ahead!"

Willem Defoe had the most evenhanded angle on the film. "No, she is not a witch. She is just positioned as the villain. The movie is about a couple that starts off in one and place and then morphs and twists until the end."

The most intriguing question is what happens at the end. Not only at the end of the film (there is a puzzling last shot of naked women rising from a bluish forest), but at the end of going through such a torment -- for both Von Trier and the audience.

"Is there really no hope to heal from one's pains?" I asked Von Trier -- knowing this was a leading question. The film takes a wicked potshot at therapy: Dafoe's character is a cognitive therapist whose blithe idea that "thinking patterns" are all that matter and that "Freud is dead" is proven dead wrong by the revenge of the unconscious in the film.

And the audience certainly did not feel any "release" or catharsis from Von Trier's nightmare journey into madness -- hence the boos.

Von Trier was quick to admit that his own years of "cognitive thinking" therapy were nearly futile: "Cognitive therapy has helped me but it is not a miracle cure. But it is very important to trick yourself and find out only later it doesn't work."

What about God? Has this director -- who forayed into the miraculous strength of belief in his Breaking the Waves -- any truck with religion?

No.

"I am disappointed by religion. I am not a believer. Every time you think about religion, it becomes more obvious that it is an invention of men. I am quite sure there is something beyond but these books -- like the Bible, and religions -- like Scientology -- don't seem very divine to me."

For Von Trier, the only solution is drugs.

"I had some good years on Xantax. People can be in such misery and pills can help."

But -- in a striking moment -- Von Trier did reveal there is something beyond drugs to take one out of the no-exit trap of the psyche. When discussing how he got the idea of a talking fox, he noted that he had had a shamanistic experience where he met a red fox. Then he met another two white foxes who said to him: "Do not trust the first fox you meet."

"He is a shaman!!!" a fellow journalist with a scruffy beard whispered to me excitedly. "What a scoop!!! My parents are shamans, and he is speaking like a shaman. Did you notice how he has done twenty trips? How he mentioned his 'animal' is the otter!"

"What does that mean?"

"Every shaman has his leading animal, who comes to him in a vision. For Von Trier, it is the Otter!"

The revelation about the Otter is more than an occult tidbit. Shamanism -- as described by anthropologists such as Levi-Strauss -- is a voyage into symbols: the patient is led by the story-telling shaman to use her imagination to reconstruct reality on a symbolic plane: to re-write a malady as a narrative -- as a struggle between gods and demons (or witches) -- and in-so-doing position herself as a vanquisher of evil. The new shamanistic story -- Levi Strauss suggests -- has the actual power to heal. Like psychoanalysis -- which is itself a mythological narrative based in symbols (the Oedipal strife being the archetypal symbol par excellence; the psychoanalyst being a sort of shaman) -- the shamanistic voyage works, incredibly enough, because the imagination is more powerful than the "facts": mind over matter.

The imagination is where hope lies.

The upshot: "Antichrist" -- this imaginative symbolic universe of evil -- is, in effect, a shamanistic tale: from its stunning symbolic forest scenes to its strange claustrophobic fairytale hut. In that case, both characters -- female and male -- are Lars himself, his animus and anima battling against each other for resolution.

Following the same line of thought a fellow journalist tried to convince Von Trier that perhaps art therapy (i.e. making a film) can heal the soul more than drugs.

Von Trier conceded that filmmaking was a near-religious experience: "especially when the sounds and images work together." He repeated that this particular film was a breakthrough experience for him.

"I was not afraid to make a film in bad taste," he added. "The images in the scenes come back to some films I made very young, which were never made public. I am not afraid because I had a mental breakdown, and since then I have had a freer access to some things in my mind."

"I think whatever you can imagine, you can show. I don't think there should be any limitations."

Interestingly, more than a few critics -- including, it is said, Isabelle Huppert, director of the jury and Frederic Boyer, former director of the Cannes Directors Fortnight division -- considered Von Trier's film the best in the festival. "Cinematographically, it is a masterpiece," opined Boyer, who is hands-down one of the most erudite cinephiles in France -- a veritable encyclopedia of film shots -- not only running Paris' most prestigious video-club, "Videosphere", but used to watching l000 films per year to select entries for the Fortnight. He enthusiastically waved his hands: "This and Arnold's film were the jewels this year."

Critic Xan Brooks of The Guardian said what I agree with: while other films at Cannes, such as Audiard's thrilling crime story or Loach's fluffy fun, were fine enough, "why, then, is it Antichrist that keeps me awake last night, whirling like a dervish in the darkness of the room?"

As it turned out, many journalists -- speaking undercover, as if about a taboo -- shared positive responses, coming out of the woodwork like ants scurrying from the light. "This is my favorite film," whispered one as he rushed alongside me to a press screening. "I too suffered a depression last year so I get what he's doing. I think though if one has not had a depression -- or any similar experience of self-reflection -- this film will just wash over you."

Still the question remains -- open to readers here: what does a dark universe get you? Does art have to have "transcendence" -- a glimmer of a way out -- to be "art"? Or as critic Alex Billington frames it: "Antichrist is fucked up. In a good way? Or in a bad way? Even I don't know the answer to that question (or maybe that's something you'll decide for yourself)..."

In other words, is Von Trier's fairytale re-creation of the psyche -- which ends with faceless witches rising in a forest -- good for anyone but himself?

And was it even good for him?. At the end of the shoot, Von Trier re-descended into a dark depression.

What is more, the extreme negative reception the film has received -- this veritable witchhunt -- may work against the shaman's medicine. The shamanistic voyage depends on a social contract, says Levi Strauss. It requires reciprocal belief in the new "story": a collective acceptance of its symbols. You can't laugh at a talking fox.

"Of course I am sensitive to the negative reaction of the press," Von Trier admitted soberly -- more intimate with us sitting round him at a table before the sea, than he had been at the press room shouting out he is "the greatest" before the TV cameras. "Of course I am. It's not pleasant when people don't like what you do. You come to your mother with a little drawing, and she says it's wonderful, so you know she loves you."

12 Must See Films from Cannes '09 (plus one)

2009-05-26T21:35:16Z

From indieWIRE’s vantage point, there are twelve absolute must-see films from Cannes ‘09. Actually, make that a baker’s dozen with the inclusion on one additional movie. Not all on our list here were necessarily our personal favorites (we’ll always have a soft spot for Pedro Almodovar for instance), but these are the films that had people talking the most and the ones we consider essential viewing. Our roster includes a mix of award winners, like Palme …

The Palais des Festivals in Cannes. Photo by indieWIRE

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Karin Badt: Cannes Wrap Up: What Journalists are Saying

2009-05-25T17:15:23Z

Rumor has it that the jury at Cannes was furiously divided this year: actress Isabelle Huppert supposedly in one camp rooting for Lars Von Trier's Anti-Christ and director James Gray in the other, arguing for Jacques Audiard's The Prophet. Yet neither film won the great prize at Cannes: rather Austrian director Michael Haneke became the Palme d'Or winner for the second time with his stellar (but icy-cold) portrait of repressed (and perhaps malicious) villagers in a pre-World War I German village.

Last Night of the Cannes Film Festival

As for Von Trier's film, Charlotte Gainsbourg won the "Best Actress" award for what was certainly a demanding and superlative performance.

That Haneke won the great prize surprised some journalists -- who expected the well-crafted and energetic French film The Prophet to be the winner (the latter did receive second prize). Still the choice of Haneke did not shock anyone.

What did shock was the choice to give "Best Director" to Filipino director Brillante Mendoza's Kinatay. Not only was this film booed at the press screening (many objecting to the two hour depiction of pedestrian sadistic violence towards a bound and gagged woman), but there were several other films that had earned critical praise: Jane Campion's finely tuned (yet somewhat bland) Bright Star and Marco Bellocchio's fascinating journey into madness and dictatorship in his Vincere. Neither won a single prize.

I myself was happy to see that Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank won the Jury Prize (sharing it with Park Chan-Wook's Thirst). Fish Tank is a jewel, not to be missed. The young British director delivers a gripping story of an alienated adolescent girl fighting her way to have an identity with a mother who hates her, and a peer group which shuns her -- with just cause, for her rough demeanor. "Fuck you" is how the girl greets people. She also is a superb break-dancer. A fantastic film to sit through -- alive and fresh in insight -- truly a pleasure.

Indeed, I would have preferred to see the Palme D'Or given to Fish Tank, to give fresh blood to the film circuit, but certainly Haneke's White Ribbon is a film that stays with you and is masterfully done, from first shot to last.

Cannes '09 in a Flashback: Two Weeks Nicely Packaged

2009-05-25T15:50:21Z

The 62nd Cannes Film Festival came to a close yesterday with an awards ceremony that saw Michael Haneke winning his first Palme D’or for his latest, “The White Ribbon.” The program concluded 12 days of extensive coverage of Cannes ‘09 here at indieWIRE. This year’s crop of films brought out some big names, which built up anticipation for this year’s festival among critics, programmers, and of course, buyers. Particularly after an off American Film Market (AFM) …

Looking out on the Croisette, the International Village and the Mediterranean as seen from the Weinstein Company's deck during the festival. Photo by Brian Brooks/indieWIRE

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Karin Badt: Palme d'Or Winner of Cannes 2009: Michael Haneke's "White Ribbon"

2009-05-25T12:54:21Z

Michael Haneke's powerful film White Ribbon , which won the top prize at Cannes this year, is as a close to a scientific study in evil as a fiction film can get. The camera travels from one family to another in a stern Protestant village in pre-World War I Germany, lingering on the uptight faces of the adults and the fearful eyes of the children. We have three main groups: a doctor who abuses his daughter and his mistress; a pastor who cruelly flogs his children, and an uptight Baron and his family, who seem to run the town with aristocratic condescension. Providing some relief of innocence is a love story between a timid young pretty governess and a kind schoolteacher, the latter being the narrator of the film.

The film is beautifully shot in black and white, with poised shots of farm houses, manors, and even the dead body of a woman whose feet protrude in the frame, while flies circle about. The tempo is careful and steady, with each moment both understated and ominous.

The plot is ominous as well. Mysterious crimes occur in this village, one after another. The first: a doctor on his horse trips over a cable that has been tied deliberately to a tree; a boy is mutilated.

Haneke's central point: we never know who did it, but rather the finger points at the village itself: its repressive strict codes lead to rebellious acts from some (or more) furious individuals, perhaps even the innocent children.

The intent is clear: to show how the imminent war -- or any imminent war -- results from the sickness of a culture as well as from inherent human malice. The film has an ironic title -- White Ribbon -- named for an armband the children must wear in shame as a symbol of "purity". These children, we know, are going to grow up to be fascists.

Haneke's other point: we can never know exactly what happens in life, or "piece together reality" with accuracy. Indeed the first lines of the film, spoken by the narrator, are: "I do not even know if the story I am telling is true."

Indeed, what makes White Ribbonsuch a strong experience is that it unsettles -- just as do all of Haneke's films. Its theme is reminiscent of that of the director's previous film The Piano Teacher, where the stern piano teacher played by Isabelle Huppert (this year 's president of the jury at Cannes) hides a perverted violent sexual side, her sickness a direct consequence of societal repression in Austria. It also reminds us of The Seventh Continent, where a family, living a dead bourgeois life, finally decides to collectively commit suicide.

Yet I would venture that perhaps Haneke is a bit too cold this time -- which is why the film was not unanimously the favorite for all at Cannes. The directorial distance -- the cold and gorgeous black and white shots -- forbid the viewer from truly entering into this sociologically delineated world. Emotionally, we remain as cold as the film, except during some tender scenes, including my favorite where a little boy asks his sister to explain "death" to him. Here, the tenderness of the boy -- and the reality of the Edenic fall -- are perfectly composed, with just the right touch of sadness.

The director comments:

What inspired this film?

The original idea was a children's choir, who want to make absolute principles concrete, and those who do not live up to them. Of course, this is also a period piece: we looked at the photos that we used to determine costumes, sets, even haircuts. I wanted to describe the atmosphere of the eve of the world war. There are countless films that deal with the Nazi period, but not the pre-period, which is why I wanted to make this film, that presents the pre-conditions. It is always the private questions that are most important. Of course, my concerns are different when writing or shooting. When writing the script, I am concerned with sociological and philosophical issues. On the set, you are asking if this actor is wearing the right tie, if the sound is ok. The details are important. This is where the film director steps in: otherwise sociologists would be making film.

Why are your films always so disturbing?

To function, art has to rub salt in the wounds. What interests me when I read a book or a movie are works that make me uneasy, that make me think of new problems, instead of those that reassure me. The films that I retain are those that disturb me. I often say that if my entire corpus were to be given one title, the title would be Civil War.

What is your film saying about Christianity?

I wanted to depict the children who in their adult life would play a role in the fascist period, and these people were determined by Protestantism. If made in Italy, of course it would be a different influence. You do not have to look very far to see a comparison to things going on today. Islam is the same: obsessed with a certain idea, a certain vision of religion, which has nothing to do with real religion.

Does your film connect with issues today in Europe?

There is nonstop fascism in France, Austria, Germany, everywhere you look, in how people treat each other. The verbal violence they use. They don't treat the person as a person but as someone to be manipulated: this is daily fascism.

Are children innocent in your opinion?

Children are no more or less innocent than the rest of us. Since Freud, nobody believes in the innocence of a child. Same goes for men and women: I think everyone can be cruel with each other; not just men and or women, not limited to gender.

Why don't we know who commits the crimes?

In everyday life, you don't know all the reasons that something happens. In my work, I try to give the contradictory nature of reality. Cinema has made us used to having answers for everything, so does television.

My favorite scene is the little boy's discussion of death...

I remember that moment personally myself when I experienced the idea of death, at age 4 or 5, that a child realizes that life does not get in eternally. It's an important moment for all children.

Crooked Cannes: Celebs And Their Asymmetrical Necklines (PHOTOS)

2009-05-25T08:15:25Z

In addition to many other red carpet trends, including bare backs, asymmetrical necklines were everywhere in Cannes.

The festival ended Sunday after twelve days of star-studded, black tie-required premieres.

Below are some of the celebrities who favored crooked couture.

PHOTOS: