Some had to actually do it. And he did it. Hats off to Sidney Pollack! The odd against his deciding to go were enormously formidable. It was an open secret as to who had bowed out. After much beating around the bush, weighing of the pros and cons as if they were picking through a pile of rags, those who think they make the sun rise and set on the industry, those though guys, those macho he-men with articulated biceps and deltoids, those champions of the box office - they balked at the hurdle like ordinary nags, the whole lot of them, even though it meant they would be found out. They set those nasty Gallic tongues waging from Lutece to the Mediterranean, and came out of it looking like wet hens.
It's true that the challenge posed by the 39th International Cannes Film Festival carried a high measure of risk. No one could deny that. After all, there were, all under the same roof, a band of bloodthirsty pirates, austere Carmelites, a lanky flamenco dancer, a mystic poet, hairy mercenaries, a militant revolutionary-red menace, an out-of-control locomotive, an excessively cuddly chimpanzee, ridiculous first generation Australians, some hostile blacks, a gawky loose woman, a prudish computer operator, a rumpled Catherine Deneuve, a Zeffirellized Placido Domingo, a Shepardized Altman, a transvestite Depardieu. And all this under the threat of Quaddafi's time bombs, with the protection of a detachment of the Special Security forces. Oh, to be seen in this Ali Baba cave, this wayside tavern filled with pestiferour people. It would feel great - maybe.
Of course there was sunshine and champagne galore, which are highly persuasive incentives for attending the festival. But participation also required steady nerves ready for anything. This was apparent from the start and became more so as the films, one by one, were projected. There were over twenty full-length feature films screened at the Auditorium Lumiere, each competing incidentally, for that ultimate prize, the Golden Palm. Palace intrigues kept people guessing. Comparisons, silences, craftiness, politicking behind the scenes, hunches - it's the same thing a every Cannes Film Festival. It's like being stuck in a can of worms.
Pollack's task was a difficult one, a thankless mission, one, which was apparently simple but demanded ample tact and authority. Helped in part, no doubt, by his recent Hollywood Oscars, and the triumph French moviegoers made of Out of Africa, Pollack didn't fail. He lacked neither the tact nor the authority. He was the right person for the occasion - the best, if Robert Redford will allow; and, while not responsible for the official selection at this 39th Cannes Festival, he accomplished something rare: he brought about unanimity.
During the breaks, Edy Williams and the startlets fed the interests of the paparazzi. On the arm of the always-dashing "Jolly Roger" Polanski they turned the deck of the pirate galleon upside down, were caught dozing at the Majestic bar, lined the terrace of the Cariton, were seen along the Croisette with elderly tourists, and dallied on Antibes Street with the soldiers of fortune.
Once the audiovisual chaos was over - when the media relaxed its grip, the 600 or more films shown at the festival were rewound, the nearly 3,000 journalists had turned in their credentials, and the prime list was proclaimed at an electrified live ceremony by a Mr. Loyal, who, in his penguin suit, appeared to be floating in a great abyss -
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