(Continued)

Deals vs. Art

Cannes was pulled in two directions in the 1960s -- by those seeking to make it a home for more serious cinema and those concerned mostly with making deals (and dollars) from film.

On the commercial side, it created Marche, an international marketplace for low-budget filmmakers to sell their products to distributors. Dealmaking, part of the festival from its beginning, now had a formal home and became the primary reason many people go to the festival. In Marche's first year, 150 films were screened for distributors; today more than 1,000, or more than two-thirds of movies screened at Cannes, are in the marketplace.

Most of these films you'll never see in a theater, especially America. Many are sold straight to video, to foreign distributors (many who've only heard a pitch or seen the trailer!), or to cable. They range from soft-core porn to graphic action and horror flicks. The films themselves are terrible, but the business is equal to Wall Street. Many longtime Cannes visitors feel the Marche has hurt the festival's "beautiful" image; others complain that business has overshadowed the fest's famed hedonism. One former studio executive said of Cannes post-Marche, "It's not just a film festival; it's a microcosm of Hollywood."

But the pivotal year for Cannes' artistic credibility was 1968, when explosive nationwide protests and Cannes' glamorous image collided. In the midst of social and political upheaval that saw 10 million French workers and students strike and riot, Cannes was exposed as a glitzy, bloated festival, primarily representing Hollywood nostalgia and insulated from the real world. The festival tried to behave as though nothing was happening -- the rerelease of "Gone With the Wind" opened the festivities -- but New Wave directors such as Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard organized demonstrations and called for disruptions. As the "revolution" spread, directors such as Milos Forman withdrew their films from competition; Truffaut and actress Geraldine Chaplin joined protesters who tried to literally hold down the curtain on one screening; and the jury resigned soon after. The rest of the 1968 festival was canceled. The next year, the New Wave directors demanded a seat on the festival's board, and a new forum, called the Directors' Fortnight, was created to showcase nonmainstream, challenging films selected exclusively by the French Directors Guild. Offering new directors a chance of discovery, it has functioned as a minor league to bring filmmakers into the ranks of the Official Selection. Seminal filmmakers such as Bernardo Bertolucci, Andrzej Wajda, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Spike Lee gained attention there.

Cannes Today: Winning and Losing

Every year as the festival concludes, the big news is who won. Winners of the Palme d'Or, for example, will receive free publicity and get to slap a tag line ("Winner of Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or") on advertisements. But getting "crowned" by Cannes or even entering a film in competition can have unpredictable results.

In the foreign market, a win is always a financial success. It launches a free marketing campaign and virtually assures distribution. In the U.S. market, however, things are a bit more uncertain. Generally, if a foreign film grabs the Palme, it will increase distribution, especially if it's an English-language film such as "The Piano," "Secrets & Lies" or "The Pianist." But often, a win means nothing outside of, well, a win. 2005's winner, "L'Enfant," by the Dardenne brothers, barely made a splash when it opened in the United States two years ago -- the same American reception the Dardennes' other Palme winner, "Rosetta," received in 2000.

Historically, Hollywood has a bit more complex, fearful relationship of competing at Cannes. Because studios mainly use Cannes as a launching pad for foreign publicity, winning awards has always taken a back seat. Studio executive Nadia Bronson sums it up perfectly, saying, "If you have a choice, the most important thing is the publicity. The award is for the ego." But ego and American competitiveness have created the idea that if you send a film into competition at Cannes and it doesn't win, it has failed. Studios such as Paramount rarely send films because they fear the risk. Lately, it's been the independent companies that have sent the majority of competition films, figuring that any press for a small-budget picture will aid their cause. In fact, losing has actually generated a profit in several cases at Cannes. Spike Lee threw such a fit and played victim so convincingly in 1989 when "Do the Right Thing" lost to "sex, lies, and videotape" that the American press rallied behind the film and gave it a huge push in the States. Likewise, temperamental director Lars von Trier earned "Zentropa" modest coverage by throwing a fit during the 1991 awards ceremony. Upset at only receiving a Special Jury Prize for Technique, von Trier called jury president Roman Polanski a "midget" for awarding the Palme to "Barton Fink" and slammed his award to the ground (the feisty Dane finally won the Palme in 2000 for "Dancer in the Dark," while the "midget" received one for "The Pianist" in 2002.)

Yet sometimes winning a prize at Cannes is as much a curse as a support. For every financial success story such as winners "Pulp Fiction," "M*A*S*H" or "Fahrenheit 9/11," you have films such as "The Conversation," "Barton Fink" or "Elephant," all of which failed to meet commercial expectations following high-profile Cannes Film Festival wins. According to Pauline Kael, Paramount Studios sank "The Conversation" in 1975, failing to publicize the picture after its win because of tension with then-maverick director Francis Ford Coppola. No matter how important winning a top award at Cannes may appear at the time of the closing ceremony, without a strong marketing push, most features may be doomed anyway.

During recent years, Cannes has, at times, lost its reputation for artistic discovery and become more of an economic battleground. Many attribute this to the onslaught of publicists -- for movies, for stars, for critics -- that started in the 1980s when The Star became royalty once again. Business has replaced hedonism, and the festival often resembles a convention now. Still, wonderful stories arise from Cannes occasionally, such as a loopy Francis Ford Coppola telling the press that "Apocalypse Now" is Vietnam in 1979 and then winning the Palme d'Or with a work-in-progress print. Or the public feud that exploded over Roger Ebert's claim that Vincent Gallo's "The Brown Bunny" was the worst film ever to screen at Cannes. (Gallo later wished Ebert cancer and called him a "fat pig," prompting the critic to respond, "Although I am fat, one day I will be thin, but Mr. Gallo will still have been the director of 'Brown Bunny.'") Or the world premiere of "E.T." on closing night in 1982, which won a standing ovation from 2,400 cinephiles exhausted from two weeks of screenings. Steven Spielberg later called it "one of the greatest evenings of my life." Indeed, Cannes can still create magic once in an awhile. He'll try to relive that night this year when he brings "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" to opening weekend.

What discoveries will be made this year? What directors will have the moment of their life? What feuds will break out? What films will be booed and what careers will be destroyed? It's a two-week long soap opera, and MSN Movies will cover every scene.

Send us your thoughts at heymsn@microsoft.com

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