How times have changed. This week when Cronenberg arrives in Cannes, he will check into the Carlton as the esteemed jury president of the 52d annual film festival. He will don a tuxedo to attend cocktail parties and travel to screenings by limo, inching through thousands of screaming fans. Journalists, autograph hounds and Hollywood stars will clamor for his attention. The paparazzi will blind him with flashes. “It’s the closest I’ll ever get to being a rock star,” he says with a laugh.
Cronenberg’s dramatic turnabout is no accident. Winner of the 1996 Special Jury Prize for Audacity and Originality for “Crash,” Cronenberg has earned a place in the exclusive Cannes club, the intimate group of independent-film actors, directors and producers who have come to dominate the festival. Year after year, the same directors and actors are featured in competition or serve on the jury, essentially taking turns showering each other with praise and prizes. Of the 22 directors in competition this year, 11 have been represented in the past. Ten of those–including Chen Kaige, David Lynch, Jim Jarmusch and Peter Greenaway–have had at least two movies previously entered. Actress Holly Hunter, who starred in the 1993 Palme d’Or winner “The Piano,” is a member of this year’s jury. And Miramax head Harvey Weinstein, who has won five Palme d’Ors in the past 10 years, is back to shop for new films to distribute.
They owe their entry into the Cannes clique to Gilles Jacob, the soft-spoken but tough former film critic who has been running the festival for the past 21 years. Not only does Jacob choose and schedule all the films, he also picks the jury president and its members. Technically he answers to a board of government and film officials, but they almost never interfere. Each night during the festival, Jacob welcomes VIPs on the red-carpeted steps of the Palais des Festivals and hosts the post-screening dinners. He is unapologetic about his selection process. “Fellini was there 14 times, Bergman seven or eight, Coppola five or six, Tarantino three,” he says. “But that’s where the talent is. If Coppola makes a new film, it’s ready and it’s good, you’re not going to refuse it because he’s been there before. The club of Cannes is simply the club of talent.”
Not everyone agrees. Hollywood’s major studios accuse Jacob of shutting them out. This year he chose only two studio productions: Buena Vista’s “The Cradle Will Rock,” directed by Tim Robbins, and Columbia-Tristar’s “Limbo,” by longtime independent filmmaker John Sayles. “At Cannes, we want inventors who show new ways to tell a story,” Jacob says. “And today, the inventors come from independent cinema.” In the past, Jacob has used Hollywood blockbusters to add star power and buzz; “E.T.,” “Cliffhanger” and “Godzilla” all premiered on closing night at Cannes. He’ll have no such luck this year. Though he tried to get both the “Star Wars” prequel “Episode I, The Phantom Menace” and Stanley Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut,” the studios turned him down. In part, they may be trying to give the capricious Jacob a taste of his own medicine. But they might also legitimately fear Europe’s critics, who tend to loathe blockbusters and could easily destroy a movie’s box-office returns with brutal reviews.
Some believe Jacob wields far too much power. Unlike his business-side counterpart, the festival president, who faces a board review every three years, Jacob’s term is unlimited. And he often exerts strong influence on a film’s release date. Some filmmakers rush to finish their movies by the mid-April deadline to get them into the Cannes competition; others delay their release. French director Leos Carax was planning to open his new movie, “Pola X,” in France last December. But after Jacob saw it in the fall, he declared the film brilliant and urged Carax to hold it six months until Cannes. Even though it was Carax’s first feature film in nine years, he agreed.
For many directors, the prospect of membership to the Cannes club is too tempting to pass up. But initiation can be a long and grueling process. Cronenberg hawked his movies for nearly two decades before he caught a break in 1996, when Jacob called to say that “Crash,” his film based on J. G. Ballard’s disturbing novel about people who are sexually aroused by car wrecks, would be an official selection. As Cronenberg recalls, that changed his life. “Being in competition is a whole other plane of existence,” he says. “You suddenly feel like you’re part of this intense international film family.”
Membership can certainly boost one’s career. A Cannes jury was the first to recognize the talent of Quentin Tarantino by awarding his first film, “Pulp Fiction,” the Palme d’Or in 1994. “You have given me 10 years of notoriety in one night,” Tarantino told Jacob afterward. Last year Italian filmmaker Roberto Benigni swept the Cannes awards with his wrenching Holocaust tale, “Life is Beautiful.” Nine months later he won Oscars not only for best foreign film but also for best actor–a first for an actor in a foreign movie. Chinese director Chen Kaige, whose latest movie, “The Emperor and the Assassin,” is his fifth entry at Cannes, recalls the thrill of winning the Palme d’Or for “Farewell My Concubine” in 1993. “After I won, I went back to my hotel and ordered room service,” he says. “I hadn’t eaten all day because I was so nervous. The waiter walked in while I was in the shower and saw the Palme sitting on the table. He gasped, ‘Oh, my God!’ and called into the bathroom, ‘Congratulations!’ I was so moved–I felt I had made a friend without seeing his face.”
For Kaige, being part of the Cannes club has opened up a world of opportunity. And for that, he feels deeply grateful to Jacob. “When I was in film school, I never thought one day I would be able to stand on the stage in Cannes,” he says. “We went through the Cultural Revolution and faced a lot of hardships, so to have someone listen to our voice was incredibly exciting. Cannes really gives a chance to young directors from faraway places.” Kaige’s experiences back in China may have given him the inspiration for his films. But when he climbs the red-carpeted steps this week to shake Jacob’s hand, nothing will seem further away.
