Indie Pioneer Henry Jaglom Takes Us to a FESTIVAL IN CANNES.
Written: Apr 22 '02 (Updated Dec 09 '02)
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: Anouk Aimee, Maximilian Schell, Zack Norman, Ron Silver; a wickedly affectionate view of film festivals.
Cons: The odd improv scene not quite ready for final cut; typical Jaglom plot resolution problems.
The Bottom Line: In an unconventional, sharp look at movie makers and the movie business, Henry Jaglom continues his steady film maker's progress toward perhaps a gentler CITIZEN KANE.
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| macresarf1's Full Review: Festival In Cannes |
Just in time for the International Film Festival in my town of San Francisco comes Henry Jaglom's FESTIVAL IN CANNES. Woven around France's best known Cinema gathering, on the beaches of the Cote d'Azur, it is a breezy romantic comedy, containing astucious, occasionally hilarious Jaglomian observations about movie makers and movie making.
Jaglom, as usual, showcases a couple of new comers as ingenues and amasses a group of International established actors -- Anouk Aimee, Maximilian Schell, Greta Scacchi, Ron Silver. He tosses in cameos (or at least glimpses) of Peter Bodanovich, Faye Dunaway, William Shatner, Jeff Goldblum, and Holly Hunter. He seasons his offering with shots of his children (Sabrina and Sean Orson Jaglom).
Movie goers who know nothing of Jaglom's constantly evolving works -- and there are many such people; the initiated who dislike his films for being plotless, rambling and sometimes unresolved -- and there are many who do; critics who dismiss his techniques, style and subject matter as obsessive, incestuous and self-absorbed -- many of those, also -- may turn away from FESTIVAL IN CANNES. That is too bad because it is a pretty good, often amusing motion picture.
As long as you know what you are getting into.
FESTIVAL IN CANNES begins, as do most Jaglom films, with the International Rainbow Pictures logo: Orson Welles' face slyly looking over a rainbow he is holding. Then come brief titles on top of footage of the Cannes International Film Festival of 2000, accompanied by Montmartre songs by chanteurs and chanteuses which will form the basis of the film's wistful musical score (Gaili Schoen). That footage is followed by monochrome sepia stills from past Cannes festivals in a montage of classic stars: Kim Novak, Sophia Loren, Kirk Douglas, Edward G. Robinson, Welles himself, etc.
Four skeins make up the silken and rayon fabric of FESTIVAL IN CANNES. First, we have Alice Palmer (Greta Scacchi), a star beauty who has reached an age where she wants to write and direct. With two sisterly collaborators, she has come to the Croisette to look for capital and perhaps some talent to give flesh to her earnest screen play about a harried Midwestern housewife. Second, we have Millie Marquand (Anouk Aimee), a famous International star, who has been brought to Cannes for an homage to her ex-husband, veteran Director Viktor Kovner (Maximilian Schell). Third, arrives successful Hollywood producer Rick Yorkin (Ron Silver) seeking out said Millie Marquand to play Tom Hank's mother in his new presumably potential Oscar catcher. Finally, there is Blue (Jenny Gabrielle), a young ingenue. She is the lead of a little film (like FESTIVAL IN CANNES?) being shown out of competition, which may make her an instant sensation. In Jaglom films, anything is possible, and often the answers are literally in the stars.
The plot is strung together by Kaz Naiman (Zack Norman), an upwardly mobile limo driver, who hustles an interview between Alice Palmer and Millie Marquand, at the stately Hotel du Cap, far from the chicanery on the beach. The French star is intrigued by Alice's proposition that she be cast against type in an inexpensive American indie, but she is soon beseeched and besieged by Producer Yorkin, also staying at the Hotel du Cap, to appear in his blockbuster. Her unexpected artistic choice, and the reason for that choice, is the heart of this both romantic and sophisticated film.
Meanwhile, characters mix and match at places like the Carleton Terrace and the Palais du Festival. To spotlights and flash cameras, Faye Dunaway introduces Viktor and Millie to her handsome son, Liam Dunaway O'Neil. William Shatner, who seems to have a second career parodying himself, drunkenly embraces Victor, telling him how close they were on a vintage Kovner film. (Viktor has no idea who he is.) Another director, Milo (Peter Bogdanovich) is consulted by Yorkin to perhaps helm his project. Young mistresses/starlets escape from the older men to shop or cavort among themselves. Yorkin's assistant, Barry (Alex Craig Martin), using experience garnered from his boss, meets, flatters, seduces Blue, and begins to act as her agent.
Jaglom has never forgotten the lesson that his friend Orson Welles learned in producing The Cradle Will Rock in 1937. With Jaglom, it is always, "Let's find a place, let's put on a show." He is one of the original modern indie kids. He now has his stock company (Zack Norman here); his methods (improv, hand-held camera, confessional dialogue); the French Riviera for a location; and FESTIVAL IN CANNES as the latest in a series of little million dollar films (A SAFE PLACE, 1971; SITTING DUCKS, 1980; SOMEONE TO LOVE, 1987; EATING, 1990; LAST SUMMER IN THE HAMPTONS, 1995; DEJA VU, 1998, etc). They cover in America his production costs and turn a sustaining profit in Europe, where he may be more highly regarded now than Woody Allen.
In FESTIVAL IN CANNES, through the manipulations of Kaz, the characters meet, or re-unite, miss and sometimes bounce off each other, in a series brightly observed scenes. Millie, for instance, sees her ex-husband Viktor for the first time in years. He is a renowned director, who has not been given a film assignment in a long time. The old warmth rekindled, despite his 20-something girlfriend Gina (Camilla Campanalle), they share memories of each other and their glory moments at Cannes in years gone by. They quietly debate the central question of the plot. Will they be motivated by personal or artistic concerns?
Henry Jaglom has three abiding themes: 1) women, their hopes, their relationships (in the beginning, as they applied to himself or his surrogates); 2) the general absurdity of all our lives; and 3) the theatrical arts, as they were, as they are, and as they may become. A Jaglom film is a home movie aspiring to the status of art. He has been working toward technical mastery in an inverse course to that taken by his mentor Welles, who in his last completed theatrical film (F FOR FAKE, 1973), abandoned hopes of Studio procedural complexity for small crews and an intimate personal style.
Looking at Jaglom's latest, FESTIVAL IN CANNES, what comes across as usual is his interest in the mystery of women; his respect and support for discarded professionals (in notable cases past, represented by Welles, Dennis Hopper, or a Viveca Lindfors; here by Aimee and Schell); his skeptical but loving view of entertainment people and the motion pictures. What is different from most Jaglom films is that Henry himself does not appear, his arythmic editing is kept to a minimum, and his habitual cinematographer Hania Bafor adopts long takes and a lyrically moving camera, which makes one wonder if Jaglom will not cap his career with a classic studio masterpiece.
For lovers of the Movies as a business, for people who do not insist that a film have a conventionally resolved plot, and for students of romantic comedy, FESTIVAL IN CANNES is not a bad choice.
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Macresarf1 Reviews of some films mentioned:
F FOR FAKE --
http://www.epinions.com/mvie-review-3DA1-E636480-39AB1581-prod6
LAST SUMMER IN THE HAMPTONS --
http://www.epinions.com/mvie-review-6ABD-142251AE-3A0CB42F-prod2
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Recommended:
Yes
Movie Mood: Feel-good Movie
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: Looked complete to me.
Worst Part of this Film: Ending
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macresarf1
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Location: San Francisco, Ca.
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