Cannes 2013

[ianungstad]

Steven Spielberg will head the competition jury this year.

This might not be good news for some of the titles rumored to play in competition. I don't see Spielberg giving the Palm D'Or to a film like Nymphomaniac or Only God Forgives.

[Alan Smithee]

Wow, while I think spielbergs tastes might run a little wider than we think I can't see him heading a cannes jury. I hope they put someone way out there on to balance him out.

[knives]

Isn't that three American directors in almost as many years?

[AlexHansen]

Let us not forget Tim Burton's jury gave the Palme to Uncle Boonmee. And yep, three of the last four were Americans (De Niro being the other).

[knives]

It's appropriate I thought DeNiro was Scorsese then. I thought, of the films in competition that year, Uncle Boonmee was somewhat the obvious choice for a Burton jury, though even if it was unpredictable as a choice it is still a horrible choice.

[lacritfan]

Steven Spielberg will head the competition jury this year.

This might not be good news for some of the titles rumored to play in competition. I don't see Spielberg giving the Palme D'Or to a film like Nymphomaniac or Only God Forgives.

After Lars von Trier's Nazi comments I don't see Spielberg wanting him on the premises, let alone giving him an award.

[JabbaTheSlut]

Not awarding Nymphomaniac won't be a problem.

[Zot!]

Spielberg is not such a bizarre choice. He's been on cruise control the last 30 years or so, but he's definitely still a product of the 70s American Cinema renaissance and he cast Truffaut and produced Kurosawa's Dreams. I expect he should rise to the occasion.

[warren oates]

His personal taste and openness to other strands of cinema is broader than a lot of his work at first glance suggests. I doubt he was merely ripping off The Battle of Algiers or Come and See for Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan. You have to know about and admire those films first for them to be incorporated as influences. Likewise it's hard for me to imagine the man who made Munich not awarding a film like Carlos. It's the much weirder, darker stuff like Salo or Cronenberg's Crash or Uncle Boonmee that may get the short shrift. But it always depends on the mix and ultimate quality of the whole line-up as well as the make up of the rest of the jury.

[MichaelB]

He's also a massive Andrzej Wajda fan - in fact, he was instrumental in getting Wajda an Oscar in 2000.

[Jeff]

As long as we're positing where Señor Spielbergo's predilections lie, which films seem like likely candidates for this year's competition lineup?

Here are some possibilities that haven't screened elsewhere and should be close to complete by the first of May. Hard to tell what might be in Spielberg's wheelhouse.

Abus De Faiblesse (Catherine Breillat)
August: Osage County (John Wells)
The Bastards (Claire Denis)
The Bling Ring (Sofia Coppola)
Blood Ties (Guillaume Canet)
Blue Is the Warmest Color (Abdellatif Kechiche)
Blue Jasmine (Woody Allen)
Devil's Knot (Atom Egoyan)
Diana (Oliver Hirschbiegel)
Her (Spike Jonze)
How I Live Now (Kevin Macdonald)
I'm So Excited (Pedro Almódovar)
Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel and Ethan Coen)
Jeune et Jolie (François Ozon)
Jimmy Picard (Arnaud Deschplin)
Joe (David Gordon Green)
Labor Day (Jason Reitman)
Lowlife (James Gray)
Mood Indigo (Michel Gondry)
A Most Wanted Man (Anton Corbijn)
Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight (Stephen Frears)
Nebraska (Alexander Payne)
Night Moves (Kelly Reichardt)
A Nine-Minute Interval (Corneliu Porumboiu)
Only God Forgives (Nicolas Winding Refn)
Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch)
The Past (Asghar Farhadi)
Serena (Susanne Bier)
Snowpiercer (Bong Joon-ho)
Twelve Years a Slave (Steve McQueen)
Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer)
The Unknown Known: The Life and Times of Donald Rumsfeld (Errol Morris)
Venus in Fur (Roman Polanski)
Vi är bäst! (Lukas Moodysson)
Wally and André Shoot Ibsen (Jonathan Demme)
The Young and Prodigious Spivet (Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
The Zero Theorem (Terry Gilliam)

I'm guessing The Great Gatsby gets the out-of-competition opening night slot.

[Dansu Dansu Dansu]

In Wender's Room 666, while at Cannes for E.T., Spielberg talks about how it's impossible to get personal stories funded without explicit commercial appeal. He mentions that E.T. was shot on a relatively low budget, but even it had to appeal to the blockbuster mentality to get funded, and that a studio would never fund a small, personal film about awkward school days and your first time masturbating. Also, wasn't he going to make Oldboy at one point?

[Andre Jurieu]

You have to know about and admire those films first for them to be incorporated as influences.

I think I heard Brett Ratner say the same thing once. I kid, I kid.

Looking at Jeff's list, some part of me wants the Palme to go to Jason Reitman just to see the forum descend into pure unadulterated chaos.

[zedz]

The awarding of the Palme d'Or is just about as random and shruggable as the awarding of the Best picture Oscar, it's just that the pool of eligible films is usually much more interesting (so the drunken rifle shot of the jury is more likely to hit a worthwhile film). I don't think anybody's got particularly worked up about their 'wrong' decisions in the past.

[Andre Jurieu]

You're giving us way too much credit for being reasonable and level-headed.

[ianungstad]

Inside Llewyn Davis, The Bling Ring and Twelve Years a Slave will all certainly play Cannes. All three films have either had test screenings or screened for buyers recently.

Word on Inside Llewyn Davis is very positive and CBS paid $5 million for North American rights plus a hefty P+A commitment including an Oscar campaign.

The Bling Ring is supposedly a solid film and was warmly received by test audiences. I've heard a few people say that it's comparable in quality to The Virgin Suicides and not nearly as great as Lost in Translation.

Twelve Years a Slave has been getting very mixed reviews. There's a couple of fascinating articles in the Shadows and Act column on indiewire that look at a few different reactions to test screenings. Worth a read.

[Jeff]

The Great Gatsby gets the out-of-competition opening night slot.

[lacritfan]

The Great Gatsby gets the out-of-competition opening night slot.

Zulu to close Cannes

[bdlover]

Why not call your movie "Citizen Kane" or "Vertigo" whilst you're at it, jeez...

[Finch]

Snowpiercer not at Cannes

[hearthesilence]

Why not call your movie "Citizen Kane" or "Vertigo" whilst you're at it, jeez...

There aren't any legal ramifications if someone did this as an obvious joke, right? I'm surprised no one's tried this à la the Replacements' 1984 LP Let It Be.

[rs98762001]

Bling Ring didn't even make it into the main competition. Instead it will debut in Un Certain Regard, which makes me skeptical of just how much regard the organisers had for it.

[knives]

They haven't put a lot of big (great) names in competition. Sometimes this is because the filmmakers request a certain theater, other times I suspect it is just a matter a room vs. fame.

[Jeff]

Thomas Vinterberg is heading the Un Certain Regard jury.

[Duncan Hopper]

In competition - Jury chair: Steven Spielberg
Only God Forgives, dir Nicolas Winding Refn
Borgman, dir Alex Van Warmerdam
La Grande Bellezza, dir Paulo Sorrentino
Behind the Candelabra, dir Steven Soderbergh
La Venus a la Fourrure, dir Roman Polanski
Nebraska, dir Alexander Payne
Jeune et Jolie, dir François Ozon
La Vie d'Adele, dir Abdellatif Kechiche
Wara No Tate, dir Takashi Miike
Soshite Chichi Ni Naru, dir Kore-Eda Hirokazu
Tian Zhu Ding, dir Jia Zhangke
Grisgris, dir Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
The Immigrant, dir James Gray
Heli, dir Amat Escalante
Le Passe, dir Asghar Farhadi
Jimmy P. (PSYCHOTHERAPY OF A PLAINS INDIAN) Arnaud Desplechin.
Michael Kohlhaas, dir Arnaud Despallieres
Inside Llewyn Davis, dir Ethan and Joel Coen
Un Chateau en Italie, dir Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi

Un Certain Regard - Jury chair: Thomas Vinterberg
The Bling Ring, dir Sofia Coppola
L'INCONNU DU LA, dir Alain GUIRAUDIE
BENDS, dir Flora LAU
L'IMAGE MANQUANTE, dir Rithy PANH
LA JAULA DE ORO, dir Diego QUEMADA-DIEZ
ANONYMOUS, dir Mohammad RASOULOF
SARAH PRÉFÈRE LA COURSE, dir Chloé ROBICHAUD
GRAND CENTRAL, dir Rebecca Zlotowski
FRUITVALE STATIO, dir Ryan COOGLER
LES SALAUDS, dir Claire DENIS
NORTE, HANGGANAN NG KASAYSAYAN, dir Lav DIAZ
AS I LAY DYING, dir James FRANCO
MIELE, dir Valeria GOLINO
OMAR, dir Hany ABU-ASSAD
DEATH MARCH, dir Adolfo ALIX JR

Special screenings
Weekend of a Champion, dir Roman Polanski
Seduced and Abandoned, dir James Toback
Otdat Konci, dir Taisia Igumentseva
Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight, dir Stephen Frears
Stop the Pounding Heart, dir Robero Minervini

Midnight screenings
MONSOON SHOOTOUT, dir Amit KUMAR
BLIND DETECTIVE, dir Johnnie TO

Homage to Jerry Lewis
MAX ROSE, dir Daniel NOAH

Out of Competiton
ALL IS LOST by J.C CHANDOR
BLOOD TIES by Guillaume CANET

(Taken from the Guardian)