Dispatch from the front
Life can be tough for a hack on the Cannes film festival beat
French actor Jean Reno arrives for the screening of The Da Vinci Code at the Palais des Festivals at the 59th Cannes Film Festival. — EPA |
Cannes gig is cool and crazy, intellectual and insane, stupid and revealing - just like this festival that's supposed to gauge the health of cinema art around the world.
To give you an idea of what's going on I'll take you through my daily routine step by step. Every morning - I force myself out of bed, have a very quick breakfast and then rush to catch the first press screening at 8:30 - try seeing a film that early, brother! - which is usually followed immediately by a second at 11am. On bad days, I plunge in for a third helping, which means that by the time I emerge from the theatre at 3pm I haven't been in contact with direct sunlight for seven hours straight. Lunch is, again, very quick - and very, very expensive.
Some days I need to go and see acquaintances from other countries to catch up on the cinema news in their respective homelands. Then it's back to the computer to dash off a few stories, which often suffer from the lack of time available for fine-tuning and polish. Then on to another screening at 5pm, and another at 7pm. Dinner needn't be quick but it's still always very expensive. And most nights we round off things by attending one of the parties, not for free drinks, though, for the connections! With any luck, I'll get back to the hotel by midnight; if not it could be 3am before my head hits the pillow. And next morning, the first screening is still at 8:30am, no excuses!
This is my third Cannes outing, which makes me an ingenue compared to all those critics who've been coming here every year for three decades.
Around my neck hangs a pink badge, which means I'll be okay. The colour of your badge signifies your status at this brutally hierarchical event. Bearing a white pass makes you one of the elite journalists (New York Times, The Guardian, etc) and means you don't have to queue up to get into a screening. A pink pass is fine, too; you'll only have to stand in line for 10 to 15 minutes. If you get a blue pass, though, life's a bit more difficult: Queuing time can range from 30 to 45 minutes depending on the popularity of the movie; plus there's always the chance that the 2,000-seat cinema will be deemed full before you reach the door. A yellow badge means you might as well forget the movies altogether and just go sun yourself on the beach. There's also a pink pass with a yellow dot, a Film Market pass, a Festival Organiser pass, a Producer Network pass, and so on. You could write a whole article about how the colour-code system works here.
So why do critics and film-industry people put up with all this? Simply put, because Cannes is a place where a passion for cinema, in both the artistic and commercial senses, infuses the air in unflagging intensity for 11 days every year. Not that everything being shown here is necessarily good - several real dogs pop up on a daily basis - but Cannes remains the world's most important gathering of cinema people, a venue where films are discussed and dissected, acclaimed and reviled. Negotiations are conducted, movies bought and sold at the Film Market, which is located in the basement of the cinema complex known as the Palais de Festival.
Is this a cool gig? Probably. Do I get to hobnob with celebrities? No way. But a film festival is to the film industry what a trade show is to the manufacturer of any other type of product. If you were in the business of making, say, toilet seats, you'd naturally want to attend the world's largest exhibition of sanitary ware, no matter where it was being held. You'd want to check out the latest trends and technology, meet your fellow professionals, upgrade your know-how, and sharpen your thinking.
Sorry, got to fly now, otherwise I won't make that 5pm screening.
hack
slang for writer or reporter
film festival
an event where many films are shown, often for the first time
gig
slang for a temporary job or way of making money
gauge
to measure something; to judge a situation
plunge
to jump into something quickly
acquaintances
people you have met before or know but are not considered friends
respective
belonging separately to the people mentioned
connections
meeting people who are important or could be helpful with work
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ingenue
a naive, innocent girl or young woman
critics
a person whose job it is to give his/her opinion about a play/movie/book
status
your social or professional position in relation to other people
brutally
in a really bad or unpleasant way
hierarchical
a system or organisation that has many grades or ranks from the lowest to the highest
bearing
wearing, on your body
commercial
about making money or selling something
infuses
filling or causing something to be filled with something
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unflagging
does not stop
dogs
slang for something really bad
dissected
broken down or taken apart in a discussion, sometimes to learn how something was put together
acclaimed
saying something or somebody is very good
reviled
saying something is not good with mean or offensive language
hobnob
slang for getting to meet, talk and socialise with
sanitary ware
products having to do with keeping or being clean
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