The 79th Cannes Film Festival, which opened on Tuesday night, is not attended by big studio films or Hollywood stars. But at least there were visitors from Middle-earth. “The Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson arrived in the south of France to receive the honorary Palme d’Or ahead of the opening screening of “The Electric Kiss,” a French romantic comedy set in the 1920s.
On a sunny, windy afternoon, he walked the red carpet alongside several Cannes-bound celebrities (from Diego Luna to Emily in Paris star Lucas Bravo and Tyrese Gibson) and judges including Demi Moore, Chloé Zhao, Ruth Negga, Stellan Skarsgård and Park Chan-wook. Many A-listers never arrived, and the flashing cameras from the wall of photographers stationed outside the theater remained dark for long stretches of the silent opening ceremony.
What it lacked in star power, it made up for with a controversial appearance on its opening night at Cannes. James Franco, whose career was derailed by allegations of sexual misconduct, was mobbed by a fan in the lobby of the Palais during a break between the ceremony and the opening night screening. He took a selfie before fleeing to an outdoor smoking patio, where Luna grabbed his arm. “How’s it going, dude?” Luna asked as Franco, wearing sunglasses, nodded.
Jane Fonda brought the much-needed glamor to the movie with a sparkling black dress and a bejeweled necklace that looked like the Heart of the Ocean from Titanic. Jackson held “Lord of the Rings” star Elijah Wood by his side and gave a thumbs-up to the paparazzi. As the cast of “Electric Kiss” ascended the stairs of the theater, there was light applause inside the Palais.
Director Wood was on hand to present Jackson with the award and spoke about the influence of the director’s highly successful J.R.R. Tolkien novel, which was shot in his native New Zealand, on the film. Wood, who played Frodo Baggins, told the director, “You showed the world something it had never seen before, and nothing was ever the same,” adding, “He helped create a whole new filmmaking culture at the ends of the world.”
An ebullient Jackson accepted the honor, remembering his bold decision to film most of the Lord of Rings trilogy at the same time. “It was a big gamble,” he admitted.
The media called the project a “foolish move” and predicted that if the first film flopped, the high stakes might not pay off. Jackson pointed out that the story was reversed after a 20-minute film of The Fellowship of the Ring was screened at Cannes in 2001 to great acclaim. “It changed the way I looked at movies,” he said.
This year marks the 25th edition of the festival, directed by festival director Thierry Frémaux. During this tenure, Cannes has weathered streaming wars, a pandemic, and political upheaval to maintain its position as the ultimate global stage for film.
But chatter around the Croisette seems unusually high this year, and there’s a good reason for that. Hollywood is in flux, studios are cutting back on festival splurges, AI is closing in on creative jobs, wars are raging around the world, and fears of the hantavirus are rising. Perhaps due to economic uncertainty, this year’s lineup is devoid of blockbusters, in contrast to previous Cannes festivals, where Tom Cruise premiered “Mission: Impossible” and “Top Gun” sequels, and Harrison Ford released “Indiana Jones and Dial.”
There were hopes that Christopher Nolan and Steven Spielberg would bring The Odyssey and Disclosure Day to the festival, but they chose not to set foot on the Cote d’Azur. So Cannes turned to a lineup of international directors, including Pedro Almodovar (Bitter Christmas), Paweł Pawlikowski (Fatherland) and Cristian Mungiu (Fjord), to fill the void.
In his opening remarks, the ceremony’s host, Ai Haidara, had a politically charged tone, welcoming “our dear guests here, our viewers, and our dear internet users around the world, or rather, wherever the internet has not been shut down, where artificial intelligence has not replaced reality…all of you who are trying to resist here and elsewhere.”
Mr. Fonda took up the mantle, ready to declare Cannes officially open.
“I believe that cinema has always been an act of resistance, because we tell stories and stories are what make civilizations,” she said. “Stories that bring empathy to marginalized people, stories that can be felt across differences. Stories that show us that there are other possible futures.”
