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      Cannes Film Festival 2023 Lineup Includes Wes Anderson and Todd Haynes Movies

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      Over 50 movies will be screened at the event, including Johnny Depp’s first major film since a defamation trial and Martin Scorsese’s latest epic.Movies by Wes Anderson, Todd Haynes and Ken Loach will compete for the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the event’s organizers announced during a news conference on Thursday.Also in the running for the festival’s top prize will be films by the returning winners Wim Wenders, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Nanni Moretti.But Martin Scorsese will not compete at the festival, which opens May 16 and runs through May 27. Instead, his eagerly anticipated movie “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which stars Leonardo DiCaprio and is about the murder of Osage Indians in 1920s Oklahoma, will appear out of competition. Thierry Frémaux, Cannes’s artistic director, said during Thursday’s news conference that the festival wanted “Killers of the Flower Moon” to play in competition, but Scorsese had turned him down.The Wes Anderson picture in competition is “Asteroid City,” about a space cadet convention that is interrupted by aliens; Todd Haynes will show “May December” a love story about a young man and his older employer, starring Julianne Moore.Ken Loach, whose movies focused on working-class life in Britain have twice won the Palme d’Or, will present “The Old Oak,” about Syrian refugees arriving in an economically depressed English mining town.A jury led by the Swedish director Ruben Ostlund will choose the winner. Ostlund won last year’s Palme d’Or for “Triangle of Sadness,” a satire of the international superrich; he also took the 2017 award for “The Square,” a sendup of the art world.Of the 19 titles in competition, five are directed by women, including the Cannes veterans Jessica Hausner and Alice Rohrwacher, and Ramata-Toulaye Sy, a French-Senegalese newcomer.Many of the highest profile titles at this year’s event will be shown out of competition. The festival will open with “Jeanne du Barry,” a period drama about a poor woman who becomes a lover of King Louis XV of France. It stars Johnny Depp in his first major role since he won a defamation trial against his ex-wife Amber Heard.Other high-profile movies scheduled to premiere at Cannes’s 76th edition include “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” directed by James Mangold — the final movie in the Harrison Ford adventure series about a globe-trotting archaeology professor — and Pedro Almodóvar’s “Strange Way of Life,” the Spanish director’s second movie in English. Starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal, that movie is a short western about a reunion between two hit men.Wim Wenders, the German director who won the 1984 Palme d’Or for “Paris, Texas,” has two films in the official selection. In the main competition, he will show “Perfect Days,” which Frémaux said was about a janitor in Japan who drives between jobs listening to rock music. Out of competition, Wenders will show a 3-D documentary about Anselm Kiefer, one of Germany’s most revered artists.Frémaux said that over 2,000 movies were submitted for the festival, although only 52 made Thursday’s selection. Of those, one other notable title is Steve McQueen’s “Occupied City,” about Amsterdam under the Nazis. Frémaux said that McQueen, the director of “12 Years a Slave” and “Widows,” had made a “very radical” film that was several hours long. But, Frémaux added, watching it, “you won’t fall asleep.” More

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      Kornel Mundruczo Brings Powerful Imagery to Wagner and Film

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      Kornel Mundruczo’s varied career has included the Oscar-nominated movie “Pieces of a Woman,” stage productions across Europe and now, “Lohengrin.”MUNICH — On a recent morning, the atmosphere on the rehearsal stage of the Bayerische Staatsoper, the main opera house here, was charged with anticipation.The director Kornel Mundruczo was supervising Act I of “Lohengrin,” Richard Wagner’s romantic opera about a mysterious knight sent by the Holy Grail to save a damsel in distress, and as they waited for the title character to appear, the vocal soloists and extras milled about in street clothes among rocks and grass scattered on the stage.Mundruczo made adjustments to the performers’ positions and gestures, ensuring that they conveyed nervous excitement. When Lohengrin, played by Klaus Florian Vogt, casually appeared midway through the act, Mundruczo surveyed the scene.“That’s super good,” he said with satisfaction.When the opera opens here on Saturday, it will close an uncommonly busy — and varied — year for the prolific Hungarian director.Over the past 12 months, Mundruczo, 47, has overseen a world premiere opera in Berlin and Geneva; a new play in Berlin; Wagner’s “Tannhäuser” in Hamburg, Germany; and has directed four of 10 episodes in the first season of the Apple TV+ series “The Crowded Room.”Serge Dorny, the Bayerische Staatsoper’s general manager, said he saw “Lohengrin” as “an extremely contemporary story,” adding that Mundruczo’s interest in topical themes, and how he has handled them over a range of artistic genres, was in part what led him to enlist the director for “Lohengrin.”Mundruczo’s production of “Lohengrin” at Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. Over the past two decades, he has produced a multifaceted body of work across numerous countries, languages and genres.W. HoeslEqually important, however, was Mundruczo’s ability to create “powerful images that stay in our memories,” Dorny said.Mundruczo’s style is direct and emotional, but it is often tinged with fantastical elements that veer into magical realism: In one particularly vivid example, a recent Mundruczo production was set almost entirely inside a gigantic salmon.While Vogt said that Mundruczo’s background in film was clear from his ability to create “intense images” in “Lohengrin,” the singer called Mundruczo a “deeply musical person,” who had enormous respect for the score.This artistic versatility makes Mundruczo a rarity among today’s directors. Over the past two decades, he has produced a multifaceted body of work across numerous countries, languages and genres.In the English-speaking world, Mundruczo is best known for his 2020 film “Pieces of a Woman,” which garnered acclaim for the director, its writer, Kata Weber, and its lead actress, Vanessa Kirby, who earned an Oscar nomination for her turn as a mother processing the death of her newborn. Martin Scorsese signed on as an executive producer after seeing an early cut of the film.“With Kornel, you feel and see a real drive to express something in images and sounds,” Scorsese wrote in an emailed statement. “It’s real cinematic storytelling. No matter what Kornel makes, I’m interested.”Vanessa Kirby earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in Mundruczo’s “Pieces of a Woman.”Benjamin Loeb/NetflixMundruczo’s production of the opera “Sleepless” was dominated by a giant salmon.Nina Hansch/picture alliance, via Getty ImagesBorn in 1975 in Godollo, a small city outside Budapest, Mundruczo dreamed of becoming a painter as a teenager, but when he first picked up a camera at 21, he knew filmmaking was what he was meant to do.“I wasn’t planning for it to happen, but for me there was no longer any question,” Mundruczo said in an earlier interview in Berlin. “That hasn’t changed.”The director characterized his early shorts and first three features as “bohemian friendship movies, like early Almodóvar,” he created with “whoever was around,” he said, referring to the Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar. Mundruczo made his first feature film in 2000 while still a student. Of the eight that have come since, six have premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, including “White God” (2014), which features a canine takeover of Budapest, and “Jupiter’s Moon” (2017), in which a Syrian refugee learns to fly.While building up his film career, Mundruczo also started directing plays for an independent theater group. In 2009, he co-founded Proton Theater in Budapest, where he serves as artistic director. Before long, his stage productions were getting attention on the international theater festival circuit.Mundruczo suggested that his outsider status as a filmmaker had helped him bring a new perspective to his stage productions, which tour throughout Europe. “I’m not a theater person,” he said, “and the theater festival system always needs new voices.”The director also welcomes a certain degree of cross-pollination between his stage and screen work. Before it was a film, “Pieces of a Woman” was a play written by Weber and first performed in 2018 at the TR Warszawa theater in Warsaw. “Evolution,” another collaboration between Weber and Mundruczo (who are both romantic and artistic partners), started life as part of a staged performance before they developed it into a film.When it comes to switching between genres, “I enjoy that it’s other parts of your soul working,” Mundruczo said. Gordon Welters for The New York Times“Evolution,” which premiered at the 2019 Ruhrtriennale festival in Bochum, Germany, was one of a string of productions in that country that inspired Mundruczo and Weber to move to Berlin from Budapest with their daughter several years ago. They were also guided by concerns about the political situation in Hungary, which continues its rightward slide under Prime Minister Viktor Orban.“I’m sure every New Yorker felt the same during the Trump era,” he said. “It can be tough. You feel a certain pressure.”Although he has never faced direct censorship in Hungary, the Hungarian National Film Board rejected funding for “Pieces of a Woman,” Mundruczo said. “They sent a beautiful letter — I still have it — they wrote that there is no audience for this movie,” he said.When it became a play in Warsaw, its Jewish themes, which were inspired by Weber’s family history, fell by the wayside. “Not that many Jewish people live in Poland, and we all know why,” Mundruczo said. Weber was able to restore some of the Jewish content in the film version, which moved the action to Boston, a city with a large Jewish population.Several of those themes, including a miraculous tale of survival at the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust, are elaborated in the film “Evolution,” a multigenerational tale that begins in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and ends in modern-day Berlin.Since “Evolution” premiered at Cannes in summer 2021, Mundruczo has taken a hiatus from the silver screen. This year he made his debut at Berlin’s Staatsoper, directing the world premiere of Peter Eotvos’s “Sleepless,” the production dominated by a giant salmon.Matthias Schulz, the general manager of the Berlin State Opera, said that “first of all,” Mundruczo was a filmmaker. “He’s very precise and gives a lot of hints, just like he has to do when making a movie,” he said, describing “Sleepless” as having the atmosphere of “an opera and a movie at the same time.”Both the Berlin State Opera and Munich’s Bayerische Staatsoper have invited Mundruczo back to direct in future seasons. In addition to making “The Crowded Room” for the small screen, Mundruczo hopes to return to filmmaking soon, although he said that it was too early to share project details.When it comes to switching between opera, dramatic theater, television and film, “I enjoy that it’s other parts of your soul working,” Mundruczo said. “It’s very healthy when you’re not a one genre maniac,” he added.Perhaps someday he’ll be able to devote himself exclusively to one art form. “But I’m not there yet,” he said with a laugh. More

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      Hong Kong to Censor Films Under China’s Security Law

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      The city’s government said it would block the distribution of films that are deemed to undermine national security, bringing the territory more in line with mainland Chinese censorship.For decades, Hong Kong’s movie industry has enthralled global audiences with balletic shoot-em-ups, epic martial-arts fantasies, chopsocky comedies and shadow-drenched romances. Now, under orders from Beijing, local officials will scrutinize such works with an eye toward safeguarding the People’s Republic of China.The city’s government on Friday said it would begin blocking the distribution of films that are deemed to undermine national security, marking the official arrival of mainland Chinese-style censorship in one of Asia’s most celebrated filmmaking hubs.The new guidelines, which apply to both domestically produced and foreign films, are the latest sign of how thoroughly Hong Kong, a semiautonomous Chinese territory, is being reshaped by a security law enacted last year to quash antigovernment protests.With the blessing of the Communist government in Beijing, the Hong Kong authorities have changed school curriculums, pulled books off library shelves and moved to overhaul elections. The police have arrested pro-democracy activists and politicians as well as a high-profile newspaper publisher.And in the arts, the law has created an atmosphere of fear.The updated rules announced Friday require Hong Kong censors considering a film for distribution to look out not only for violent, sexual and vulgar content, but also for how the film portrays acts “which may amount to an offense endangering national security.”Anything that is “objectively and reasonably capable of being perceived as endorsing, supporting, promoting, glorifying, encouraging or inciting” such acts is potential grounds for deeming a film unfit for exhibition, the rules now say.The new rules do not limit the scope of a censor’s verdict to a film’s content alone.“When considering the effect of the film as a whole and its likely effect on the persons likely to view the film,” the guidelines say, “the censor should have regard to the duties to prevent and suppress act or activity endangering national security.”A Hong Kong government statement on Friday said: “The film censorship regulatory framework is built on the premise of a balance between protection of individual rights and freedoms on the one hand, and the protection of legitimate societal interests on the other.”The vagueness of the new provisions is in keeping with what the security law’s critics say are its ambiguously defined offenses, which give the authorities wide latitude to target activists and critics.Supporters of pro-democracy activists who have been charged under the national security law protested in Hong Kong last month.Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times“How do you raise funds?” asked Evans Chan, a filmmaker who has faced problems screening his work in Hong Kong. “Can you openly crowdsource and say that this is a film about certain points of view, certain activities?”Even feature filmmakers, he said, will be left to wonder whether their movies will fall afoul of the new law. “It’s not just a matter of activist filmmaking or political filmmaking, but the overall scene of filmmaking in Hong Kong.”At its peak during the decades after World War II, the city’s film industry enjoyed huge influence across the moviegoing world, churning out popular genre flicks and nurturing auteurs like Wong Kar-wai and Ann Hui. The influence of Hong Kong cinema can be seen in the work of Hollywood directors including Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese, and in blockbusters such as “The Matrix.”More recently, Hong Kong’s political turmoil has been of intense interest to artists and documentarians, even if their work has sometimes struggled to be shown before audiences.A screening of a documentary about the 2019 protests was canceled at the last minute this year after a pro-Beijing newspaper accused the film of encouraging subversion. The University of Hong Kong urged its student union to cancel a showing of a film about a jailed activist.The screening went on as planned. But a few months later, the university said it would stop collecting membership fees on the organization’s behalf and would stop managing its finances as punishment for its “radical acts.” More

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      Fran Lebowitz and Martin Scorsese Seek a Missing New York in ‘Pretend It’s a City’

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyFran Lebowitz and Martin Scorsese Seek a Missing New York in ‘Pretend It’s a City’The Netflix series, featuring Lebowitz and directed by Scorsese, offers acerbic commentary and a sense of yearning for a pre-pandemic metropolis.Martin Scorsese and Fran Lebowitz, as seen in the new Netflix documentary series, “Pretend It’s a City,” are longtime friends. “It’s about being around Fran,” said Scorsese, who directed the series.Credit…NetflixJan. 7, 2021Updated 2:24 p.m. ETHad this past New Year’s Eve been a normal one, Fran Lebowitz and Martin Scorsese would have spent it as they usually do: with each other and a few close friends, in the screening room in Scorsese’s office, watching a classic movie like “Vertigo” or “A Matter of Life and Death.”The year they got together to see “Barry Lyndon,” they watched a rare, high-quality print made from the director Stanley Kubrick’s original camera negative.“And I said, ‘What’s a camera negative?’” Lebowitz recalled in a group video call with Scorsese on Tuesday. “And then all of the movie lunatics glared at me, like I admitted to being illiterate.”In previous years, when they were feeling especially energetic, Scorsese said with some audible melancholy, “We used to have one screening before midnight and then have another screening after.”But this time, their annual custom had to be put on hold. Instead, Lebowitz explained: “I talked to Marty on the phone. We commiserated about how horrible we felt, how awful it was not to be doing that.”Lebowitz, the author, humorist and raconteur, and Scorsese, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker, were speaking from their individual New York homes to discuss their latest collaboration, the documentary series “Pretend It’s a City.” They are longtime friends who, as they continue to wait out the coronavirus pandemic, have lately been unable to see much of each other or the city with which they are irrevocably associated.A similar, bittersweet air hangs over the seven-part series, which Netflix will release on Friday. A follow-up to Scorsese’s 2010 nonfiction film “Public Speaking,” “Pretend It’s a City” (which Scorsese also directed) chronicles the acerbic Lebowitz in interviews, live appearances and strolls through New York as she shares stories about her life and insights about the city’s constant evolution in recent decades.Of course, the Netflix series was initiated before the pandemic, and Lebowitz and Scorsese are supremely aware that it depicts a bustling, energized New York that now feels just out of reach — and which they both hope will return soon.In the meantime, “Pretend It’s a City” offers a tantalizing snapshot of New York in full bloom, along with Lebowitz’s lively and unapologetic commentary on what it means to live there.As she explained: “I don’t care whether people agree with me or not. My feeling if someone doesn’t agree with me is, OK, you’re wrong. That is one thing that I’ve never worried about.”Scorsese gently replied, “I had that impression.”Lebowitz and Scorsese spoke further about the making of “Pretend It’s a City” and the impact that the pandemic has had on them. These are edited excerpts from that conversation.”I have lived in New York long enough to know that it will not stay the way it is now,” said Lebowitz, who moved to the city in 1970.Credit…NetflixI was surprised to learn from “Pretend It’s a City” that neither of you recall when you first met.FRAN LEBOWITZ That’s because we’re old and we have many friendships. I don’t mean old in the sense that we don’t remember things, because I believe we both have perfect memories. But because there’s so many years and so many people. I guess we met at a party, because where else would I have met him? Obviously, I go to a lot more parties than Marty. That’s why Marty made so many movies and Fran wrote so few books.MARTIN SCORSESE I really recall us talking the most at John Waters’s 50th birthday party. It was after “Casino” came out.LEBOWITZ Of course, you were not averse to hearing how much I loved it.SCORSESE No, I was not at all.LEBOWITZ Even though I’m not as Italian as you might imagine [laughs], Marty’s parents and a lot of my father’s relatives — all of whom were working-class Jews — have a lot of parallels that are very well-known. The big difference is, the food is better in Italians’ houses.SCORSESE We liked the Jewish food better.LEBOWITZ No, no, no, there’s no comparison.After working together on “Public Speaking,” what made you want to collaborate on another documentary project?SCORSESE I enjoyed making “Public Speaking.” I found it freeing, in terms of narrative. But primarily, it’s about being around Fran. I really would like to know what she thinks, pretty much every day, as it’s happening. I’d like a running commentary — not all the time, but one that I can dip in and out of during the day.Do either of you worry that Fran is a finite resource and you will eventually exhaust her supply of wit?LEBOWITZ You mean, am I worried about running out of things to say? No. I am worried about running out of money. But it never even occurred to me that I would not have something to say. It’s just there. It’s like having a trick thumb.The series is divided into fanciful chapters like “Cultural Affairs” and “Department of Sports & Health.” How did you settle on these subjects?SCORSESE We always felt we should have topics. She’ll start on a topic, and then it’ll go off like a jazz riff into a thousand other places. Eventually, we might be able to pull it back. In a lot of the films I make, the types of actors I work with, the dialogue is like music — it’s the timing and the emphasis. She has that.LEBOWITZ Of course I am the world’s most digressive speaker, but what you’re really seeing at work is editing. I don’t remember how many days we shot this but I’m confident that it was an infinitesimal amount compared to how much time it took him to edit.SCORSESE I try to get that kind of freedom in my narrative films, but I very often am stuck to a plot.LEBOWITZ I am plot-free, so no problem. [Laughter.]Among the locations where you filmed Fran is at the Queens Museum, where we see her standing amid the Panorama of the City of New York, a highly detailed scale model that Robert Moses had built for the 1964 World’s Fair. What was it like to shoot there?LEBOWITZ I did knock over the Queensboro Bridge. The guy who’s in charge of that, the day we shot there, was in a panic the entire time. And I proved him right.SCORSESE That was the only time that I ever yelled “Action!” I don’t know what possessed me. It must have thrown you off or something.LEBOWITZ I did not destroy it, I just knocked it over.SCORSESE By the way, it is magnificent, that model.LEBOWITZ I’m not sure it makes up for Robert Moses. [Laughter.] It made you realize that if only Robert Moses had done everything in miniature, we wouldn’t hate Robert Moses.How did the pandemic affect the making of this series?LEBOWITZ We shot it way before there was a virus. When the virus happened, Marty said, “What should we do? What can we do?” At the height of the shutdown, I went out walking around the city, and Marty sent Ellen Kuras [the director of photography on “Pretend It’s a City”], and what she filmed was incredibly beautiful. But I said to Marty, “I think we should ignore it.”SCORSESE We tried it. We edited sequences. It was OK, and then a week later, the city changed again. All these stores were closed and they had boards up. A week later, something else changed. So I said, “Let’s just stop it.”LEBOWITZ We’re not journalists. We don’t have to be on top of the news.The series was filmed before the pandemic shut down much of New York. Looking back, what Lebowitz and Scorsese seem to miss most, aside from maybe hanging in person, is dining out. Credit…NetflixDoes the series feel different to you because of the pandemic?LEBOWITZ There’s a difference for sure. I thought of the title, “Pretend It’s a City,” when New York was packed with morons who would stand in the middle of the sidewalk. And I would yell at them: “Move! Pretend it’s a city!” The people who have seen it since then — an agent of mine said, “Oh, it’s a love letter to New York.” Before the virus, it was me complaining about New York. Now people think it has some more lyrical, metaphorical meaning.Do you worry that New York won’t fully return to what it was before the pandemic?LEBOWITZ I have lived in New York long enough to know that it will not stay the way it is now. There is not a square foot of New York City, a square foot, that’s the same as it was when I came here in 1970. That’s what a city is, even without a plague. But I’d like to point out, there were many things wrong with it before. After the big protests in SoHo, I saw a reporter interviewing a woman who was a manager of one of the fancy stores there. The reporter said to her, “What are you going to do?” And she said, “There’s nothing we can do until the tourists come back.” I yelled at the TV and I said, “Really? You can’t think what to do with SoHo without tourists? I can! Let me give you some ideas.” Because I remember it without tourists. How about, artists could live there? How about, let’s not have rent that’s $190,000 a month? How about that? Let’s try that.Has the pandemic ever made you feel more vulnerable or aware of your own fragility?LEBOWITZ It makes me feel angrier. Luckily, I have managed to distill all human emotion into anger. It doesn’t matter what the initial emotion is: It could be despair, sadness, fear — basically I experience it as anger. It makes me feel angry because this didn’t have to happen at all.SCORSESE I actually don’t know where I belong on the island. I grew up downtown when it was pretty tough in that area. Now it’s very chic. It’s no longer home for me, certainly. I’ve grown old, and out, in a way. I have been locked in and working on FaceTime. I have been trying to make this movie [“Killers of the Flower Moon”] since March. Every two days, they say we’re going. And then they say, no we’re not. It’s a state of anxiety and tension. But in any event, I really haven’t gone out that much. I can’t take a chance, either.The day the pandemic is over — there’s no longer any risk of the coronavirus and we can all return to our usual lives — what’s the first thing you do?SCORSESE First thing I would say is, please, to go to a restaurant. There’s a few that I’m missing a great deal. I’ll never eat outside. I don’t understand how you can sit there and the fumes from the buses come in. I don’t get it. It’s not Paris.LEBOWITZ I’ve been eating outside. There is no greater testament to how much I hate to cook than the fact I will sit outside in 28-degree weather, trying to eat with gloves on. I would like to eat at a restaurant. Also, I would like to crawl around underneath the tables in the rare book room at the Strand and when I bring the things to the register and the guy goes, “Where did you find this?” It was under the table. “We haven’t priced it yet! You’re not supposed to take it out from under there.” Well, I did, so how much is it?AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More