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Newsnight Review in Cannes, 25 May, 2007

• Newsnight
• 25 May 07, 06:25 PM

From .

Newsnight Review decamped to the Cannes Film Festival and tonight , , and I will have our distilled thoughts on the films we’ve seen.

I can tell from the panel’s body language when we emerge blinking into the light from screenings that there’s going to be some major disagreements on the show.

The deal on Newsnight Review is that the guests are not allowed to confer on films before the show – it’s been tough because we’ve all had such strong reactions to what we’ve seen. I know that because John, Mark and Julie can talk to me individually and I keep schtum about their views.

It has been such an extraordinary festival and before I tell you what we’ve all seen, we’ve also bagged the only British interview with Martin Scorsese, who has just launched the World Cinema Foundation here in Cannes to save neglected, damaged and "orphan" films from all over the world.

Scorsese has put together a committee of some of the best directors including Wong Kar Wai, Walter Salles and Bernard Tavernier and their aim is to encourage old archives to come forth with material for a new and eager audience.

Scorsese talked about films leading to a better cultural understanding between nations and it struck me that his outfit is a bit like a United Nations of cinema.

But where are these films going to be shown? The multiplexes? Are they going to put a Kenyan or a French film from the 1960s on their screens? But it’s not just neglected films – what about Scorsese’s own films? It’s such a pity that my kids will never see Taxi Driver or Raging Bull on anything but a DVD. Wouldn’t it be great if a multiplex had a Scorsese day or a Wim Wenders day or a Kurosawa day? Fat chance.

He also talks to me of his upcoming documentary on the Rolling Stones, his new project with Mick Jagger, and sex on screen.

Among the films we’ve seen, Persepolis – up for the Palme D’Or – falls into the category of aiding cultural understanding with great wit and warmth.

Iranian director Marjane Satrapi has turned her autobiographical graphic novel into a feature length cartoon about growing up during the Islamic Revolution with her co-director Vincent Paronnaud.

Also in the running is Quentin Tarantino’s homage to 70s Grindhouse films – Deathproof - originally designed as a companion piece to Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror.

Deathproof is a slasher movie with Kurt Russell as the psycho Stuntman Mike – out to murder a posse of beautiful women. It has all the hallmarks of the B-movies of the seventies which Tarantino fed on when he was growing up - seemingly random jump cuts, refocusing, scratches, rough joins all perfectly composed by Tarantino.

In the competition, by contrast, Julian Schnabel’s film, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - Le Scaphandre et Le Papillon – is an exercise in restraint, beauty, wit and honesty.

It’s based on the autobiographical novel by the former chief editor of French Elle who suffered a massive stroke when he was 43. It left him totally paralysed but alert, able to use only one eye to communicate.

And so Jean-Dominique Bauby, this once fast-living, charismatic seducer told his story by the blink of an eye and Julian Schnabel has in his film made the audience Jean-Do’s confidante locked in from the world around him.

It’s a privilege to see films here in Cannes. So few complain about queuing in 30 degrees for up to an hour to secure a seat at a screening. Once in a cool dark cinema you are taken to some strange places. One such place is the Scottish highlands as imagined in Harmony Korine’s film Mr Lonely. The cast are all impersonators living in a commune. Samantha Morton is Marilyn Monroe and Anita Pallenberg is the Queen. The Mr Lonely of the title is Michael Jackson played by Diego Luna. But Korine also pursues a parallel seemingly unconnected story about flying nuns in South America, a phenomenon which is regarded as a miracle by their local priest, played by Werner Herzog. Mr Lonely is in competition for Un Certain Regard.

Not in competition at all is Michael Winterbottom’s A Mighty Heart. And in fact there are no British films up for the Palme D’Or at all this year. The film is based on the book of the same name by Mariane Pearl about her husband Daniel’s abduction and murder in Pakistan in January 2002.

Pearl, the Asia Bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal, was pursuing a lead on the failed shoe bomber Richard Reid when he was kidnapped by jihadists – among the first of many journalists captured post 9/11 during the war on terror. Dan Futterman plays Daniel Pearl and Mariane Pearl is played by Angelina Jolie.

We’ll also be discussing Gus Van Sant’s skater boy nightmare Paranoid Park. It’s based on Blake Nelson’s novel about teenage disaffection in Portland, Oregon and it’s classic Van Sant territory.

Death also stalks Bela Tarr’s film of the Georges Simenon novel The Man from London. It’s a mesmeric black and white film about mortality, sin and punishment and the often unrealisable longing for happiness.

The Coen brothers are also in the running for the Palme D’Or with their adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel No Country for Old Men, set on the frontier between Texas and Mexico, starring Tommy Lee Jones and Javier Bardem.

Our Newsnight Review guests have also been to see Control, Anton Corbijn’s film about the death of the Joy Division’s frontman, Ian Curtis, which also features Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People.

So it is going to be a packed programme. John, Mark and Julie will also reveal which film they loved the most and the one that they loathed.

We’re broadcasting from the UK Film Council's beachside pavilion and as it’s outside we’ve been watching the forecast as intently as we’ve been watching the films. There is a threat of thunder and lightning but if it doesn’t materialise we hope they’ll be plenty of sparks on the programme anyway.

Join us to find out.

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