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      Cannes Film Festival: When the Stars Come, a Traverso Is There for Pictures

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      Gilles Traverso is the third in a line of photographers from his family to capture the film elite every year of the Cannes Film Festival.When the Cannes Film Festival begins this week, it will be its 78th year. And in each one of those years, a member of the Traverso family will have been there to photograph it.Gilles Traverso, 67, is one of three generations of photographers who has taken pictures of the directors, actors and other members of the film elite who flock to the French city each year for the event.This year will be his 49th festival. Since he began photographing it alongside his father, Henri, in 1977, Gilles has witnessed the event transform as digital cameras have proliferated, the number of photographers attending has exploded and celebrities have become more inaccessible to the public.“The Cannes Film Festival is an exaggerated reflection of the time we live in,” he said in an interview in Cannes. But, he added, “What I hate is to say it was better before. I hate that. No, it was not better, it was something different.”Gilles Traverso is the latest of three generations of photographers from his family who have captured the stars and events at Cannes. This year’s festival will be his 49th.François Ollivier for The New York TimesThe Traverso family, originally from the Piedmont region of Italy, first moved to Cannes in the mid-19th century. In 1919, Auguste Traverso, then in his early 20s, set up a photography shop just as the city was beginning to evolve from a small fishing village to a vacation destination for the wealthy.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Thierry Klifa on His Fascination With ‘The Richest Woman in the World’

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      The director Thierry Klifa discusses his new film, “The Richest Woman in the World,” based on the true story of the French billionaire Liliane Bettencourt.The world’s richest woman falls under the spell of a younger man. In the space of several years, she gives him more than $1 billion in cash, annuities and works of art — until her daughter steps in and reveals all in what turns into an international scandal.That’s the true story of the French billionaire Liliane Bettencourt, heir to the world’s largest cosmetics company, L’Oréal, and her longtime friend and confidant, the author and photographer François-Marie Banier. A fictionalized version of the saga — “The Richest Woman in the World,” starring Isabelle Huppert — will have its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, which runs through May 24.A disclaimer at the movie’s start says it is “very loosely” inspired by real-life events and contains elements of “pure fiction,” including private exchanges between family members. And the director Thierry Klifa has made sure to change all the names. Yet the movie still hews very closely to the actual events (as recounted in a three-part documentary available on Netflix, “The Billionaire, the Butler, and the Boyfriend.”)Admittedly, Huppert looks nothing like the real-life Madame Bettencourt, who was recognizable by her heavily lacquered coiffure and strictly tailored suits. In the movie, Huppert has silky shoulder-length hair and a much younger look. She comes across as a playful Parisienne who is seduced by the flamboyant Fantin (the fictionalized version of Banier) and allows him to change everything: her clothes, her art collection, her life.In a recent video interview, Klifa discussed the scandal, why he became interested in it, and why he chose Huppert. The conversation, translated from French, has been edited and condensed.The director Thierry Klifa was “instantly fascinated” by the real-life story of the French billionaire who gave away part of her fortune to a younger man.Francois DourlenWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      At the Cannes Film Festival, These Screenings Are on the Beach

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      Cinéma de la Plage is the Cannes Film Festival’s free program of nightly film screenings on the beach and under the stars.On a warm afternoon in late April, La Croisette hummed with life. Families pushed strollers along the boardwalk, children trailed behind with dripping ice cream cones, and tourists posed for selfies silhouetted against the Mediterranean. At Plage Macé, a centrally-located public beach, people tanned, played volleyball and went for a dip.For the next two weeks, Plage Macé has been transformed into an outdoor theater, outfitted with a massive movie screen — nearly 80 feet by 20 feet — and an elaborate sound system, with 600 deck chairs available on a first-come-first-served basis.This is Cinéma de la Plage, the Cannes Film Festival’s free program of nightly film screenings. At a film festival notorious for its exclusivity, this is one event where everyone is welcome, no matter who they are — or how they are dressed.“Cinéma de la Plage is evidence that the Cannes Film Festival never forgets it has to remain a cultural and popular event,” Thierry Frémaux, the festival’s artistic director, explained in an email.Camilla Amelotti works at a children’s attraction, Les P’tits Bateaux (The Li’l Boats), directly in front of Plage Macé. In between selling souvenir magnets and handing out remote controls for miniature yachts, she described Cinéma de la Plage as an accessible alternative to the festival’s indoor screenings, especially for film-loving locals.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Actress Anamaria Vartolomei Brings a Fearless Streak to Her Roles

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      The actress’s latest film, “Adam’s Interest,” will open the Critics’ Week showcase at the Cannes Film Festival.Anamaria Vartolomei began her film career when she was 12 opposite Isabelle Huppert in a film about a controversial photographer and her daughter. And in the past few years, Vartolomei, now 26, has blazed through a slate so ambitious that it resembles one of Huppert’s typically prolific runs — each film different from the last.The Romanian-born actress’s recent rise began with a heartbreaking starring role in “Happening” as a French university student in the 1960s who seeks an abortion. It won the Golden Lion for best film at the 2021 Venice Film Festival — where the director Bong Joon Ho was the head of the jury. Bong cast Vartolomei in the dystopian film “Mickey 17” as a shrewd shipmate of Robert Pattinson’s repeatedly replicated drone.By the time “Mickey 17” came out earlier this year, she’d projected a mesmerizing mystique in the French blockbuster “The Count of Monte Cristo.” Her fearless streak was also recently on display in “Being Maria,” in which she plays the actress Maria Schneider, star of “Last Tango in Paris,” and “The Empire,” a loopy intergalactic yarn set in rural France.Her latest movie, “Adam’s Interest,” opens the Critics’ Week showcase at the Cannes Film Festival, which runs through May 24. Vartolomei plays a mother who risks losing custody of her child after he is hospitalized. In a video interview — seated beneath a wall of pictures featuring “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “Breathless” and “Scarface” — she explained why the film’s raw realism appealed to her and how it was achieved. The following conversation has been edited and condensed.In your career, you tend to choose characters who have limited power or autonomy. But they do what they can with what they have.Yeah, I love this. It speaks to me personally, and I think it speaks to everyone in a way. I mean, freedom belongs to us, but it’s hard to admit that we have power over it. Sometimes we feel like we depend on others’ perspectives regarding our freedom. You think about pleasing others, and you forget what you really want. I like characters that know they want something, but they don’t really know how to obtain it. They finally find a way because if they find their truth, they will find peace.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How a Film Critic Was Lured Back to Literature

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      Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.For more than 20 years, A.O. Scott, who was until recently a co-chief film critic for The New York Times, had a routine.Look at the movies he’d been assigned to review for the week. Go to a screening. File a review the next morning. Rinse. Repeat.But now, since pivoting to a role as a critic at large for The Times Book Review in 2023, Mr. Scott, 58, has been able to step back from the deadline grind and focus on his passions: Rereading classic novels. Defending bad commencement speeches. Demystifying poetry.Since last November, Mr. Scott, who has a bachelor’s degree in literature from Harvard University, has written a popular monthly column that scrutinizes a single poem, examining it line by line. He recently expanded the exercise into a weeklong challenge, in which readers were asked to memorize a poem as a way to soothe their nerves or “grant a moment of simple happiness,” Mr. Scott wrote.“I do think that it is something that people want, and in a way, something that we’ve maybe helped them discover that they want,” Mr. Scott said in a recent interview in the Book Review office, where Stephen King’s “Holly” and Samantha Harvey’s “Orbital” sit on a bookshelf behind him.In an hourlong conversation, Mr. Scott outlined his goals for his new beat and why he thinks readers enjoy being asked to slow down and spend time with a piece of writing. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Thunderbolts*’ Star Lewis Pullman Has Become Hollywood’s Go-To Bob

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      In “Top Gun: Maverick” and the latest Marvel movie, the actor has played memorable characters by that name. “I should probably take a breather from playing Bobs,” he said.This interview contains spoilers for “Thunderbolts*.”Lewis Pullman still isn’t sure if he’s playing a hero or a villain in the latest Marvel movie, “Thunderbolts*.”“He’s very malleable and easily influenced because he hasn’t had a real, strong, reliable source of love in his life,” the actor said of his character, a dark Superman-like figure known as the Sentry/the Void — although his civilian name, Bob, is how you might remember him best.Think what would happen if Superman were super-depressed. Oh, also, he appears capable of vaporizing people with a flick of his hand.“There’s a contrast between being this all-powerful being and then having your greatest weakness and your main Achilles’ heel be your own self,” Pullman said in video call this week from his apartment in Los Angeles.He had just returned to the city, where he was born and raised, after a Vancouver, B.C., shoot for the Netflix movie “Remarkably Bright Creatures,” based on Shelby Van Pelt’s enormously popular novel. That was followed by a whirlwind press tour that had taken him from London to New York to Los Angeles to Miami and back to Los Angeles, just in time for his brother’s wedding. He looked like he’d rolled in from the beach in a white T-shirt, denim button-up and perfectly windswept hair, and books by authors like the novelist Harry Crews and the playwright Sam Shepard were stacked behind him, with boxes resting atop tables.“I haven’t really had the time to unpack,” he said, apologizing for the mess.Pullman — the son of, yes, Bill Pullman — is the breakout star of the latest Marvel film, which has attracted praise for its candid depiction of mental health.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Wunmi Mosaku on Why ‘Sinners’ Is the ‘Greatest Love Story Ever Told’

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      The British Nigerian actress’s turn as the hoodoo-practicing love interest has given her a brighter spotlight. She is trying to stay grounded through it all.“Sinners” is one of those rare modern blockbusters that fans are dissecting on a near literary level. There have been paragraphs dedicated to its symbolism, social media threads about its cultural themes, and hours of podcasts delving into lines and scenes. Wunmi Mosaku isn’t exactly seeking out the takes.“I haven’t gone searching for anything because I’m very mistrustful of the internet and I’m scared of what I might see,” Mosaku said in a video call from her Los Angeles home.Mosaku’s stirring performance as the hoodoo healer Annie is the soulful core of “Sinners.” The fact that it’s Mosaku, 38, in the role seems fitting: The film is a period horror-drama centered on romance as well as a meditation on grief and a musical. Her acting résumé reflects each element.Mosaku has played a time-space agent (“Loki”), multiple strong-willed detectives (“Luther,” “Passenger”) and an immigrant mother in mourning (“Damilola, Our Loved Boy,” which won her a BAFTA Television Award in Britain). A few of her biggest roles — like a singer fighting Jim Crow-era maledictions in the series “Lovecraft Country,” and a South Sudanese refugee battling a night witch in the film “His House,” both from 2020 — are part of the post-“Get Out” strain of popular horror that evokes racial anxieties.At times Mosaku has drawn on her own experience as a Nigerian who immigrated at a year old to Manchester, England, and felt distanced from her family’s Yoruba heritage. To play Annie, she studied how to be a woman in the Mississippi Delta, preparation that ultimately led to learning more about her ancestry because hoodoo is related to Ifa, the Yoruba religion.Mosaku’s turn as the hoodoo healer Annie is the soulful core of “Sinners.”Warner Bros., via Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘My Robot Sophia’: An Unsettling Look Into the Soul of a Machine

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      This film by Jon Kasbe and Crystal Moselle skirts gimmicks to examine a creator’s drive to build a humanoid device powered by artificial intelligence.In 2017, a robot named Sophia was granted Saudi Arabian citizenship, a dubious move on many fronts. Real human women had only earned the right to drive a car in the country a month earlier, and robot citizenship was also, somewhat transparently, a publicity stunt. Sophia, which is humanoid and powered by a proprietary artificial intelligence engine created by Hanson Robotics, has participated in a number of stunts since then, including appearances on “The Tonight Show” and at a lucrative sale of its art during the 2021 NFT boom.All of these events and more appear in the new documentary “My Robot Sophia” (on digital platforms), but the film skirts gimmicks to go in a more tricky and unsettling direction. It’s an almost soulful portrait of the artist under capitalism, rather than another exposé on robotics and artificial intelligence. It’s a bit parallel to Alex Garland’s fictional film “Ex Machina.” And in the Frankensteinian tradition, the robot’s creator is not uncomplicated.The title of the film implies that Sophia belongs to someone. That someone is David Hanson, the chief executive of Hanson Robotics. A loner and an artist from a young age, he became fascinated with creating lifelike masks. His lab is crowded with them, rubber faces on little pedestals that seem, in the background of many shots, to be staring upward in open-mouthed wonder, or terror.That kind of image adds subtext, and it’s all the more astounding because it’s nonfiction. “My Robot Sophia” is littered with visual tells, and if you’re not actually watching with your eyes, you might miss what they’re saying. The two directors have experience telling these sorts of sprawling stories that require a lot of patience, time and observation — Jon Kasbe with “When Lambs Become Lions” and Crystal Moselle with “Skate Kitchen” and “The Wolfpack.” You see what they see.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More