Cannes 2012: What THR Film Critic Todd McCarthy Wants to See

Cannes 2012: What THR Film Critic Todd McCarthy Wants to See

From "On the Road" to "Cosmopolis," American movies with literary pedigrees seem most intriguing. 

One year ago at this time, much of the press coverage of the upcoming Cannes Film Festival was centered upon Terrence Malick's long-delayed The Tree of Life, accompanied by speculation that it was probably the film to beat for the Palme d'Or. As it turned out, this was correct. But how many of the same pieces put a spotlight on a silent, black-and-white French film about Hollywood by a director with an unpronounceable name no one had ever heard of?

That few even mentioned The Artist illustrates the difficulty of forecasting the nature and quality of the Cannes Film Festival, the 65th edition of which begins May 16. There are titles that take precedence in most people's minds, but only festival director Thierry Fremaux and his small selection committee have seen all these films; the rest of us are just guessing as to what we'll end up seeing.

That North America has seven titles in the competition this year has quickened the pulses of many, especially because the filmmakers are mostly relatively youthful and exciting. It's also intriguing that four of these entries possess high-grade literary pedigrees, the most conspicuous being On the Road. Just documenting the attempts different writers and directors have made to adapt Jack Kerouac's novel could fill a book of its own. The man to finally land the job was Walter Salles, whose previous road movie, The Motorcycle Diaries, might have served as an audition piece.

[...]

The other literary adaptation of note is David Cronenberg's film version of Don DeLillo's Cosmopolis, a rich Wall Street type's Joycean, all-in-one-day odyssey through the city that bears very directly upon the Occupy mentality. The trailer looks weird and intense. And to put the icing on the literary cake, Philip Kaufman's HBO film Hemingway & Gellhorn, about the tempestuous marriage and journalism of two prominent scribes of the last century, will play out of competition. Again, early screenings have yielded great praise for the actors.

Source => The Hollywood Reporter / Via => @KStewAngel