Meryl Streep honoured in emotional ceremony as Cannes opens
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CANNES – The Cannes Film Festival officially kicked off on the night of May 14 as celebrities walked the red carpet into the plush Grand Theatre Lumiere to honour Hollywood actress Meryl Streep, before settling in to watch the 2024 festival’s opening film, The Second Act.
The French comedy's cast, including Lea Seydoux and Vincent Lindon, were joined by actor Jane Fonda, model Heidi Klum and Messi, the dog star of 2023's Palme d'Or winner Anatomy Of A Fall, as well as this year's jury, headed by Greta Gerwig.
Ahead of the ceremony, French singer Zaho de Sagazan performed David Bowie's Modern Love in the theatre aisles to honour Gerwig's black-and-white dance scene in Frances Ha (2012).
Gerwig sang along and seemed visibly touched by the performance as de Sagazan got on stage to kiss her hand.
The audience gave a minutes-long ovation for Streep when she took the stage in a simple white gown and black-frame glasses, welcomed by French actor Juliette Binoche in a red dress.
“I’m just so grateful that you haven’t gotten sick of my face,” Streep, 74, joked to the audience as she received her honorary Palme d’Or from Binoche.
Streep – whose long list of films includes Death Becomes Her (1992), Mamma Mia! (2008) and The Iron Lady (2011) – listed people she wanted to thank.
French singer Zaho de Sagazan performing at Cannes on May 14.
PHOTO: REUTERS
"It's like looking out the window of a bullet train," she said of the montage that played of all her films.
"My mother, who was usually right about everything, said to me, 'Meryl, darling, you'll see. It all goes so fast. So fast.' And it has. Except for my speech," Streep told the audience.
Besides Streep, Hollywood A-listers flocking to the Cote d’Azur for the festival that runs to May 25 included legendary directors George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola.
Coppola’s decades-in-the-making epic Megalopolis, an ancient Rome-inspired saga set in a corrupt modern-day city, is the most anticipated of 22 entries for the top prize Palme d’Or, facing a jury led by Barbie (2023) director Gerwig.
Other entries include recent Oscar winner Emma Stone reuniting with Yorgos Lanthimos for Kinds Of Kindness, Demi Moore trying her hand at horror in The Substance and Richard Gere in Paul Schrader’s Oh Canada.
Outside the race for the Palme d’Or, George Miller’s latest Mad Max instalment, Furiosa, will get its world premiere on May 15, while Kevin Costner returns to the western genre with Horizon, An American Saga.
‘Systemic’ sexism
Binoche presented the award to Streep with a tearful speech, telling her she had “changed the way we look at women”.
Greta Gerwig (second from right), jury president of the 77th Cannes Film Festival, and jury members (from left) Pierfrancesco Favino, Eva Green and Lily Gladstone on the festival’s red carpet on May 14.
PHOTO: REUTERS
With France’s film industry in the midst of a renewed #MeToo reckoning, Binoche was among 100 stars calling for a comprehensive new law to crack down on “systemic” sexism and gender-based violence in an open letter published earlier Tuesday.
Gerwig earlier told reporters she was optimistic about the progress made by women in cinema. “It’s not a destination we all reach together. It’s something we will keep discussing and figuring out how we want our industry and cinema to be,” she said.
As the festival opened, Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof announced he had escaped in secret from his country, just days after being sentenced to eight years in prison on security offences.
Rasoulof had been under pressure from Iranian authorities to withdraw his film, The Seed Of The Sacred Fig, from the Cannes competition.
He urged the world film community to support his colleagues back home. “My thoughts go to every single one of them and I fear for their safety and well-being,” Rasoulof said in a statement to AFP.
Cannes director Thierry Fremaux said the festival was working with the French foreign ministry in the hope that Rasoulof can attend his premiere next week.
Other entries for the Palme d’Or include Donald Trump biopic The Apprentice, and Emilia Perez, an unlikely-sounding musical about a Mexican cartel boss having a sex change from previous Cannes winner Jacques Audiard.
Director Quentin Dupieux and cast members Louis Garrel, Lea Seydoux, Vincent Lindon, Raphael Quenard, Manuel Guillot and producer Hugo Selignac pose on the red carpet.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Film fans are also hungry to see new works from body-horror maestro David Cronenberg (The Shrouds) and Italy’s Paolo Sorrentino (Parthenope).
But the hot ticket is undoubtedly Coppola’s Megalopolis, starring Adam Driver, on May 16.
There is a growing anticipation over whether the veteran director – who self-funded the lavish epic – can match his masterpieces of the 1970s, when he twice won the Palme d’Or for Apocalypse Now (1979) and The Conversation (1974).
Playing out of competition is She’s Got No Name, one of China’s biggest-ever productions, which features megastar Ziyi Zhang tackling the sensitive topic of women’s rights.
Legendary Japanese animators Studio Ghibli – makers of Spirited Away (2001) and My Neighbour Totoro (1988) – will receive an honorary Palme d’Or, the first offered to a group rather than an individual.
The festival will round off on May 25 with a final honorary award for Star Wars (1977 to 2019) creator Lucas. REUTERS, AFP
