Cannes Diary: Celebrating his 21st year at the festival, Michael Dwyer had aparty thrown in his honour . . . and oldie but goldie Cecil B.DeMille at last got a Palme d'Or for Union Pacific, made in 1939
SHARON Stone couldn't make it anyway, because she's been on Cannes jury duty all week and dutifully posing and preening for the paparazzi on the Palais steps every night. Asking Leo DiCaprio would have cost a fortune in hiring security to keep the screamagers out. And I already had lunch earlier in the day with Martin Scorsese by the pool of the Majestic Hotel. Which is by way of explaining why those and other minor film figures missed out on the very enjoyable reception hosted by the Irish Film Board at The Irish Pavilion on Tuesday evening to celebrate my 21st consecutive year at the Cannes Film Festival.
It was supposed to be a surprise, but ever with an eagle eye to the big story, I found out about it well before the festival started. The only downside was that it clashed with the first festival press screening of Jack Nicholson's new movie, About Schmidt, which meant many international journalists, who have become good friends down the years at Cannes, had to take in the Nicholson picture. .
Among the guests was Londoner Steve Woolley, who also came to Cannes for the first time in 1982 and went on to produce almost all of Neil Jordan's movies. The gathering also included Rod Stoneman and Moira Horgan of the Irish Film Board, Andrew Reid of the Northern Ireland Film Commission, film censor Sheamus Smith, Siobhan O'Donoghue of Media Desk Ireland, Eily Kilgannon of Jameson, Mick Hannigan and Una Feely from Kino in Cork, Pete Walsh and Grainne Humphreys from the IFC, Maretta Dillon and Neil Connolly of Access Cinema, publicists Trish Long and Kate Bowe, and producers Ronan Glennane, Marina Hughes, Siobhan Bourke and John Kelleher.
When the time came for me to cut the sinful dark chocolate cake provided for the occasion, one wag was overheard to comment, "He's putting the knife in again." Even though there have been more that 200 Irish delegates at Cannes this year, the only Irish person to figure significantly in any of the official selections is Gabriel Byrne, who gives a perfectly ambiguous performance as an apparently adulterous and homicidal London plumber in David Cronenberg's austere and creepy movie, Spider, based on the Patrick McGrath novel. Byrne was due to join co-stars Ralph Fiennes and Miranda Richardson with Cronenberg on the red carpet steps for the movie's world première at Cannes last Wednesday night, but pressure of work prevailed. Next week in Los Angeles, Byrne teams up with fellow Irish actor Stuart Townsend and actress Thandie Newton in Shade, to play a trio of poker hustlers working the city's martini bars until they cross a gangster - played by Sylvester Stallone - who sets out in pursuit of them.
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SO it was 63 years late, but Hollywood showman Cecil B. DeMille received a posthumous Palme d'Or at Cannes this week for Union Pacific, starring Joel McCrea, Barbara Stanwyck and a young Anthony Quinn. The occasion was the re-running of seven films selected for the first Cannes Film Festival in September, 1939, which had to be cancelled because of the outbreak of war in Europe. This week a six-member jury viewed all seven movies at public festival screenings and unanimously gave the prize to Union Pacific. The other films in contention included The Wizard of Oz, The Four Feathers and Goodbye Mr Chips, all of which have been reworked as other movies since then.
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THE market in Cannes is probably the most cruel audience any film-maker could fear. Distributors from all over the world gravitate through dozens of market screenings every day, seeking out movies to buy for release in their territories. If they don't like a movie within the first 15 minutes or so, they usually walk out, while some others stay, taking and making calls on their mobiles.
One veteran film-maker who suffered the market experience this week was Ken Russell, in Cannes to sell his low-budget new film, The Fall of the Louse of Usher. By the end of the screening, just five viewers were left - and Russell invited them all for a cocktail.
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ACTRESS Rosanna Arquette came to Cannes with the documentary she directed, Searching For Debra Winger, and at the post-screening party she headed straight for the overhead DJ booth, put on her head-phones and played early 1980s rock music. But this special event was not enough to keep the party going and guests left in droves - not because of her dubious choice of music, but because the event committed the cardinal sins for a Cannes party: there was no food on offer and no free drink, with prices starting at €10 for a bottle of water.
At least it was a peaceful event, unlike the midnight party for 24 Hour Party People where some were injured in the scrum as the bouncers refused to let in many guests who had invitations.
Earlier the same evening, at a party in Le Petit Majestic, the favoured watering hole for Irish and British delegates to Cannes, several guests were drinking and chatting on the street outside the bar when South Korean film director Kwak Jae-yong was knocked down by a car.
When the driver got out, she took no heed of his injuries and repeatedly insisted that he shouldn't have been on the street. She then drove off, while an ambulance was called for Kwak, who spent the night in hospital and left Cannes the next day.
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LIFE begins at 80 if you're Christopher Lee. The former Hammer horror actor, who turns 80 on Monday, now features in a regular role in two of the most successful franchises in cinema history, Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings. Lee has been doing re-shoots in New Zealand for the second in the Tolkien series, The Two Towers, which opens in December, and he will be back in the final Star Wars sequel, due out in May, 2005. The tireless actor is reuniting with Robert Hardy, who directed him in the cult classic, The Wicker Man, for The Riddle of the Laddie, which will be shot in Scotland in the autumn with Vanessa Redgrave, Sean Astin and singer Lee Ann Rimes among the cast. And he is set to star in Joe Dante's remake of the Denis Wheatley occult thriller, The Devil Rides Out, having also featured in the original 1967 Hammer version, and he will join Angela Lansbury in a live-action remake of the animated feature, The Last Unicorn.
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COMEDIAN Johnny Vegas made his debut on the Croisette this week to plug his first feature film, The Virgin of Liverpool, in which he will co-star with Royle Family star Ricky Tomlinson. The film, which shoots in late summer, tells the story of a 12-year-old girl who resolves to find a new home for a Madonna statue that has been scheduled for demolition in a Liverpool suburb. Ignoring the objections of her family - who are, of course, dysfunctional - she meets a host of new friends when her quest turns into what we are assured will be "a zany pilgrimage".
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Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter is in Cannes to hype up The Kid Stays in the Picture, the documentary he has produced on the flamboyant minor actor turned hit producer Robert Evans. Talking to Screen International, Carter expressed weariness at being asked about How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, the book by British journalist and recent Weekend interviewee Toby Young about his experiences working at Vanity Fair. "He's like a piece of gum that I can't keep off my shoe," Carter commented. "I mean, talk about a worm's eye view of the magazine. Nobody let him near anything for the whole time he was there."