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      Quentin Tarantino Teases Final Movie at Cannes Film Festival

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      He played coy about the forthcoming “The Movie Critic” in a wide-ranging chat but may have dropped one major hint.Before introducing one of his favorite movies at the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday, Quentin Tarantino had this instruction for the audience.“If you want to scream at a shotgun blast, scream at a shotgun blast,” he said, imploring the viewers to be as “un-French” as possible in their reactions. “Let’s bring a little bit of American grindhouse here at Cannes!”That’s how he set up the 1977 revenge flick “Rolling Thunder” — a movie so foundational to Tarantino, with its third act of cathartic, gun-blast violence, that it’s rumored he will restage it in some fashion for his forthcoming final film, “The Movie Critic.” At least, that’s according to a co-writer of “Rolling Thunder,” Paul Schrader, who revealed that tantalizing tidbit in a recent interview with IndieWire. Though Tarantino himself has said very little about “The Movie Critic,” his film selection on Thursday may have confirmed Schrader’s tease.In the hourlong chat that followed the screening, Tarantino, 60, mostly discussed titles mentioned in his recent book of essays, “Cinema Speculation.” (He was at the festival to give a talk but wanted to present a film as well.)He began with an extended riff on “Rolling Thunder,” which stars William Devane as a Vietnam veteran pursuing the criminals who killed his family: Tarantino noted that though he loves the film, Schrader felt it departed too much from his original script.“He doesn’t recognize the movie any more than I recognize Oliver Stone’s version of ‘Natural Born Killers,’” Tarantino said, citing one of the few films he wrote but didn’t direct. Tarantino has disavowed Stone’s take on his material, but he said that Johnny Cash once told him that he was a big fan of the 1994 film, which starred Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis.“I didn’t tell him he was wrong,” Tarantino said.What is it about films like “Rolling Thunder” that he responds to? “Look, I like violent movies,” Tarantino said. “Some people like musicals, some people like slapstick comedy, I like violent movies. I think it’s a very cinematic thing to do.”Asked if he had ever watched a film where the violence wasn’t justified, Tarantino at first appeared so stumped that the audience chuckled. Eventually, he cited “Patriot Games,” the 1992 Harrison Ford thriller. Tarantino initially found the villain’s motivations so relatable, he said, that he rebelled when the character took a late swerve into psychopathic violence: “Just the fact that the villain was this much understandable, that was too much as far as the filmmakers were concerned. So they had to make him crazy. That’s what I got morally offended by.”When it comes to depictions of violence, Tarantino said there was only one line he wasn’t willing to cross. “I have this big thing about killing animals in movies,” he said to applause. “But I mean insects, too! Unless I’m paying to see some weird bizarro documentary, I’m not paying to see real death. Part of the way this all works is that it’s make-believe — that’s why I can stand by the violent scenes.”Tarantino has said his forthcoming 10th film will be his last (owing to his belief that directors have a finite amount of good films in them and ought to quit while they’re ahead), and that he hopes that more books like “Cinema Speculation” will follow once he hangs up his director’s cap. Is that why he has made a movie critic the title character of his final feature?“Well, that’s a long story,” he said at the end of his chat. “I can’t tell you guys until you see the movie!”Still, he offered a tease: “I’m tempted to do some of the character’s monologues right now,” he said. “You guys would get a kick out of it. Maybe if there was less video cameras.” More

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      Wes Anderson’s ‘Asteroid City’ Premieres in Cannes

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      At the film’s Cannes premiere, the director’s customary cast, themes and even camera moves were all on display — well, except one.Wes Anderson’s directorial style is so distinctive and particular — so Wessy — that it’s spawned no end of recent A.I. parodies. But how do those imitations compare with the real thing?Many of Anderson’s signature obsessions are on display in his new movie, “Asteroid City,” a ’50s-set comedy about different sets of parents accompanying their space-obsessed kids to a convention in the desert, where they all must quarantine together after receiving an unexpected visitor from the skies. (Strained family dynamics, nerdy children and whimsical settings … check, check, check!)Critics appeared split on the movie after its Cannes Film Festival premiere on Tuesday: though “Asteroid City” got glowing notices in The Telegraph and IndieWire, Variety deemed it “for Anderson die-hards only.” That suggests this is his Wessiest movie yet, a case that could certainly be made when you consider the following:It’s filled with his favorite actors.The expansive cast includes several Anderson regulars, including Jason Schwartzman as a war photographer and Tilda Swinton as a kooky astronomer, plus Jeffrey Wright, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Liev Schreiber and Tony Revolori. Scarlett Johansson, previously called on to do a voice in Anderson’s stop-motion “Isle of Dogs,” gets her first live-action role for the director as a self-absorbed actress who finds herself quarantined next door to Schwartzman. Only two Anderson veterans are missing: Bill Murray, who was originally cast in “Asteroid City” but reportedly had to drop out because of Covid-19, and Owen Wilson.There are big stars in small roles.Actors clamor to star in Anderson’s films, and he takes full advantage: Even the tiniest supporting roles are typically filled with heavy hitters (as in “The French Dispatch,” where Emmy winner Elisabeth Moss is essentially a featured extra). “Asteroid City” welcomes A-lister Tom Hanks into the fold as Schwartzman’s father-in-law, though he’s not as significant a presence as you might expect. Still, at least he’s got more to do than “Barbie” star Margot Robbie and recent Oscar nominee Hong Chau, who each pop in for the briefest of cameos. In future Anderson films, maybe they’ll be upgraded to the main ensemble.It’s got a complicated framing device.Anderson’s films often call attention to their own storytelling by nesting the narrative within another narrative: Perhaps it’s all taking place in a book, or the vignettes are stories in a magazine. In “Asteroid City,” the director indulges in his most complicated construction yet: We’re meant to be watching a TV broadcast (hosted by Bryan Cranston) that dramatizes the story of a playwright (Norton) who wrote an unproduced stage production called “Asteroid City.” Those framing segments are shot in black and white. It’s only when we leap into the idea of his play that Anderson transports us to the gorgeous teals and burnt oranges of the desert, where most of this story within a story (within a story!) unfolds.It all takes place on rigid lines.Though Anderson has become less fixated on placing his actors in the smack-dab middle of the frame, he still blocks his camera movements and choreography in “Asteroid City” so that everything and everybody moves on an x or y axis at all times. (If you want to sneak up on someone in a Wes Anderson movie, do it diagonally. They’d never think to look!)There are deadpan expressions of grief.Schwartzman’s war photographer has something he’s meaning to tell his children: Their mother has died. Or, more specifically, their mother died three weeks ago and he just hasn’t found the right moment to bring it up. The situation is outrageous, but Schwartzman’s performance is classic Wes deadpan, and though most of the cast members give the same steady line readings, that house style is at its best when you can sense real, troubled currents underneath a placid exterior.But it could have been even Wessier …If, after reading all this, you think “Asteroid City” couldn’t get more Wessy … well, it could! At the film’s Cannes news conference on Wednesday, the actor Steve Park said that before shooting began, Anderson created a feature-length, animated storyboard, or animatic, in which he did all the voices himself. “Release the animatics,” Jeffrey Wright intoned solemnly.… especially if it used slow-motion.Later in the news conference, a reporter confronted Anderson about one trademark that’s disappeared: Though he used to use slow-motion sequences fairly often — think Gwyneth Paltrow dramatically exiting her bus in “The Royal Tenenbaums” — recent films like “Asteroid City” have all but dropped the device. “I have a series of ways I like to stage things and I don’t know if I’m in command of them — it’s part of my personality,” Anderson said, before growing concerned. “That’s one of the tools that I’ve used often, and I should look for some spots for that,” he promised the reporter. “I’ll take the note. And I’ll do it!” More

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      ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Premieres at Cannes

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      Martin Scorsese directed this harrowing and deeply American true-crime drama set in the 1920s. Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Lily Gladstone star. On Saturday, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Martin Scorsese’s harrowing epic about one of America’s favorite pastimes — mass murder — had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, screening out of competition. It’s Scorsese’s first movie at the event since his nightmarish screwball “After Hours” was presented in 1986, winning him best director. For this edition, he walked the red carpet with the two stars who have defined the contrasting halves of his career: Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio.Adapted from David Grann’s nonfiction best seller of the same title — the screenplay was written by Scorsese and Eric Roth — the movie recounts the murders of multiple oil-rich members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma during the 1920s. Grann’s book is subtitled “The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI,” while the movie primarily focuses on what was happening on the ground in Oklahoma. The name of the young bureau chief, J. Edgar Hoover, comes up but largely evokes the agency’s future, its authority, scandals and that time DiCaprio played a closeted leader in Clint Eastwood’s “J. Edgar” (2011).“Killers of the Flower Moon” is shocking, at times crushingly sorrowful, a true-crime mystery that in its bone-chilling details can make it feel closer to a horror movie. And while it focuses on a series of murders committed in the 1920s, Scorsese is, emphatically, also telling a larger story about power, Native Americans and the United States. A crucial part of that story took place in the 1870s, when the American government forced the Osage to leave Kansas and relocate in the Southwest. Another chapter was written several decades later when oil was discovered on Osage land in present-day Oklahoma.When DiCaprio’s Ernest Burkhart arrives by train at the Osage boomtown of Fairfax, oil derricks crowd the bright green plains as far as the eye can see. Still wearing his dun-colored doughboy uniform from the recently ended war, Ernest has come to live with his uncle, William Hale (Robert DeNiro), along with a clutch of other relatives, including his brother (Scott Shepherd). A cattleman with owlish glasses and a pinched smile, the real Hale had nurtured such close relations with the local Native American population that he was revered, Grann writes, “as King of the Osage Hills.”With crisp efficiency, soaring cameras and just enough history to ground the narrative, Scorsese plunges you right into the region’s tumult, which is abuzz with new money that some are spending and others are trying to steal. The Osage owned the mineral rights to their land, which had some of the largest oil deposits in the country, and they leased it to prospectors. In the early 20th century, Grann writes, every person on the tribal roll began receiving payouts. The Osage became fantastically wealthy, and in 1923, he adds, “the tribe took in more than $30 million, the equivalent today of more than $400 million.”“Killers of the Flower Moon” is organized around Ernest’s relationship with both Hale and a young Osage woman, Mollie (Lily Gladstone), whom he meets while taxiing townspeople around. Much like Fairfax, where luxury autos race down the dirt main road amid shrieking people and terrified horses, Ernest is soon hopped up, frenetic, all wild smiles and gushing enthusiasm. He keeps on jumping — it’s as if he’s gotten a contact high from the wealth — though his energy changes after he meets Mollie. They marry and have children, finding refuge with each other as the dead Osage start to pile up.Gladstone and DiCaprio fit persuasively even if their characters have contrasting vibes, temperaments and physicalities. When she’s out and about, this pacific, reserved woman turns her face into an impassive mask and wraps a long traditional blanket around her, effectively cocooning her body with it. With her beauty, stillness and sly Mona Lisa smile, Mollie exerts a great gravitational force on Ernest and the viewer alike; you’re both quickly smitten. DiCaprio will earn most of the attention, but without Gladstone, the movie wouldn’t have the same slow-building, soul-heavy emotional impact. Ernest is a fascinating, thorny character, especially in the age of Marvel Manichaeism, and he’s rived by contradictions that he scarcely seems aware of. DiCaprio’s performance is initially characterized by Ernest’s eagerness to please Hale — there’s comedy and pathos in his mugging and flop sweat — but grows quieter, more interior and delicately complex as the mystery deepens. It’s instructive that Ernest is frowning the first time you see him, an expression that takes on greater significance when you realize that DiCaprio is mirroring De Niro’s famed grimace, a choice that draws a visual line between the characters and the men who have been Scorsese’s twin cinematic lodestars.I’ll have more to say about “Killers of the Flower Moon” when it opens in American theaters on October. More

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      Scenes From Cannes: Vigilant Steve McQueen, Misguided Maïwenn

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      “Occupied City,” a documentary from the “12 Years a Slave” filmmaker, proves ambitious. “Jeanne du Barry,” with Johnny Depp, was an unfortunate kickoff.If you are ever at a festival that’s showing a new movie from the British director Steve McQueen and he happens to be in the theater and you’re tempted to look at your phone, don’t. There’s a chance that McQueen will get out of his seat, cross the aisle and persuade you to redirect your attention to the big screen, which is exactly what he did Wednesday at the Cannes Film Festival when a mystery offender (not me!) fired up a bright little screen during the premiere of his documentary, “Occupied City.”I wanted all my attention on McQueen’s movie, which is being presented out of the main competition. The documentary is heroic in scope and ambition, with a nearly four-and-a-half-hour run time, intermission included. With formal rigor and adamant focus, it maps — street by street, address by address — the catastrophe that befell Amsterdam’s Jewish population in World War II. Narrated with implacable calm by a British actress, Melanie Hyams, it was written by McQueen’s wife, Bianca Stigter, and inspired by her book “Atlas of an Occupied City: Amsterdam 1940-1945.” (Stigter, who’s Dutch, also directed the 2022 documentary “Three Minutes: A Lengthening.”)The last time McQueen, who’s best known for directing “12 Years a Slave,” would have had new work at Cannes was 2020, when the festival was canceled. The pandemic plays a notable role in “Occupied City,” which consists entirely of material of present-day Amsterdam, including images of anti-lockdown protests. The juxtaposition of the voice-over and these protests — with their marching cops and running crowds — initially feels like a provocation, almost as if McQueen were equating the Holocaust with lockdowns. As the movie’s grim accounting continues, though, the juxtaposition only underscores how blissfully privileged these protesters are to be able to gather, love, pray and simply live.The stars and the red carpet dominate the world’s attention during Cannes, but it’s the festival’s unwavering, serious commitment to film art that remains its greatest strength. There are always questionable and seemingly mercenary programming choices, as at any festival, and the halls of the event’s headquarters invariably hum with rumors about back-room deals and quotas. It’s unclear why the organizers — led by the festival’s director, Thierry Frémaux — decided to kick off this year’s event with “Jeanne du Barry,” a particularly unfortunate choice for a festival with a history of bad openers.Johnny Depp and Maïwenn star in “Jeanne du Barry,” a tedious look at the title courtesan.Stephanie Branchu/Why Not ProductionsPresumably Johnny Depp, a heat-seeking target for the armies of paparazzi amassed here, helps explain the movie’s presence. Whatever the case, on Tuesday, some 3,000 festivalgoers — and audiences who saw it simultaneously in cinemas across France — trooped into theaters to watch this bore. Directed by Maïwenn, who also stars, the movie tracks its title character from her pastoral rural childhood to her cosseted, apparently fabulous adulthood as a celebrated Parisian courtesan, fame that eventually led her directly into the bespoke bed of Louis XV.The king is played by a powdered and bewigged Depp, who looks suitably indolent, though perhaps because he’s underused. It isn’t much of a part. The king is mainly there to look gaga at Jeanne, which he does a great deal, though it’s a tough call whether Louis lavishes as much attention on Jeanne as Maïwenn does. Among all the close-ups of Jeanne giggling, Maïwenn folds in some palace intrigue and the briefest nod at the terror to come. Yet while Maïwenn draws attention to her lover’s grandson, the future, ill-fated Louis XVI, his main role is to serve as an ally to Jeanne in the viperous Versailles court.That most of the vipers are women is an index of the movie’s narrow horizons and parochial attitudes. It seeks to celebrate Jeanne, portraying her as a joyously emancipated woman, never mind that her liberation is entirely contingent on pleasuring men. She wears pants, she loves sex, she’s kind to the Black child Louis gives her as a gift! Yet while most everyone at court frowns upon Jeanne, Maïwenn primarily focuses on the torments that the court ladies visit on her, suggesting that the big problem at Versailles in the 18th century was the bitter jealousy of spoiled and uptight women.“Jeanne du Barry” ends before the guillotine makes an appearance, unfortunately. It was an exasperating way to start this year’s festival given how hard women have fought to be taken seriously here. There’s some comfort that “Jeanne” isn’t contending for the Palme d’Or, which would be an embarrassment, but is being presented out of competition. Other titles out of the running include two of the hottest tickets here: Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” directed by James Mangold. (I’ll have more to say about both after their premieres.)Both the Scorsese and “Indiana Jones” will jolt the festival, which has been fairly sleepy since Depp and company came and went. I liked two competition titles that screened early, “Le Retour,” from the French filmmaker Catherine Corsini, and “Monster,” from the Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda. Both are moving family dramas, with “Le Retour” centered on three Black Frenchwomen during a fraught interlude in Corsica. Like Kore-eda — whose movie is a characteristically poignant drama about an anguished fifth grader — Corsini uses family to reflect on larger issues without losing sight of the characters’ intimate struggles. Both movies appeal to your intellect while drawing tears.“Monster” is a moving family drama from Hirokazu Kore-eda. via Cannes Film FestivalCorsini is one of the seven women with a movie in the 21-title main lineup, which is a very good number. Cannes has always been happy to have young, beautiful women in gowns and high heels ornamenting its red carpet, but it has been far less welcoming to women who also make movies. The Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman, one of the giants of contemporary cinema, had three movies in the official program while she was alive (she died in 2015), none in the main competition. Another titan of the art, Agnès Varda, had nearly a dozen movies at Cannes, but only one was chosen for the main competition: her 1962 film “Cléo From 5 to 7.” At least the festival named one of its theaters after her.Some of the seven women are competing for the first time; a few, like the French director Catherine Breillat — here with “Last Summer” — are returning. Breillat was at Cannes in 2007 with “The Last Mistress,” a raw, exuberant, impolite period piece about women and desire starring Asia Argento. A few years later, in 2018, Argento shook up the festival when, onstage during the closing ceremony, she announced that she had been raped by Harvey Weinstein at the 1997 event. “This festival was his hunting ground,” Argento said, bringing the #MeToo movement to Cannes with a fury. (Argento was later accused of sexually assaulting an underage male actor, which she denied.)Cannes organizers tend to wave off criticism, but whatever their public position toward the complaints lobbed their way, including from many women over many frustrating decades, they clearly pay attention, as suggested by the record number of women in the main competition. This record matters because Cannes does. The festival doesn’t simply command the world’s attention each year; it makes careers, revives reputations, confers status, makes the next deal (or two) possible and serves as a crucial run-up to the Academy Awards. More important, Cannes publicly and very prominently bequeaths rarefied status on filmmakers, a status that has historically been granted to men.This isn’t simply because women like Akerman and Varda have had far fewer opportunities to direct than men. Neither artist needed Cannes’s benediction; they were brilliant filmmakers without its regular love. It’s difficult to quantify how (if) their careers would have been different if they had been in regular contention. But it’s also hard not to think that their careers would have been easier and the money would have flowed more generously in their direction if they’d been routinely programmed alongside the festival’s many beloved male auteurs. Certainly Varda and Akerman would have done right as the head of the jury, a position enjoyed this year by Ruben Ostlund, who’s won the Palme twice. I hope that his choices are better than his movies. More

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      ‘The Zone of Interest,’ a Holocaust Drama, Debuts at Cannes

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      The disorienting drama from “Under the Skin” director Jonathan Glazer may be in the running for a major prize at the festival.You might not know where you are when “The Zone of Interest” begins, and that’s by design. This new film from the director Jonathan Glazer, which has been hotly tipped for a major prize at the Cannes Film Festival since its premiere Friday night, opens on a bucolic picnic by the lake. Family members chat in German, wander off, attend to children and soak up the sun. And Glazer’s long, wide shots let us settle in, too.Eventually, they go home, and in their nice two-story house, parents Rudolf (Christian Friedel) and Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) retire to separate beds. In the morning, their daily routines begin: Maids prepare breakfast, children scatter, Rudolf dresses for work. But it’s all filmed in such faraway wide shots that it may take you a moment, once Rudolf walks into the front yard, to realize that this man is wearing an SS uniform.From there, you might pick up on more unsettling details. Aren’t the walls that surround Hedwig’s garden topped by barbed wire? Can you barely make out the buildings on the other side, some of which billow smoke? And as the children play, don’t those faint, far-off noises start to sound like gunshots, guard dogs and screams?This family’s life by the lake is only a bucolic idyll if you have blinders on — and to live there, you must — because it soon becomes clear that Rudolf is a Nazi commandant, and the house that Hedwig describes as her dream home abuts Auschwitz.“The Zone of Interest,” adapted from the novel by Martin Amis, is Glazer’s first film in a decade. The British director has only three feature credits to his name, but each one — the raucous “Sexy Beast” (2001), the stunning Nicole Kidman drama “Birth” (2004) and the sci-fi tour de force “Under the Skin” (2014) — is so potent that he has never felt far gone.Still, Glazer has never had a mainstream breakthrough or significant awards push, and I’m curious if it can come with “The Zone of Interest,” which will be distributed by A24 later this year. A Palme d’Or at Cannes would certainly help, but Glazer’s directing ought to attract a lot of attention: He frames the family’s mundane activities in static wide shots, cutting only when someone enters another room, as though they themselves are under eerie surveillance.The Cannes jury might also reward Hüller, whose performance as selfish Hedwig is chilling. As Jews are killed next door, she recalls a trip and asks her husband, “Will you take me to the spa in Italy again? All that pampering.” Anything that happens past the walls of her luxurious garden simply doesn’t exist, or else it offers a mercenary opportunity: She eagerly tries on a confiscated fur coat and tells Rudolf to look for more items stolen from the camp’s prisoners. “Chocolate, if you see it,” she wheedles. “Tiny goodies.”And if the film connects enough to become an awards contender down the road, I hope voters will pay attention to its carefully calibrated sound design. In the early going, there’s a hush, the kind of quiet you can have only if something is notably absent. Later, the sounds that drift from the camp are harder to ignore. Perhaps when “The Zone of Interest” began, we were listening through Hedwig’s ears.As we filed out after the premiere, the man sitting next to me confessed that he only understood 50 percent of the film. But I think the other 50 percent is meant to be felt, and for all of Glazer’s formal precision, he leaves plenty of room for viewers to come to their own conclusions. Does the family’s denial have contemporary parallels? How do the rhythms of work and life mitigate unimaginable horrors? And what did you hear in the hush before you could make out the screams? More

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      At Cannes, Harrison Ford Bids a Teary Goodbye to Indiana Jones

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      The star was happy with the new film’s de-aging effect but “I don’t look back and say I wish I was that guy again, because I don’t. I’m real happy with age.”Harrison Ford was beginning to tear up and the movie hadn’t even started yet.It all went down Thursday night at the Cannes Film Festival premiere of “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” part of the five-film adventure franchise that Ford kicked off when he was 37 years old and now, at 80, is bringing to a conclusion. After Ford took his seat in the Grand Théâtre Lumière, the festival director, Thierry Frémaux, addressed him from the stage. “We have something special for you,” he said.Ford raised his eyebrows. A surprise? Well, a clip reel — or as Frémaux put it, an “hommage.” And as Frémaux continued to speak, Ford’s lower lip began to quiver.As an actor, Ford can be beguilingly vulnerable — watch the way his eyes widen when he takes an onscreen sucker punch — but as a public figure, he has a reputation as a curmudgeon. This is a man who says no more than he has to in interviews, and attempts to probe his emotional state are typically swatted away.But something is different this time around. As Frémaux cued the clip reel, Ford pressed his hands together, brought them to his lips and blew Frémaux an appreciative kiss. A montage followed that tracked Ford’s career from its humble beginnings through the explosive superstardom of “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones,” and when he was brought up to the stage afterward to receive an honorary Palme d’Or, Ford’s voice trembled. “I just saw my life flash before my eyes,” he joked.He was even more emotional two and a half hours later when “Dial of Destiny” ended, the lights came up and a cameraman scurried back over to capture Ford’s reaction. The actor’s eyes were wet with tears that he made no effort to brush away, and asked about it the next day at a news conference for the film, Ford had to collect himself.“It was indescribable. I felt …” He paused, then chuckled softly. “I can’t even tell you,” he said. “It’s just extraordinary to see a kind of relic of your life as it passes by. But the warmth of this place, the sense of community, the welcome is unimaginable. It makes me feel good.”In its initial bow on the Croisette, “Dial of Destiny” has so far received mixed reviews. It’s the first in the series to be directed by someone other than Steven Spielberg — this time, it’s James Mangold (“Walk the Line,” “Logan”) — and the changeover is noticeable: “Dial of Destiny” is missing Spielberg’s sense of humor and the giddy pleasure that’s conjured just from the inventive way he blocks a scene.But Ford holds the whole thing together as its star. Though he’s introduced in a prologue that digitally de-ages him, by the time the movie arrives in 1969, Ford’s Indiana seems every bit as weathered as the artifacts he searches for. Gray-haired, estranged from his wife, Marion (Karen Allen), and out of step with the times, this is a more beaten-down Indiana Jones then we’re used to seeing, and Ford leans all the way in. An adventure ensues that brings back his sense of derring-do, but it’s clear throughout the film that Indiana is preparing to hang up his hat.So is Ford: Though he is busier than ever, with roles on the shows “Shrinking” and “1923,” he has said that this will be the last time he plays his most iconic character. When asked why at the news conference, Ford gestured to himself in disbelief.“Is it not evident?” he said. “I need to sit down and rest a little bit.”An Australian reporter begged to differ. “I still think you’re very hot,” she said. “I was stunned to see you take your shirt off in the second scene. And you’ve still got it!”Replied Ford with mock-grandeur, “Look, I’ve been blessed with this body. Thanks for noticing.”With Ford successfully de-aged in the film’s prologue, and Lucasfilm willing to use body doubles and CGI to create a young Luke Skywalker on “The Mandalorian,” is there any chance we could see that technology used to put a young Indiana Jones in future movies that don’t physically star Ford?“No,” replied the producer Kathleen Kennedy.“You got the answer from the right person,” Ford said.Still, he confessed that it was unusual to watch himself as a young man in the film’s prologue. At a time when Ford is contemplating his life’s full span, it provided a reminder that he’s content exactly where he is.“I’m very happy with it, but I don’t look back and say I wish I was that guy again, because I don’t,” he said. “I’m real happy with age, I love being older. It was great to be young.”Ford grinned. “I could be dead! But I’m still working. Go figure.” More

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      ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’ Premieres at Cannes

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      After paying tribute to an emotional Harrison Ford, the festival unspooled the newest sequel to decidedly mixed results. On Thursday, Harrison Ford stood before a rapturous crowd at the Cannes Film Festival and reminded us that Tom Cruise isn’t the last movie star.Ford, here with the latest “Indiana Jones” sequel, didn’t arrive at his premiere with a retinue of fighter jets, as Cruise did last year for “Top Gun: Maverick.” Instead Ford, now 80, gave the festival and the volubly appreciative audience exactly what it wanted and needed: glamour, yes, but also soul, emotion, that familiar crinkly smile and a lot of great history.That history was on display in a snappy, coherently edited homage that got the evening started. The salute took off with a clip from Agnès Varda’s “The World of Jacques Demy” (1995), itself a feature-length tribute to her husband that’s a reminder of Ford’s French connections. In the late 1960s, Demy had wanted to cast the then-unknown Ford in “Model Shop” but couldn’t convince the studio to hire him. Demy settled for another actor, but he and Varda remained friends with Ford. It’s a blast when the actor, looking at the camera, says with a smile, “I’m told that the studio said to forget me, that I had no future in this business.”After racing through other career touchstones like “Blade Runner” and “Star Wars,” the homage culminated with a title card that proclaimed Ford “one of the greatest stars in the history of cinema.” It’s no wonder that when Ford took to the stage of the Lumière theater, which with some 2,000 seats is imposingly large, he looked so visibly moved. By his side was the festival’s director, Thierry Frémaux, who, speaking in English, gushed about Ford as giddily as a kid who’s still high after seeing Indy onscreen for the first time. Rather anticlimactically, Frémaux also presented Ford an honorary Palme d’Or.“I’m very touched, I’m very moved by this,” Ford said. “They say that when you’re about to die, you see your life flash before your eyes. And I just saw my life flash before my eyes — a great part of my life, but not all of my life. My life has been enabled by my lovely wife,” he continued, looking out into the audience at Calista Flockhart. He then told the attendees that he loved them — people shouted, “We love you!” in return — and after a few more sweetly gruff words, Ford reminded the room that “I have a movie you ought to see.”That movie, “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” — oops, I mean “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” — was, alas, a disappointment and not just because a funny, misty-eyed and charming Harrison Ford proclaiming his love in the flesh to fans is a tough act to follow. One problem is that the movie itself plays like a greatest-hits reel. It’s stuffed with Nazis, chase sequences, explosions, crashes and what seems like almost every adventure-film cliché that the series has deployed and recycled since it began, though unlike the Cannes reel, there’s nothing snappy about this 154-minute slog.It’s too bad. Ford certainly deserves better, and the director James Mangold can do better. (He shares script credit with Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth and David Koepp.) Mangold has toggled between Hollywood and indiewood throughout his career, with credits that include “Cop Land,” an indie crime drama with Sylvester Stallone, and “Logan,” one of the finest Marvel-superhero movies. “Logan” was especially striking simply because Mangold managed to put his own stamp on material that all too often is so deliberately generic and industrial that the results could have come off an assembly line.“The Dial of Destiny” — the title alone didn’t bode well — isn’t terrible. It’s at once overstuffed and anemic, both too much and not nearly enough. It’s also wildly unmodulated for roughly the first half. It opens in 1944 Europe with Indy being manhandled by Nazis amid a lot of choreographed chaos, his head covered in a cloth bag. When the bag comes off, it reveals a distractingly digitally de-aged Ford, looking kind-of-but-not-really like he looked in the first couple of films. A lot happens and happens again, mostly character introductions, explanations and stuff whirring rapidly.The movie improves in the second half, slowing and quieting down enough for the actors to do more than run, grimace and shout. By then, the casting of Fleabag, a.k.a. Phoebe Waller-Bridge, as Indy’s latest partner-in-adventure makes sense, whether she’s quipping or flexing her action-chick muscles. She’s fun to watch, as are Mads Mikkelsen, Toby Jones and Antonio Banderas, who exit and enter with winks and sneers. Of course the real attraction here is Ford, who holds your attention when the movie doesn’t and whose every wisecrack, flirty gaze and slow burn make it clear that he didn’t have to be de-aged because — as everyone in that vibrating room at Cannes knew — he’s immortal. More

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      15 Fashion Triumphs From Cannes Over the Decades

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      Movies aren’t the only thing to watch. The film festival has made red carpet waves since “being seen” became mainstream.If the Met Gala is the all-star showcase of red carpet entrances, the Oscars the skills championship, and the MTV Video Music Awards the X Games, then the Cannes Film Festival is effectively the playoffs: an extended period in which celebrities show up multiple times in clothes high and low, demonstrating all their moves.And though outfits seem to be getting increasingly extreme with the proliferation of social media, a look back through the history of the festival’s runway (oops, red carpet) — which this year runs May 16-27 — reveals that it was, in fact, ever thus.The Croisette boulevard has always been a catwalk and we, the rapt audience looking on.The actress Elizabeth Taylor grasps the arm of her husband at the time, the film producer Mike Todd, at the Cannes Film Festival, wearing a Balmain gown and Cartier tiara.Malcolm McNeill/Mirrorpix, via Getty Images1957Elizabeth TaylorWhen she attended Cannes on the arm of her third husband, the producer Mike Todd (who was there to promote “Around the World in 80 Days”), Ms. Taylor was Hollywood royalty, and she dressed the part — from the tip of her diamond Cartier tiara to the hem of her white Balmain gown and the fingertips of her opera gloves. The princess dress would forever after be a festival staple (not least on Princesses Grace and Diana when they would take their own Cannes bows).Catherine Deneuve attended a screening of “Les Cendres” by Andrzej Wajda at Cannes in an Yves Saint Laurent T-shirt dress.Gamma-Keystone, via Getty Images1966Catherine DeneuveMs. Deneuve attended Cannes with her then-husband, the photographer David Bailey, in a long seaside-striped sequin Yves Saint Laurent T-shirt dress. She was a de facto YSL ambassador before that term had even entered the fashion playbook (back then, the usual appellation was “muse”). She would remain one for decades, loyally wearing YSL onscreen and off. When it comes to casual glamour, however, this dress set the tone, proving the concept was not an oxymoron, but a whole potential genre unto itself.Jane Birkin toted her signature picnic basket as a handbag to Cannes.Gilbert Giribaldi/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty Images1974Jane BirkinMs. Birkin popped up at Cannes with her beau, Serge Gainsbourg, and a picnic basket as a handbag, toting it not just during the day, but on the red carpet with a glimmering frock. Reportedly discovered in a fishing village in Portugal, it was the Birkin bag before the Birkin bag. It became a symbol of the British star and of a certain je ne sais quoi in boho style and the freewheeling nature of Cannes.Madonna arrived for the premiere of her film “Madonna: Truth or Dare” (known internationally as “In Bed with Madonna”) in a pink Jean Paul Gaultier coat that she shed to reveal a satin undergarment set.Dave Hogan/Getty Images1991MadonnaShe came to Cannes to unveil “Madonna: Truth or Dare” — and herself. Decades before Lady Gaga stripped down to her undergarments on the Met Gala steps, Madonna walked the carpet for her premiere in a voluminous pink taffeta coat by Jean Paul Gaultier — only to drop it at the last moment to reveal a white satin cone bra, knickers and a garter belt set. She jolted the public out of their torpor and started a new era of peekaboo dressing.Sharon Stone came to the premiere of “Unzipped” unbuttoned — a satin skirt parted to uncover a bedazzled romper.Stephane Cardinale/Sygma, via Getty Images1995Sharon StoneIn 2002 Ms. Stone came to Cannes as a member of the film festival jury and revived her flagging profile by walking the red carpet in a different fashion statement every night. But years before that, she made dressing noise when she arrived at the premiere of “Unzipped” in a champagne-colored satin skirt that was, well, unbuttoned to reveal a bedazzled romper beneath. Ever since, shorts have been a festival staple.For the screening of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” Johnny Depp was accompanied by his girlfriend at the time, Kate Moss.Patrick Hertzog/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images1998Kate MossMinimalism came to the Croisette courtesy of Ms. Moss, attending the premiere of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” with her then-boyfriend, Johnny Depp. Ms. Moss wore a black cocktail dress with ostrich feathers at the top and almost no makeup with merely a touch of diamonds and barely-there sandals. She made everyone else look overdone and overdressed, washing the Augean stables of Cannes clean.Tilda Swinton walked the Croisette in a metallic pantsuit.Daniele Venturelli/WireImage2007Tilda SwintonMs. Swinton strode the carpet in a metallic pantsuit, proving that a woman does not need a big dress to make a big statement.Linda Evangelista in a gold Lanvin dress.Kurt Krieger/Corbis, via Getty Images2008Linda EvangelistaMs. Evangelista posed like a gold Greek statuette in Lanvin at the premiere of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” Models had become key parts of the festival’s opening evening mix, upping the fashion ante even further.Lupita Nyong’o in a chiffon Gucci dress.Venturelli/WireImage2015Lupita Nyong’oMs. Nyong’o seemed to embody springtime itself in a green pleated Gucci chiffon dress accented with crystal flowers. It was only a few months after Alessandro Michele had taken over as creative director of the Italian house, and the dress heralded the arrival of a new aesthetic and Hollywood love affair with Gucci.Amal Clooney in an Atelier Versace dress.Andreas Rentz/Getty Images2016Amal ClooneyMs. Clooney made her Cannes debut in a classic butter yellow Atelier Versace dress with a high slit on one leg, entirely overshadowing her husband, George, at the premiere of his film, “Money Monster,” and, once again, proving style and substance are not antithetical concepts.Rihanna in a Dior couture gown.Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images2017RihannaShe made her first Cannes appearance at the “Okja” premiere in an ivory Dior couture gown with a long matching coat and New Wave-style sunglasses. Two years later, Dior owner LVMH would announce a deal with the artist for her own fashion line, and though it was shut down during the pandemic, her ability to channel cool has never wavered.Kristen Stewart, in a Chanel dress, removed her Louboutins to ascend the stairs barefoot.Andreas Rentz/Getty Images2018Kristen StewartMs. Stewart’s short chain mail Chanel dress was a fighting mix of armor and crystals, but what really made news was her decision to doff her Christian Louboutin stilettos and walk up the stairs barefoot. Coming a year after the actor complained about the festival’s unspoken high heels dress code, it was an unmistakable fashion throw down and, well, a step forward for wardrobe equity.Isabelle Huppert in a Balenciaga gown.Andreas Rentz/Getty Images2021Isabelle HuppertThe French actress made the ultimate elegant refusal of Cannes convention in a high-necked, long-sleeved all-black Balenciaga gown, matching boot leggings and matching shades. It cut through the carpet froth and excess like a knife.Spike Lee in a colorful suit made by Virgil Abloh for Louis Vuitton.Eric Gaillard/Reuters2021Spike LeeThe sole man in this trendsetting list, Mr. Lee put ye olde penguin suits to shame as jury president, eschewing the usual tuxedo or white dinner jacket for a bouquet of sunset-toned suiting, by Virgil Abloh for Louis Vuitton. He did the right thing.Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in a Gaurav Gupta gown.Stephane Mahe/Reuters2022Aishwarya Rai BachchanSometimes, it seems like the wide open skies of the Côte d’Azur encourage even wider skirts on the Cannes carpet, but Ms. Bachchan topped them all in a fantastical creation from Gaurav Gupta that made her look like some sort of alien smoke goddess materializing on Earth. Sometimes, it really does seem like the looks at Cannes are out of this world. More