The participation of the American director Francis Ford Coppola (85 years old) and several of his colleagues in what is called the “New Hollywood” at the Cannes Film Festival is a step that goes beyond the individuals, because the festival pays its tribute that could be the last one to a movement that changed the history of cinema.
On the Croisette Avenue, the director of the film “Apocalypse Now” will meet the author of “Star Wars” George Lucas, as well as the director Paul Schrader, who is better known as the screenwriter of Martin Scorsese films, especially “Taxi Driver” ,” which won the Palme d’Or at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival.
The career of these three marked the history of cinema and the festival itself.
50 years after their debut, Coppola and Schrader are competing for the Palme d’Or, and the former hopes, through “Megalopolis”, to win the highest prize at the Cannes Film Festival for the third time time, which no one has ever done. before, while Schrader aims to earn his first win of the award thanks to “Oh Oh, Canada. On May 25, George Lucas will receive an honorary award for his entire career.
Hollywood historian Thomas Doherty compares the meeting of these people in this role to “veterans returning to the city for a final duel among themselves.”
As for former American film journalist Tim Gray, he noted that it was the “sentence of their careers”. He said, “Yes, they have that virtue.” “They are very famous, but they are artists, and the film community around the world appreciates them.” The three, like Martin Scorsese, who was present at the Cannes Film Festival last year with his film star Robert De Niro, when “Killers of the Flower Moon” was presented, are among the filmmakers most publisher classified in the “New Hollywood” movement born in the early 1970s.
Those young directors who rebelled against the commercial empire of the studios and their limited productions launched a process of change inspired by the French “New Wave” led by Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut. They took power over their films from the hands of the studio, they applied their vision as auteurs, and now they had freedom, aimed at an adult audience. Among the most prominent works that translated these movements are the crazy motorcycle ride across the United States in “Easy Rider,” the horror in “The Exorcist,” and the melancholy at “The Godfather.” Behind the camera, the entire financing system was shaken, and Francis Ford Coppola risked a large part of his fortune in the film “Apocalypse Now”. As for the science fiction film “Megalopolis”, in which he stars this year, it is believed that his cost exceeded $ 120 million, which forced him to sell part of his vineyard in California .
He has found a distributor for the film in France, but not yet in the United States.
Tim Gray, who currently works for the agency responsible for the Golden Globe Awards, noted that “Coppola is reckless and always takes big risks,” as his career “a ‘goes against logic’.
The inclusion of “Megalopolis” in the competition list of the Cannes Film Festival may be a strong boost for the film, but the presence of these cinema giants also suggests a farewell.
In Cannes, George Lucas took his first steps in 1971 with the science fiction film “THX 1138,” before “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones.” The director, who celebrates his 80th birthday on the opening day of the festival on May 14, has amassed a fortune and retired. Tim Gray noted that Lucas “doesn’t need money or anything. ” But receiving the prestigious Palme d’Or “is a way to appreciate him as an author.”
In addition to the great “New Hollywood” directors, the actors who have been with them over the decades will also be present at the Cannes Festival, such as Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight in “Megalopolis,” together with Laurence Fishburne, who was a teenager when which he participated in “Apocalypse Now.”
A new meeting
Richard Gere, who has completely white hair, reunites with Paul Schrader in a nostalgic role in “Oh, Canada,” 44 years after they appeared together in “American Gigolo.” Francesca Scorsese, the director’s great woman, and Sawyer Spielberg, will be present at the festival during the independent film “Christmas Eve at Miller’s Point”, which can be seen in the “Directors’ Fortnight” section ” to show.
• These directors, in their youth, took power over their films from the hands of Hollywood studios and applied their vision as auteurs.