The Cannes Film Festival is about as far from the Oscar race as you can get and in some way, at least internationally, it eclipses it. There is a curious mix here of general distaste for American film and the masses falling all over themselves from the celebrities it produces.
Right now, the odds are good for three films to compete for the top prize, unless I’m missing something. The Assassin (which I had a hard time with, not gonna lie), Son of Saul (which I did not see), Carol (which I hope wins), Youth (ditto).
Beyond the prizes here, Cannes does influence the Oscar race in some respects. Buzz can start or end here. Foxcatcher was the only movie to survive from last year’s selection. Why did voters go for that but not Inside Llewyn Davis from the year before? Tree of Life was booed here in Cannes but then went on to get a Best Picture nomination.
The films I think that will have the most impact by the time Telluride hits on Labor Day weekend would probably be getting that hit with or without Cannes. That’s the truth of it. But let’s go through them anyway, shall we? This includes films that are in the main competition for the Palme and films that premiered here out of the main competition or in other categories.
As of this writing, no one has yet seen MacBeth because it plays on the last day. The other film that will screen tomorrow (while I’ll be on a plane to the states) is Chronic.
As far as the main competition goes, here are the films that stand out:
Carol – Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actress, Supporting Actress, Costumes, Cinematography, Production Design, Score
Youth – Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actor, Actor, Supporting Actress, Cinematography, Production Design
Mad Max: Fury Road – Actress, Visual Effects, Production Design, Cinematography, Editing, Sound, Sound Effects Editing
Inside Out – Animated Feature, Screenplay, Sound Editing, Score
Son of Saul – a slam dunk for Foreign Language if it’s submitted and nominated.
From my perspective, as far as the Oscar race goes, Carol and Youth are the two game changers. One is going to be a slightly more difficult sell than the other. Youth is right up the street of Oscar voters, will play extremely well at festivals (if chosen) like Telluride, the Hampton’s, etc. With Fox Searchlight behind it you know it’s going to be a major player.
On the flipside is the equally adept Weinstein Co. that will be pushing Carol. Pity the fool that underestimates this film with Weinstein in charge of it. You might say, well, the Academy is too homophobic to go there with Todd Haynes but you’d be wrong for a couple of reasons. The first is that the demographics and the mindset in the Hollywood industry has changed a lot since 2005 when Brokeback Mountain lost Best Picture. Carol is about exposing a lie and living the truth. It is about the very thing the industry has been accused of: hide your sexuality because it might hurt your career. In Carol, the message is – don’t hide who you are no matter what the consequences.
Carol is also jaw-droppingly beautiful. Every frame a masterpiece. Appreciation for Todd Haynes has been too long coming and if there is one person who knows how to exploit that angle best it’s Weinstein. This is the guy who vowed to win Martin Scorsese an Oscar way back when. Okay so maybe it didn’t work then. We’re not talking about winning here. We’re talking about being nominated and that should be a cakewalk with Carol. The only slight snag might come in where the hype is risen to epic proportions so that when Academy voters finally do see it they will be expecting something bigger than the subtly perfect thing it is. We’ll have to wait that one out, though. There isn’t much to be done about it. The hype machine can’t be stopped.
Youth is like a valentine to Oscar voters. What Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel are experiencing is like Birdman ramped up to 11. It is the kind of film many directors in Hollywood used to want to make. It examines modern life while reaching back to the past. I think if you get enough voters in front of it they’re going to love it. I don’t think either Caine or Keitel has ever been better. Jane Fonda and Rachel Weisz also have great, unforgettable moments where they tell off the two male leads. Fonda is particularly grand in her vanity free, explosive monologue. What Fonda says in that scene also confronts the truth about how Hollywood itself is changing, how television is taking over as the artistic promised land, and how compromises often end up consuming out life as we get old.
Youth might not be a film for young people — not yet anyway. But it most definitely is a film for those over the age of 50 who are discovering wisdom that only comes from a life lived amid successes and failures. You know it when you get there.
The second tier after that would be:
Irrational Man – Screenplay
Tale of Tales – Production Design
Sicario – Cinematography, Supporting Actor
Amy – Documentary Feature
The Lobster – Screenplay
Foreign Language contenders could get their start here as well but it always depends upon which film a country submits. The films with the most buzz that would get no major category Oscar play (at least, that’s how it seems to go; there’s always the chance). These are the ones I’ve heard about or seen but there may be others, of course, that I’m missing. Full disclosure: I’m just guessing at country of submission here.
Mia Madre (Italy)
La Tete Haute, La Loi du Marche, Dheepan (France)
Umimachi Diary, An (Japan)
The Assassin (Taiwan/China)
Mountains May Depart (China)
Mustang (Turkey)
Still to come:
MacBeth – possible actor/actress, costumes, etc.
The jury for the main competition is comprised of a different group of people each year, thus making predicting which film will win the Palme d’or that much more difficult. It also doesn’t follow that what wins here will start the ball rolling to win everywhere else. It is only the massive consensus votes that do that and they start when the Producers Guild announces their winner. There is little surprise left anymore as to what film will win Best Picture because the Producers Guild has at last cracked the code. The same amount of voters, roughly, with a preferential ballot has predicted Best Picture since they expanded from five to ten, and then from ten to an unknown number between five and ten.
2009-The Hurt Locker
2010-The King’s Speech
2011-The Artist
2012-Argo
2013-12 Years and Gravity (the only surprise)
2014-Birdman
Cannes has so little to do with this consensus building because here it is not about what thousands think. It’s about what about what a handful of people think, and the broader conversation that happens among critics who view the films as well. The critics can sometimes shape what wins the Palme because buzz has a way of spreading like a virus. But what wins here will have no impact on what wins the Oscar. It carries its own prestige which is probably a bigger deal globally than winning over thousands of industry voters in Hollywood.
In other words, don’t you care more what Joel and Ethan Coen and Guillermo del Toro think about your movie than what a whole bunch of people you’ve never heard of think?
Either way, it’s often unpredictable how this festival will influence the upcoming Oscar race because we still don’t know what movies will be in play. As with most things Oscar related you follow the publicists/studios/strategists because they usually know what will fly and what won’t. Weinstein Co., Fox Searchlight, Sony Pictures Classics, A24, Focus, Brigade, Summit, Lisa Taback, Cynthia Schwarz, Lea Yardum, R. Jeff Hill, David Pollick, etc. Really, they shape the Oscar race more than any other influencer because they tend to already know what the voters will go for. And then the festival directors who choose films that will go to Telluride, Venice, Toronto and AFI.
Gun to my head, if I had to predict which movies above all others would be headed for Oscar from Cannes without breaking a sweat I’d go with Carol and Youth. The others can get there but they will need a push.
