CANNES, France – Miramax co-chairman Harvey Weinstein said in public here what many American filmmakers at Cannes have been saying in private.
Namely, that the reason that there have been so few big American “event” movies at Cannes in the last few years, and especially this year, is an anti-Hollywood bias on the part of the festival organizers – in particular, the powerful, politically connected festival president, Gilles Jacob.
At a conference Monday with Daily Variety Editor in Chief Peter Bart, Weinstein said Jacob wanted American movie stars and the glamour they bring to the festival – “but not American films.”
Weinstein asked why Jacob failed to select a movie like “Gladiator” or “Mission: Impossible 2” to open or close the festival.
Instead, the 53rd festival opened with “Vatel,” a lavish, old-fashioned costume drama shot in France that was clubbed to death by critics. It will close with “Stardom,” a Canadian art film from Denys Arcand.
In the past, movies like “E.T.” have closed the festival.
This year, the only big American movie to be given a place in the prestigious Official Selection is Brian De Palma’s “Mission to Mars,” which was a critical and box-office bust in the United States.
Even given De Palma’s veneration in French film circles, it’s a strange choice, since it may be the worst – and least personal – film he’s ever made.
Some observers blame big studios for the absence of event movies at Cannes.
They say Hollywood’s growing obsession with releasing major movies only during the midsummer and fall and at Christmas means there’s nothing available to premiere at Cannes in late May.
For the same studios, the risk of getting bad reviews for their summer blockbuster at Cannes outweighs any benefit of screening it early.
But the fact is that the U.S. summer movie season is getting earlier all the time. “Gladiator” opened on May 5, and “Mission: Impossible 2” opens on Wednesday.
The European summer movie season is also getting bigger – thanks to the spread of air-conditioning in continental theaters – and earlier.
In an interview with Daily Variety, Jacob defended himself and the festival, blaming the paucity of U.S. movies on the studios themselves.
He also pointed out that Cannes treats visiting stars with a combination of pomp and security that no other festival – nor, for that matter, the Oscars – can match.
He also asserted that Cannes is about “seeking out tomorrow’s cinema, as opposed to the cinema of the day before yesterday” – meaning mainstream Hollywood.
But according to one U.S. movie marketing insider, the absence of U.S. films isn’t merely a reflection of Jacob’s personal tastes – he’s under political pressure to resist so-called “American cultural imperialism” as represented by mainstream Hollywood films.
Certainly his attitude parallels the increasingly intense efforts of France to defend its culture, language and heavily subsidized movie industry at various world trade negotiations.
The French have led several European nations – including Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece – to demand a “collateral cultural exclusion” to the free-market rules of the GATT treaty, which would allow them to limit the number of U.S. films distributed in their territories.
Yet the obsessive fear that “Anglo-Saxon culture” will somehow destroy that of France – so prevalent in elite circles here – is not necessarily shared by the French cinema-going public, which continues to adore American mass-market movies.
The ironic thing is that the French market is actually far more star-driven than the U.S. market is nowadays. Films that do modestly in the United States frequently do better in France because of a star like Bruce Willis.
Indeed, as one leading international distribution executive said, “The French public just want to be entertained, moved and stretched imaginatively – just like American audiences.”