1994 — The 47th Cannes Film Festival
Notable Competition Titles: “Pulp Fiction” (Quentin Tarantino); “Three Colors: Red” (Krzysztof Kieślowski); “Through The Olive Trees” (Abbas Kiarostami); “La Reine Margot” (Patrice Chéreau); “Exotica” (Atom Egoyan); “The Browning Version” (Mike Figgis); “Dear Diary” (Nanni Moretti); “To Live” (Zhang Yimou); “The Hudsucker Proxy” (Joel & Ethan Coen); “Mrs. Parker And The Vicious Circle” (Alan Rudolph)
Bookended by what has to be the funnest opening/closing double act in the history of the festival (the Coens’ delirious, affectionate, underrated screwball comedy “The Hudsucker Proxy,” which opened proceedings, also played In Competition; John Waters’ suburban camp “Serial Mom” starring Kathleen Turner which closed the fest sadly did not), 1994 seems like it might have been one long highlight in between, especially if you had shares in Miramax. And while often the selection of the jury can feel out of step with the feel on the ground, let alone posterity, this year president Clint Eastwood and his panel that included Catherine Deneuve, Kazuo Ishiguro and Lalo Schifrin — more fun! — seemed perfectly in sync. The Palme d’Or went to Tarantino’s era-defining sophomore film, with “Reservoir Dogs” having played in Directors’ Fortnight a couple of years before, while in 1994 that same sidebar was playing host to Kevin Smith‘s “Clerks,” meaning the Quinzaine can take responsibility for launching the careers of two of the most divisive and garrulous U.S. filmmakers of the 1990s.
But the quality didn’t just didn’t quit that year — even relatively overlooked titles, blasted somewhat out of the water by “Pulp Fiction,” have their pleasures. And there are a handful, like “Exotica,” “Dear Diary,” “Three Colors: Red” and Zhang Yimou’s exceptional follow-up to Cannes title “Ju Dou” and Venice Silver Lion winner “Raise the Red Lantern,” “To Live,” that any other year would have been vying for that top spot. In many ways, it must have been a great year to be on that jury — films of sky-high standard across the board, but a clear, popular, groundbreaking winner emerging nonetheless.
1997 — The 50th Cannes Film Festival
Notable Competition Titles: “Funny Games” (Michael Haneke); “The Ice Storm” (Ang Lee); “Nil By Mouth” (Gary Oldman); “L.A. Confidential” (Curtis Hanson); “Taste Of Cherry” (Abbas Kiarostami); “Welcome To Sarajevo” (Michael Winterbottom); “Unagi” (Shohei Imamura); “Happy Together” (Wong Kar-wai)
We’re approaching territory that’s probably more familiar to all of us now, not quite so moss-covered with memory and the lore of intervening years, but if you need orientation, just remember this was the year that Michael Jackson walked the Red Carpet and a clean-shaven Johnny Depp was still together with not-ugly girlfriend Kate Moss. But the 50th incarnation of the Cannes Film Festival was also blessed/cursed with some erratic awarding, especially considering the depth of the lineup — normally we’re all for things being shaken up a bit, but the only explanation for Sean Penn scooping Best Actor for the pretty dreadful “She’s So Lovely” was that director Nick Cassavetes based it on an unproduced screenplay written by his father John, though all that serves to do is highlight is how far the apple can fall from the tree.
Justice was better served elsewhere with the Jury, presided over for this prestigious anniversary year by Isabelle Adjani, awarding an immensely well-earned Best Actress to the scorching Kathy Burke in Gary Oldman’s directorial debut “Nil By Mouth,” and giving the Palme jointly to Kiarostami’s beautiful, mysterious, minimalist “Taste of Cherry” and Shohei Imamura’s vivid, exuberant “Unagi” (“The Eel”). The Grand Prix went to Atom Egoyan for the “The Sweet Hereafter,” which was timely since after a couple more more middling entries, he’d be kidnapped and replaced by the pod person who’d make “The Devil’s Knot” and “Captives.” And Best Director was taken by Wong Kar-Wai for his wondrous “Happy Together,” to leave this entry on a high note (which is more than happened at the festival, which closed with Clint Eastwood‘s “Absolute Power,” a middling thriller that had already been out in the U.S. for two months).
2009 — The 62nd Cannes Film Festival
Notable Competition Titles: “Antichrist” (Lars Von Trier); “Bright Star” (Jane Campion); “Broken Embraces” (Pedro Almodóvar); “The White Ribbon” (Michael Haneke); “Enter The Void” (Gaspar Noé); “Fish Tank” (Andrea Arnold); “Inglourious Basterds” (Quentin Tarantino); “A Prophet” (Jacques Audiard); “Thirst” (Park Chan-wook); “Kinatay” (Brillante Mendoza)
The all-star lineup above — and three of those directors (Park, Arnold and Almodovar) mentioned — are hotly tipped to return this year, while a further two that made a splash in 2015 (Noé, with the, um, damply received “Love” and Audiard with the slightly surprising Palme winner “Dheepan“) was if anything matched in wattage by the international jury lineup. Under the leadership of Isabelle Huppert, the panel included Cannes favorite James Gray, future Palme winner Nuri Bilge Ceylan, South Korean master Lee Chang-dong, British screenwriter Hanif Kureishi, and actresses Robin Wright Penn, Shu Qi, Sharmila Tagore and Asia Argento. Not only that, but the festival boasted one of the most delightful openers ever — Pixar’s “Up,” the first animated film ever to open Cannes. With that kind of pedigree, you would expect the choices for awards to be impeccable, and you know what? They pretty much are: The Palme d’Or went to Haneke’s subzero-chilling pre-WWI parable “The White Ribbon” (if it were any other actor or an even marginally less worthy film, you might suspect Huppert of favoritism toward her frequent collaborator Haneke, but it isn’t and no one does, especially not me, please don’t hate me, Ms. Huppert).
In fact, with this much quality in the lineup, the jury could essentially have thrown darts and landed on worthwhile winners in almost every case, but any year that sees “A Prophet” take the Grand Prix, “Thirst” and “Fish Tank” share the Jury Prize, Charlotte Gainsbourg take Best Actress for “Antichrist” and Christoph Waltz take Best Actor for “Inglourious Basterds” (it was the first time any of us had seen that performance from him, after all) is pretty impressive. Add to that the Un Certain Regard win for “Dogtooth,” and you have a nearly perfect set of winners, which means we can forgive the odd one out — Brillante Mendoza’s Best Director award for the borderline unwatchable “Kinatay,” especially as it led directly to his underseen but very good collaboration with Huppert in “Captive.”
2012 — The 65th Cannes Film Festival
Notable Competition Titles: “Amour” (Michael Haneke); “Rust & Bone” (Jacques Audiard) “Beyond the Hills” (Cristian Mungiu); “Holy Motors” (Leos Carax); “The Hunt” (Thomas Vinterberg); “Killing Them Softly” (Andrew Dominik); “Moonrise Kingdom” (Wes Anderson); “Post Tenebras Lux” (Carlos Reygadas); “Paradise: Love” (Ulrich Seidl); “Mud” (Jeff Nichols); “Cosmopolis” (David Cronenberg); “Reality” (Matteo Garrone)
To those of us who’ve been lucky enough to attend Cannes recently, the 2012 festival feels roughly like last Thursday, and without any distance on them either geographically or temporally, I took the years 2013-2015, when I actually attended the festival, off the table. Even so, making our final selection of which 10 to focus on was a tricky process: There are other years that have featured films we’ve perhaps individually loved more than any of those listed here, but really what we were looking for was depth and breadth of quality across the whole competition. But it’s a trade-off I happily do not have to make with 2012, a year of immense strength across the board that also featured a strong contender for my favorite film of the new century, the deliriously mindfucking “Holy Motors.”
Leos Carax’s wild, beautiful, indefinable masterpiece may not have won anything, but it still glitters like a jewel in this wildly impressive crown. Indeed, you almost feel sorry for Jury president Nanni Moretti and his team (which included Andrea Arnold and Alexander Payne, among others), with Moretti admitting that their final choice for the Palme, Haneke’s “Amour,” was anything but unanimous, and further revealing that the films that inspired the hottest debate were the Reygadas epic (which went on to win Best Director), Ulrich Seidl’s venomous portrayal of sex tourism, and ma boi Carax’s magnum opus. The idea of a Haneke film being a “compromise” choice is pretty amusing. But then, this is a year in which a John Hillcoat movie (“Lawless“) and a Hong Sang-soo (“In Another Country,” with Isabelle Huppert) don’t even warrant an up-top mention — it has to make 2012 the strongest lineup in recent memory. Until, we hope, tomorrow reveals that 2016 is going to be even better…
Tune in tomorrow morning to see what Frémaux and co. have got lined up for us for the 69th Cannes Film festival in May, and let us know how you feel it stacks up, sight unseen obviously, against these and the many other vintage Competition lineups that Cannes has given us.