THE CANNES FILE : Stopping by the One-Stop Film Festival by the Sea

Cannes Film Festival Director Gilles Jacob promised that there would be a lot of laughs at this year’s festival, and American actor Nick Nolte made the first delivery at a raucous opening-day press conference set up to promote “New York Stories.”

Nolte, who plays an insecure New York painter in Martin Scorsese’s “Life Lessons” segment of the three-part anthology film, perpetuated his image as a heavy-drinking actor, saying he got the “dissipated” look he wanted for his character by drinking on the job and said that, speaking only for himself, drinking improves his acting. He quoted Katharine Hepburn, with whom he starred in “Grace Quigley,” comparing himself to the legendary Hollywood tippler Spencer Tracy.

“Spencer drank a lot but he would always wait until after work,” Nolte said, imitating the quavering voice of Hepburn. “My God, you drink out of every gutter in New York.”

Nolte, appearing on a panel with his “Life Lessons” co-star Rosanna Arquette, told his international audience of reporters and critics that he drew his inspiration for his character from an Armenian painter he once knew who kindled his creative fires by ravishing women in a Los Angeles jazz club restroom.

The story included graphic details and American slang about oral sex that baffled the translators and left the American journalists wondering how they could mention it at all.

Nolte isn’t one of the lighter, less-filling attractions that Jacob had in mind, but he alleviated some of the festival’s embarrassment of hosting an opening-night premiere that none of the film’s three directors--Scorsese, Francis Coppola or Woody Allen--attended.

Scorsese and Coppola were too busy to come, according to Jacob, and Allen disdains the entire concept of festivals. Jacob, who has taken heavy criticism for the gloomy content and poor quality of recent years’ festival films, said he intentionally set out to find a “less somber” group of films this year and chose “New York Stories” for the opening because it would help set the tone.

“New York Stories,” already released in the United States, is one of seven American films on the official program. “New York Stories” and the closing-night film “Old Gringo,” a Jane Fonda-Gregory Peck film due for release in the United States this fall, are being shown out of competition. But four other American entries--the most in several seasons--are in competition for the Gold Palm and a rash of other awards that will be announced May 23.

From the synopses, it’s hard to see where the laughter in these four films will come.

Spike Lee’s “Do The Right Thing” is a drama that takes place on one sweltering summer day in racially tense Brooklyn. To be released this summer in the United States by Universal Pictures, the film is the only major-studio movie in competition. It screens next Friday.

Lee’s “She’s Gotta Have It” was a big hit at Cannes three years ago, and Lee’s uncompromising black-theme films have been popular with European critics.

Jim Jarmusch is another independent American film maker first discovered in Cannes. Jarmusch’s “Strangers in Paradise” popped out as the hit of the Directors Fortnight series here in 1985. This year, Jarmusch is in the main competition with “Night Train to Memphis,” a film with three stories that take place on the same day in Tennessee. It screens Sunday.

Hugh Hudson, the English director of “Chariots of Fire,” will be here with “Lost Angels,” a story about a teen-ager caught up in a gang in San Fernando Valley. It screens tonight.

Steve Soderberg’s “Sex, Lies and Videotape” was a hit at last winter’s U.S. Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Rarely does Cannes tap a film that has screened at another festival, but Jacob said he grabbed this one happily and has made the 26-year-old Sonderbergh the first director since Susan Seidelman (“Smithereens”) to compete for the Gold Palm with a debut film.

“Sex, Lies” is a comedy drama about a young Louisiana couple whose relationship is complicated by extramarital attractions. It screens Saturday.

Also in the main competition is “Reunion,” an English-West German-French production written by Harold Pinter and directed by American veteran Jerry Schatsberg (“Street Wise”).

Two other American independent films--Larry Peerce’s “Wired,” the controversial biography of John Belushi, and Nigel Nobel’s documentary “The Voices of Sarafina,” are being shown in Un Certain Regard, an official non-competitive festival program. Wayne Wang’s “Eat a Bowl of Tea” and Charles Lane’s “Sidewalk Stories” are included in the Directors Fortnight, an unofficial but popular series set up to showcase the works of new directors.

Cannes is a one-stop, shop-by-and-see festival, with more than 1,000 films being shown formally or informally in theaters, in the seaside festival palais , in commercial multiplexes lodged along storefront shops in the narrow back streets of town or on TV monitors in hotel suites where distributors and buyers conduct the serious business that brings them here.

Cannes is also about stars and power, of course, and the U.S. contingent is a little larger than in recent years. Meryl Streep will be here for “A Cry in the Dark,” an official Australian film that won her an Oscar nomination earlier this year. Cannes rules make films ineligible that have played outside their country origin, but Jacob said he made an exception with “Cry in the Dark.”

Other stars expected over the next 12 days are Mickey Rourke, Jane Fonda, Gregory Peck, Sean Connery, Rebecca de Mornay, Lynn Redgrave, Rob Lowe, Roy Scheider and Marcello Mastroianni.

Brooke Shields is also scheduled to be here to promote the long-delayed “Brenda Starr,” and those with an eye for deltoids may recognize wrestler Hulk Hogan, who makes his out-of-the-ring acting debut in “No Holds Barred,” and Lou (“The Incredible Hulk”) Ferrigno, who stars in “Cage.”

ICM, the giant L.A. talent agency, has more than 20 people here, supposedly spending their two weeks in the midday sun chasing potential international clients.

Menahem Golan, who led the promotional charge that almost changed the name of this event to a Cannon Film Festival, is as visible as ever.

Golan, who was given a $10-million independent production deal along with the boot when Pathe bought Cannon last year, was seen picking up his own bags at the Nice airport Tuesday.

“It’s a new life and a new century,” Golan said, getting in an early plug for his recently organized 21st Century Film Corp.

Golan said some of his projects are still tied up in negotiations with Pathe, but the trade papers here carry 20-page supplements announcing 21st Century projects. And Golan was spotted, shortly after his arrival in Cannes, putting up posters along the Croisette.

There may be changes in the wind, as Jacob says, but on the street, Cannes looks pretty much the same.