The Cannes Film Festival rewarded one of its favorite directors Sunday, as Michael Haneke won the top prize for a second time with his stark film about love and death, “Amour.”
The Austrian director’s powerful and understated film stars two French acting icons — 85-year-old Emmanuelle Riva and 81-year-old Jean-Louis Trintignant — as an elderly couple coping with the wife’s worsening health.
Cannes jury member Jean Paul Gaultier praised the performances of the two actors and the “incredible connection” they established in the movie.
Haneke said he made the film because “I experienced something in my family that touched me.” He thanked his wife and — in a rare personal comment — said he had promised her “we would never leave each other, like in the film.”
Some viewers were surprised by the movie’s frank humanity, coming from a master of tightly controlled cinema whose movies often contain sudden bursts of violence.
The director said his reputation for delivering shocks was unjust.
“Journalists always try to stick a label on directors,” he said. “For a long time I’ve been the expert in violence.”
But he said a film’s style should match its subject matter, not its director, and “this film is about love.”
Haneke has brought 10 films to Cannes over the years, including “Funny Games” and “Hidden.” He previously won the Palme in 2009 for “The White Ribbon,” and is only the seventh director to take the top prize twice.
The festival jury awarded the second-place Grand Prize to Matteo Garrone’s Italian satire “Reality,” while Ken Loach’s whiskey-tasting comedy “The Angels’ Share” won the third-place Jury Prize.
Both have won Cannes prizes before — Garrone took the Grand Prize for “Gomorrah” in 2008 and Loach won the Palme d’Or in 2006 for “The Wind That Shakes the Barley.”
Mexico’s Carlos Reygadas was named best director for his surrealism-tinged family story “Post Tenebras Lux.”
The best actor prize went to Mads Mikkelsen as a man ostracized by his small-town community when he is accused of child abuse in “The Hunt.”
Jury member Ewan McGregor said Mikkelsen had given a beautiful performance whose “wonder is in the subtlety … but with complete conviction with his character.”
Best actress was won jointly by Cristina Flutur and Cosmina Stratan, as friends separated by faith in Romanian movie “Beyond the Hills.” Cristian Mungiu’s drama of love and faith in a remote Romanian monastery also won the award for best screenplay.
The prize winners were chosen from among 22 contenders by a jury, led by Italian director Nanni Moretti, that included actors Ewan McGregor and Diane Kruger, director Alexander Payne and fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier.
Moretti revealed that none of the winners had been a unanimous choice, with several films sharply dividing the jury.
He said the biggest fights had been over Leos Carax’s bizarre and episodic “Holy Motors,” Ulrich Seidl’s sex tourism drama “Paradise: Love” and Reygadas’ “Post Tenebras Lux,” whose title means “light after the darkness.”
British director Andrea Arnold, a juror, said it was a film “which dared to fail and be brave about life.”
The 12-day festival has seen plenty of glamour, with the likes of Brad Pitt, Nicole Kidman, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart appearing both on-screen and on the red carpet.
But in the movies, weighty themes dominated at an event whose French Riviera froth was subdued by several days of unseasonable rain and cold.
Despite a strong American flavor to the festival, U.S. films were shut out apart from Benh Zeitli’s “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” which won the Camera d’Or for best first film.
The jury overlooked Pitt, who plays a cynical mob enforcer in Andrew Dominik’s “Killing Them Softly,” and Kidman as a Southern femme fatale in Lee Daniels’ “The Paperboy.”
Payne said it would be wrong to draw any conclusions about the state of a nation’s cinema “based on one tiny snapshot.”
Other much-praised performances at the festival included Marion Cotillard’s tragedy-struck killer-whale trainer in “Rust and Bone,” newcomer Paul Brannigan’s scrappy Glasgow lad in “The Angels’ Share,” and Denis Lavant, as a performer who takes on a host of bizarre personas in “Holy Motors.”
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Associated Press Writer Hilary Fox contributed to this report.
Oscar Nominees Delve Into The Art Of Editing At ACE Session
You couldn’t miss Sean Baker at this past Sunday’s Oscar ceremony where he won for Best Picture, Directing, Original Screenplay and Editing on the strength of Anora. However, earlier that weekend he was in transit from the Cesar Awards in Paris and thus couldn’t attend the American Cinema Editors (ACE) 25th annual panel of Academy Award-nominated film editors held at the Regal LA Live Auditorium on Saturday (3/1) in Los Angeles. While the eventual Oscar winner in the editing category was missed by those who turned out for the ACE “Invisible Art, Visible Artists” session, three of Baker’s fellow nominees were on hand--Dávid Jancsó, HSE for The Brutalist; Nick Emerson for Conclave; and Myron Kerstein, ACE for Wicked. Additionally, Juliette Welfling, who couldn’t appear in person due to the Cesar Awards, was present via an earlier recorded video interview to discuss her work on Emilia Pérez. The interview was conducted by ACE president and editor Sabrina Plisco, ACE who also moderated the live panel discussion. Kerstein said that he was the beneficiary of brilliant and generous collaborators, citing, among others, director Jon M. Chu, cinematographer Alice Brooks, and visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman. The editor added it always helps to have stellar acting performances, noting that hearing Cynthia Erivo, for example, sing live was a revelation. Kerstein recalled meeting Chu some eight years ago on a “blind Skype date” and it was an instant “bromance”--which began on Crazy Rich Asians, and then continued on such projects as the streaming series Home Before Dark and the feature In The Heights. Kerstein observed that Chu is expert in providing collaborators with... Read More