What makes a filmmaker powerful in Hollywood? Is it strictly box-office or does critical acclaim and awards factor more heavily into it? Nate Jones with Vulture consulted with various agents, executives, producers, and publicists to help decide what it takes to achieve success and influence as a film director working today.
This was considered by using their body of work, bankability, creative control and reputation to help determine not only which directors would make the cut but also where they would happen to fall in this ranking. Streaming has certainly changed the game for directors working at this time and not a completely accurate way to help assess their power in the industry. So their achievements theatrically played a more important determination in making the list while not discounting any streaming projects entirely.
Even though Jury president, Spike Lee accidently revealed the winner prematurely, that did not take away from the excitement that the French filmmaker, Julia Ducournau would receive the top prize of the Palme d'Or for her feature, "Titane" at the close of the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. This remarkably outlandish drama is about a young woman who gets a metal plate in her head after a terrible car accident that leads her to some pretty wild and crazy situations. Ducournau became only the second female director to receive this honor following Jane Campion for "The Piano" in 1993.
The Grand Prix or runner-up for best film was a tie between "A Hero", the latest from Iranian director, Asghar Farhadi, about a man imprisoned for failing to repay his debt and trying to work out a deal with his creditors and "Compartment No. 6", a drama from Juho Kuosmanen, is an offbeat love story set on a train between a Finnish student and a Russian miner. And the highly anticipated musical fantasia, "Annette" which had opened the fest, helped Leos Carax win the Best Director prize.
Here is the list of winners from the 74th annual Cannes Film Festival:
Palme d’Or: "Titane"
Grand Prix (Tie): "A Hero" and "Compartment No. 6"
Best Director: Leos Carax, "Annette"
Best Screenplay: Ryusuke Hamaguchi, "Drive My Car"
Best Actress: Renate Reinsve, "The Worst Person In The World"
Best Actor: Caleb Landry Jones, "Nitram"
Jury Du Prix(Tie): "Ha'berech (Ahed’s Knee)" and "Memoria"
Camera d’Or: "Murina"
Short Film Palme d’Or: "All The Crows In The World"
Special Mention: "August Sky"
After COVID brought down the 2020 edition of theCannes Film Festival, the 74th annual event is moving forward this year. Instead of the usual May dates, the fest has been pushed to July 6th to the 17th. This will be an in-person festival but with safety protocols in place which will include daily health pass checks that must show full vaccination or a negative test result issued no more than 48 hours prior and masks are to be worn during indoor screenings.
"Annette", the first feature film from Leos Carax since 2012, will be the Opening Night film. This is the fanciful French director's English-language debut and first actual musical which he co-wrote with Ron and Russell Mael of the art-rock band, Sparks. Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard star as a creative couple who give birth to a daughter, Annette who has a special gift. This dramatic musical has also been selected in the main competition for prizes.
Spike Lee, who was selected for the 2020 event before it was cancelled, will be President of the jury who will determine the winners of the awards. The impressive list of jurors who will be joining the American filmmaker (whose image also graces the 2021 Cannes poster) this year will be French/Senegalese director, Mati Diop ("Atlantics"); French-Canadian musician, Mylène Farmer; American actor, Maggie Gyllenhaal; Austrian filmmaker, Jessica Hausner; French actor/filmmaker, Mélanie Laurent; Brazilian filmmaker, Kleber Mendonça Filho; French actor, Tahar Rahim and South Korean actor, Song Kang-Ho ("Parasite").
Twenty-four films will be vying for these prizes and the competition is heavy with new works by some familiar names of international filmmaking; Mia Hansen-Løve ("Bergman Island"), Paul Verhoeven ("Benedetta"), Ildikó Enyedi ("The Story of My Wife"), François Ozon ("Tout s'est bien passé (Everything Went Fine)"), Joachim Trier ("The Worst Person in the World"), Sean Baker ("Red Rocket"), Jacques Audiard ("Paris, 13th District"), Asghar Farhadi ("A Hero"), Apichatpong Weerasethakul ("Memoria"), Sean Penn ("Flag Day") and Wes Anderson ("The French Dispatch").
There is a new section added to the fest called Cannes Première which will focus on putting a spotlight on the films they want to give special recognition but cannot accommodate due to limited space in the competition section. Some of the films featured include the latest from cinematic provocateur, Gaspar Noé with "Vortex" which is about the last years of a couple suffering from senility, "Cow" from British filmmaker, Andrea Arnold, "Hold Me Tight", a new feature from French actor/filmmaker, Mathieu Almaric and Arnaud Desplechin's "Tromperie (Deception)".
"OSS 117: From Africa With Love", the latest in the French spy comedy series starring Oscar-winner, Jean Dujardin, will be shown as the Final Screening of the fest. And Jodie Foster will receive this year's Honorary Palme d'Or for her outstanding contributions to cinema as a performer and filmmaker. The two-time Oscar winner plans to attend the event in person to accept the honor during the Opening Night cermony.
Although the Cannes Film Festival was unable to be rescheduled and had to be cancelled this year due to the ongoing battle with the coronavirus pandemic, the French fest's artistic director, Thierry Frémaux decided to reveal the fifty-six films that had been selected as Official Selections for what would have been the 73rd edition. This move is seen as a "badge of honor" for each of these movies and to help give them a boost in their promotion. Cannes had only been cancelled one previous time in 1939. This was the actual year the International film festival was supposed to begin but the start of WWII postponed the event until 1946, a year after the war ended. And in 1968, Cannes was not completed after a group of directors withdrew their films and interrupted the screenings in solidarity with students and labor on strike throughout France.
Some of the chosen movies will play at other film festivals later this year (if they are able to go ahead) and a small number of films that were expected to screen at Cannes this year will wait to debut at next year's festival. It had been previously announced that director, Spike Lee was set to head the jury (which he will preside over next year) and his latest feature with Netflix, "Da 5 Bloods" would have played Out of Competition.
Here is the list of official selections from what would have been the 73rd Cannes Film Festival:
"The French Dispatch" by Wes Anderson (USA)
"ÉTÉ 85 (Summer '85)" by François Ozon (France)
"Asa Ga Kuru (True Mothers)" by Naomi Kawase (Japan)
"Lovers Rock" by Steve McQueen (United Kingdom)
"Mangrove" by Steve McQueen (United Kingdom)
"Druk (Another Round)" by Thomas Vinterberg (Denmark)
"ADN (DNA)" by Maïwenn (Algeria/France)
"Last Words" by Jonathan Nossiter (USA)
"Heaven: To The Land of Happiness" by Im Sang-Soo (South Korea)
"El Olvido Que Seremos (Forgotten We’ll Be)" by Fernando Trueba (Spain)
"Peninsula" by Yeon Sang-Ho (South Korea)
"Au crépuscule (In The Dusk)" by Sharunas Bartas (Lituania)
"Des Hommes (Home Front)" by Lucas Belvaux (Belgium)
"The Real Thing" by Kôji Fukada (Japan)
THE NEWCOMERS:
"Passion Simple" by Danielle Arbid (Lebanon)
"A Good Man" by Marie Castille Mention-Schaar (France)
"Les choses qu’on dit, les choses qu’on fait" by Emmanuel Mouret (France)
"Squad" by Ayten Amin (Egypt)
"Limbo" by Ben Sharrock (United Kingdom)
"Rouge (Red Soil)" by Farid Bentoumi (France)
"Sweat" by Magnus Von Horn (Sweden)
"Teddy" by Ludovic et Zoran Boukherma (France)
"Février (February)" by Kamen Kalev (Bulgaria)
"Ammonite" by Francis Lee (United Kingdom)
"Un Médecin de Nuit" by Elie Wajeman (France)
"Enfant Terrible" by Oskar Roehler (Germany)
"Nadia, Butterfly" by Pascal Plante (Canada)
"Here We Are" by Nir Bergman (Israel)
FIRST FEATURES
"Falling" by Viggo Mortensen (USA)
"Pleasure" by Ninja Thyberg (Sweden)
"Slalom" by Charlène Favier (France)
"Casa De Antiguidades (Memory House)" by Joao Paulo Miranda Maria (Brazil)
"Fausse note (Broken Keys)" by Jimmy Keyrouz (Lebanon)
"Ibrahim" by Samir Guesmi (France)
"Au commencement (Beginning)" by Déa Kulumbegashvili (Georgia)
"Gagarine" by Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh (France)
"16 Printemps" by Suzanne Lindon (France)
"Vaurien" by Peter Dourountzis (France)
"Garcon Chiffon" by Nicolas Maury (France)
"Si Le Vent Tombe (Should the Wind Fall)" by Nora Martirosyan (Armenia)
"John and The Hole" by Pascual Sisto (USA)
"Courir au gré du vent (Striding Into The Wind)" by Wei Shujun (China)
"La Mort du cinéma et de mon père aussi (The Death of Cinema And My Father Too)" by Dani Rosenberg (Israel)
THREE DOCUMENTARY FILMS:
"En Route Pour Le Milliard (The Billion Road)" by Dieudo Hamadi (Democratic Republic of Congo)
"The Truffle Hunters" by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw (USA)
"9 Jours à Raqqa" by Xavier de Lauzanne (France)
FIVE COMEDY FILMS:
"Antoinette Dans Les Cévennes" by Caroline Vignal (France)
"Les Deux Alfred" by Bruno Podalydès (France)
"Un Triomphe (The Big Hit)" by Emmanuel Courcol (France)
"L’origine du monde" by Laurent Lafitte (France)
"Le discours" by Laurent Tirard (France)
FOUR ANIMATED FILMS:
"Aya To Majo (Earwig and the Witch)" by Gorô Miyazaki (Japan)
"Flee" by Jonas Poher Rasmussen (Denmark)
"Josep" by Aurel (France)
"Soul" by Pete Docter (USA)
The Library of Congress has added twenty-five movies to the National Film Registry which recognizes their artistic significance while helping to ensure their preservation for generations to come. These films selected include "Becky Sharp", the first full-length Hollywood movie filmed entirely in color from 1935; the Best Picture Oscar winners from 1984 ("Amadeus") and 1986 ("Platoon"); the Disney animated classic, "Sleeping Beauty";"The Coal Miner's Daughter", the biopic of country music legend, Loretta Lynn which starred, Sissy Spacek who went on to win the Best Actress Academy Award; Prince's semi-biographical musical fantasia, "Purple Rain"; "Body and Soul", the 1925 silent film written and directed by African-American film making pioneer, Oscar Micheaux and features Paul Robeson in his motion picture debut; and the feature film directorial debuts by Elaine May ("A New Leaf"), Kevin Smith ("Clerks") and Spike Lee ("She's Gotta Have It").
These films, which must be at least ten years old, have been named because of their cultural, historic or aesthetic importance and with these selections brings the number of films in the registry to 775. Here is the complete list of the films selected to the 2019 National Film Registry:
This week marks the 25th anniversary of Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing". I remember being completely shocked and mesmerized by this controversial 1989 film as I had never seen anything like it. The film has since appeared on several "Best of" lists and was selected in 1999 by the National Film Preservation Board to preserve this culturally significant work.
In honor of this landmark, New York Magazine has compiled all of Spike Lee's films and ranked them from his very best to those that didn't exactly work out as well. This list originally ran in August 2012, tied to "Red Hook Summer", Lee's twenty-first theatrical release. In the two years since, Lee has released a remake ("Oldboy"), a Michael Jackson documentary ("Bad 25"), and filmed Mike Tyson's one-man Broadway show ("Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth").
