Cannes ‘08: Pete Hammond’s Notes on a Season - Angelina Jolie, ‘Fame’ and ‘Blindness’

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Buyers and sellers were starting to crowd the streets and hotel suites lining the Croisette as the 61st Cannes Film Festival swung into action on its second day.

‘Kung Fu Panda’ and the powerful Israeli animated war film ‘Waltz With Bashir’ were the main action on the Palais steps on Thursday night.

Angelina Jolie, the voice of Tigress in ‘Panda,’ made her way to Cannes despite the fact she is very pregnant with twins, a fact she confirmed here while doing an interview with co-star Jack Black.

This is a big festival for her, as she will be needed again on Tuesday to walk the red-carpeted steps of the Palais for the premiere screening of Clint Eastwood’s new film ‘Changeling,’ which will be released nationally in November through Universal and is one of the studio’s big awards-season hopes.

There is also lots of hoped-for sales action for all sorts of titles, including Lakeshore Entertainment’s reinvention of ‘Fame,’ the Oscar-winning (best song) ‘80’s musical sensation that later became a hit NBC TV series.

With ‘American Idol’ still the rage, and a whole generation unfamiliar with the original movie, the time for ‘Fame’ is ripe again, according to Lakeshore honcho David Dinerstein, who is here pre-selling the film, a definite ‘go’ film for the company in association with MGM, which produced the first one. Dinerstein also credits the success of movies like ‘Step Up’ for reigniting interest in the ‘Fame’ concept.

Earlier in the day, the cast, producers, writer and director of the opening-night film ‘Blindness’ sat down with us to discuss the highs and lows of bringing Jose Saramago’s film to the screen after trying for nearly 10 years.

Seems like Saramago wanted to be sure whoever did it would be reverent toward the material. Actor-writer Don McKellar and director Fernando Mereilles worked over several drafts to make the difficult–to-translate best-seller play as a movie.

Mereilles who was first in Cannes in 2002 for ‘City Of God,’ said at that time he expected to show the movie somewhere in town, talk to about 12 Brazilian journalists and be done with it. (continued)

Then the movie was shown and suddenly he was doing 200 interviews! He says the experience of opening the festival this time was a great honor.

Apparently Focus International and Miramax think he did well enough to position ‘Blindness’ as a competition entry at Cannes and a major fall Oscar contender. Miramax employed a similar Cannes debut/ fall-winter release strategy for ‘No Country For Old Men’ and ‘The Diving Bell and the Butterfly’ last year and picked up 12 nominations and four Oscars (including best picture for ‘No Country’) so perhaps the lag time between the May Cannes reviews and post-summer domestic release isn’t as harmful as some think.

Though this is very dark, apocalyptic material and not necessarily Academy-friendly, ‘Blindness’ has a hopeful tone even as we watch these disparate souls go through a living hell.

Mereilles, in fact, said despite the movie’s dark feel, they actually had fun doing it, even the harrowing rape scene. He said they had to, just to get through it. Cast and crew would even sing tunes from blind singers like Stevie Wonder between takes, a practice that became so prevalent that one of Wonder’s songs, ‘I Just Called To Say I Love You,’ became a part of the film’s soundtrack.

Star Julianne Moore, back in Cannes one year after closing Director’s Fortnight last year with “Savage Grace,” calls it a fable for our times. Along with the rest of the cast, she saw it for the first time at the Palais premiere and was anxious about its reception.

Despite mixed reviews in Cannes, these filmmakers believe they have made a movie that smart audiences and fans of the book are definitely going to want to check out when it opens in September.

-- Pete Hammond