Sean Penn introduced “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” which will open this year’s Lumière Film Festival in Lyon, where he is the guest of honor, and gave a moving speech about his friend and the film’s lead actor, Jack Nicholson.
“You heard my name a lot tonight,” he said. “But I was very at ease in the sense that I knew “The Cuckoo’s Nest” was going to be shown. I had no doubt that I would find great humility under the circumstances. One of the great magical moments of my film career was seeing Jack Nicholson for the first time in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” directed by Miloš Forman.
“It was a great honor to work with Jack twice,” he continued. “He was an angel on my shoulder in both ‘The Pledge’ and ‘Crossing Guard,’ and I still can’t quite get over it, I still can’t quite imagine McMurphy[Nicholson’s character in ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’]working with me,” he smiles.
The film has stood the test of time well, Penn told the crowd, recalling the first time he saw it as a teenager in Los Angeles when it was released in 1975.
“There was a little movie theater on the beach in Los Angeles that I used to go to. Back then, in the late ’70s, every movie that came out seemed like an event. But even now, I still don’t like watching these movies for 16-, 17-year-olds. “I didn’t hesitate to show it to my audience, because even though it’s a movie that gets boring quickly, this one holds up,” he quipped, drawing laughs from the 5,000-seat audience in Lyon. Tony Garnier Showhall, one of the festival’s key venues.
Asked by Lumière director Thierry Frémaux, who is also in charge of the Cannes Film Festival, if it was possible to make such a film today, Penn replied, “I’ve long been a part of a culture that complains about the fate of movies.” But then things happen. There are two films I’m screening here at the festival – ‘Manas’ and ‘Sentimental Value.’ Listen to the complaints and you’ll see that everything is still possible. ”
Earlier in the day, Penn attended the Lyon premiere of this year’s Cannes Grand Prix winner “Sentimental Value” with director Joachim Trier. The company will also screen Marianna Brennand’s debut feature, Manas, for which she served as executive producer.
Penn has a packed schedule during his time in Lyon, where he will present a new subtitled version of his 2007 hit “Into the Wild” and participate in a masterclass with the Lumière audience. When the actor and director took to the stage to introduce the opening film, he appeared to be speechless for a moment in the vast, packed concert hall. “I didn’t expect it…[Thierry]didn’t explain to me how big the situation was. I didn’t know it was like this…”
Those comments echoed the sentiments of many first-time attendees to Lumière, where hundreds of thousands of people gather to watch classic and contemporary films on big screens in about 30 venues.
Walking the red carpet ahead of the opening ceremony, director Scott Cooper (who will premiere his new film “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere” at Lumière) said, “It’s amazing. I wish there were more festivals like this everywhere,” to cheers of “Lyon, the birthplace of cinema!” From Jeremy Allen White, who starred as the boss in Cooper’s films and won two Emmy Awards.
True to tradition, the festival officially opened with 800 volunteers roaming the concert hall to the sounds of a brass band, before guests were invited onto the stage to read a line in unison. The joyful cacophony drew laughter from the audience.
Among the celebrities who joined Penn, Cooper and White on stage were Taiwanese actor and director Shu Qi, Costa Gavras’ Laika Studio head Travis Knight, Valeria Golino, three-time César Award winner Dominique Blanc and French film enfant terrible Bertrand Bonello (Saint Laurent, The Beast).
The Lumière Film Festival will be held in and around Lyon until October 19th.
