Who will win the Palme at Cannes? [2014 edition]

She delivers everything very tonelessly.

it's quite possible this is what the director wants. we'd have to see the film to be sure.

Oh, it's worse than that. Nobody ever talks this way, ever. Like, there is tonelessness, and then there is this. This is bad acting, the way every Danish child-actor in way over her head sound like. But then again, I hate this in a way I would never hate it if it was Iranian, I think. It's weird like that.

also the director doesn't speak danish, i presume.

sometimes a film works better if you don't know the language it's using. certainly there are american films the french seem to have an outsized appreciation of, but where i find the dialogue and characterizations to be laughable or embarrassing. actually to turn that around, i wonder if the french critics' appreciation of certain american films/directors in the 1950s--an appreciation deeper and prouder than that of most contemporaneous american critics--is partly because they could, by virtue of seeing the films dubbed or just not being fluent in english, ignore some of the surface problems of the films.

Yeah, I think that is very true. I read about a famous Cahiers de Cinema article on Young Lincoln, which described the final scene with Lincoln marching over a hill as cannons are heard, and said that it showed Lincoln as having become a kind of mounstrous, dangerous creature. Now obviously, it's just the sounds of the coming civil war, it's heroic and patriotic, but isn't their interpretation much more interesting?

are you talking about the infamous CdC article that more or less ends with, "Lincoln is the phallus"?

b/c that article is incredibly specious and dumb. it gets American history profoundly wrong in ways that probably only a pretentious French idiot could.

it's important in the history of film theory--or at least one phase of it--but its the article and not the film that is monstrous IMO.

new Godard -- what are people saying? although frankly who cares what the critics think? it's not like I won't see it.

i guess i wasn't seeing this thread in new answers b/c i have poll threads hidden.

Probably. Jumpcut spent a recent volume focusing on it, and on Spielberg's Lincoln. Was really interesting, but boy, did they get it wrong. Don't think they get American history any more wrong than Wes Anderson does European ditto, though ;)

yeah, i'll give him a pass. the assholes who were editing cahiers du cinema post-68, not so much.

the cahiers article on young mr lincoln is a deliberate mishmash of American history, a kind of fantasia of American history.

like that spaghetti western where Garfield gets killed in Dallas after quoting Robert Kennedy?

the cahiers article on young mr lincoln is a deliberate mishmash of American history, a kind of fantasia of American history.

― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Wednesday, May 21, 2014 4:42 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ha! unfortunately, it's dead serious.

morbs, i dunno that one (unless you're kidding), but spaghetti westerns are great for LOL versions of American history. Django is one of the more bizarre.

being both exceedingly pedantic and totally wrong like that cahiers article is a special kind of awful.

I was not kidding

http://www.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/The_Price_of_Power_Review

lol

Craig Keller from MoC wrote:
ADIEU AU LANGAGE by Godard. Now is not the time for hyperbole. It is simply a landmark in the history of cinema, on the order of Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon or, for that matter, Breathless. A complete and total reinvention of form and what cinema even is.

but did he like it?

so tired of Godard.

haha, he's only been around the scene for 55 years.

(i happen to think he's made some of his best movies recently)

I've tried 2-3 films of most his different period and never found a single film of his to be enjoyable, I didn't bother with Film Socialisme but this one new I might try. There is something about him that rubs me the wrong way. Yet, I love Maker and Resnais.

And his ridiculous letter and this kind of thing that exemplify what I dislike about him, although it's an even a worse look on the festival itself.

The Immigrant still hasn't come out yet here...

Also, I heard pretty mixed echoes from Kawase, which bums me, as she is easily one of my favorite directors.

I've tried 2-3 films of most his different period and never found a single film of his to be enjoyable, I didn't bother with Film Socialisme but this one new I might try. There is something about him that rubs me the wrong way. Yet, I love Maker and Resnais.

― Van Horn Street, Wednesday, May 21, 2014 10:31 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ha we probably shouldn't meet in person.

It looks like one of the worst years of the competition.

Every new Godard triggers wild, undoubtedly unreliable hosannas at Cannes. This one appears to be no different.

But wasn't the raves for Film Socialisme sorta evened out by some very negative pans? That's sorta what I don't see this time, and that's what intrigues me. Because this looked divise before the festival, to say the least.

There's just really no trusting reviews of Godard, period.

There's just really no trusting reviews of Godard, period.

There's just really no trusting reviews of Godard, period.

He is not a 'consensus' artist and hasn't been since maaaaybe '70-72 at the latest. I find what I've seen from circa '77-95ish (w/ some exceptions) to be pretty arid. Better since late '90s.

Mommy is gathering major buzz.

And that to, pisses me off. The notion of auteurs made sense from 1959 until recently, it was the necessary step for critics to assess cinema as a serious artform, but nowadays it just seems that it's bunch of old white dudes making the same naturalistic movies about unfortunate people, and no, making your film in 1:1 won't make it more special. La Vie d'Adèle (which I'll say is a very good film) was basically the last of this kind I wanted to see. Heck, at least Godard, which I dislike for other reasons, is trying to do something new. I miss the 2008/2009 edition or maybe the summer just started and all I want to see is comedies.

lengthy roundtable discussion

http://www.filmcomment.com/entry/cannes-2014-homesman-mr-turner-foxcatcher-maps-to-the-stars-saint-laurent

it's weird that some folks (including todd mccarthy, who should know better) are all "oh godard, so tired of that old man, he's always doing the same thing" when from nearly all accounts "adieu au langage" is mind-bendingly weird.

i do tend to think that his films pose challenges to the usual saw-it-two-hours-ago-now-writing-700-word-review routine. in some ways twitter is almost a better medium for the time being.

wesley morris on godard/dolan (i've really enjoyed reading his cannes reports this year):

http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/cannes-diary-day-8-jean-luc-godard/

so the Palme is in the bag for Leviathan, allegedly

i liked his Elena more than most Palme winners I've seen

Disappointed Carell didn't win it but oh well.

Jury Prize for both Dolan and Godard, haha.

Winter Sleep wins the Palme d'Or.

Good job, poll voters.

The rest of the choices getting votes managed one award between them. But yeah for Nuri. Now there's hope of it getting Danish distribution.

Xavier Dolan refused the Queer Palm for Laurence Anyways, a year ago, saying (i'm translating) that such a prize is disgusting, contributes to the fragmentation of the world and that its ostracizing.

I understand Mommy is pretty disgusting.

Everything I've heard about it from people I actually know and trust makes it sound like a howler.

Glenn Kenny wrote that Dolan puts the "terrible" into "enfant terrible." WTF at the praise...

It's really awful. Possibly his worst yet.

I don't know who Xavier Dolan is but I saw Mommy for some reason. Let's just say I'm never going to see one of his film's again... lol.

I thought it was gonna be like a hardcore art movie, I don't know why, but it's really broad and stupid... And not in a sick Road House kind of way. I wanted to walk out really bad... I knew that would be the case like 5 minutes in when it became clear that it was just gonna be the same scene repeated for 2 hours and 30 minutes. But I'm such a tightwad that I'll never walk out on any movie. Anyway this Stinker gets two thumb's down.

as Kenny points out, Dolasn def has the 'chops' to make high-paying Hollywood crap. And his next movie stars Susan Sarandon.