We are at Cannes film festival. Hate us if you will. You have every right. Journalists love to complain, and we are using our time in the south of France to whinge about an intolerable excess of privilege. It’s too hot. There are too many high-quality films we’re forced to see months before they trouble your local enormoplex.
Stand in a queue here (something you do less of since they brought in electronic ticketing) and you will hear whinging in Dutch, German, Mandarin and Walloon. You’d like me to pick on the Americans, but, in my experience, their endemic politeness causes them to be a deal less whingy than ... well, other nations I’m not going to name for fear of an international incident.
A paid holiday? That’s a laugh. There is barely time to swallow a mouthful of rosé before sprinting from movie-star interviews at the Carlton, the legendary hotel before which Elton John cavorted in the I’m Still Standing video, down to the first showings of, this year, new films by Lynne Ramsay, Wes Anderson and Richard Linklater.
Look about the Théâtre Debussy before a movie begins and you’ll see about 1,000 of the world’s finest film journalists folding their arms and screwing up their faces like the gossipy old lady Les Dawson used to play. That low murmur you hear when strolling down Rue d’Antibes is 1,000 hacks growling at the ticketing app on their telephone.
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It was better in the old days. It was better when you contracted sunstroke queuing for three hours to get into a disappointing Balzac adaptation from a clapped-out Finnish master. Men were men then and women were greatly outnumbered. What a time. Punch me in the face to make me feel something.
If you need any evidence that journalists are inveterate complainers just read me complaining about people complaining. No doubt, once this column lands on the Riviera, my colleagues will be complaining about me complaining about people complaining.
Anyway, all this is by way of preparation for my main whinge about having it too nice. You’ve heard nothing like this since The Rolling Stones, then tax fugitives, bitched about having to record Exile on Main Street a few miles up the road to Nice. Bleeding hedonistic excess. Who wants it?
Here’s the thing. There are a few genuine inconveniences about watching films at Cannes. Sometimes you are there at an ungodly hour of the morning. The sheer number of screenings can threaten to deaden critical faculties. Not everyone enjoys the bizarre tradition whereby – space precludes an explanation – some crowd member must shout “Raoul!” as the lights go down.
But, for the most part, this is how a movie should be seen. The projection is consistently excellent. If we are viewing a physical print rather than a digital cinema package – and often we are – then that print will be close to its first run through the machinery. There are no ads. There are no trailers. And the critics stop their bleeding moaning until the end credits roll.
The French are famously well behaved in the cinema anyway, but, at Cannes, even the slightest mutter will cause eyes to be turned as if at someone drinking cafe au lait after midday. Liked Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson in Ramsay’s Die, My Love? Run upstairs to the press conference afterwards and tell them as much.
So nothing to complain about there? I like a challenge. Just watch me.
What are we here for? Yes, to offer assessment of a film in social isolation. A literary critic sits in a quiet room and works his way studiously through the latest novel. Food critics linger over the dishes at their leisure. Movie critics – if they are able – should see the film under perfect conditions. Right? Having recently installed Dolby Atmos sound, the Grand Auditorium Louis Lumière, where the red-carpet premieres take place, can reasonably claim, with 2,309 seats, to be the greatest cinema in the world.
That does not, however, much reflect the average cinemagoing experience. What can we tell @JohnnyMoviefan675 about how the film will play on a phone with a cracked screen while he takes the 4.10 to Mullingar? The house lights should be occasionally left on with no staff available in the foyer to correct the problem. The Cannes authorities should hire screaming urchins to throw buttered popcorn at the screen whenever the action encounters a lull. Scatter endless glowing mobile phones about the auditorium. Help us do our job.
To be fair, the everyday moviegoing experience was never so idyllic as old bores pretend. But handheld devices and fast food by the bucket have made the situation exponentially worse. And that decline has rendered the Cannes arrangement that bit more unreal. Not that I’m complaining.
