Spike Lee, ‘Annette’ open Cannes festival
The red carpet rolled out for the first time in more than two years amid high hopes of shrugging off pandemic.
CANNES, FRANCE >> The Cannes Film Festival rolled out the red carpet for the first time in more than two years on Tuesday, launching the French Riviera spectacular with the introduction of Spike Lee’s jury, the premiere of Leos Carax’s “Annette” and high hopes of shrugging off the pandemic and a punishing year for movies.
The 74th Cannes opened with as much glitz as it could summon. “Annette,” a fantastical musical starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard and scored by the musical duo Sparks, was to debut in the evening. The opening ceremony was to include last year’s Palme d’Or winner, Bong Joon Ho (for “Parasite”) and an honorary Palme for Jodie Foster, who first came to Cannes as a 13-year-old with Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver.”
Lee, who is heading the jury that will decide this year’s Palme, arrived wearing a “1619” baseball hat and trying to keep a low profile.
“I’m not trying to be a hog,” he said to reporters, urging them to ask his fellow jurors questions.
But Lee’s presence was hard to ignore. His face as Mars Blackmon from his 1986 feature film debut “She’s Gotta Have It” (which premiered at Cannes) adorns this year’s poster at the festival central hub, the Palais des Festivals. Lee is the first Black person to ever lead Cannes’ prestigious jury. Much of the talk on Tuesday at Cannes centered on injustice and survival.