Who Needs Stars When You Have Auteurs?

If you’re fed up with the auteur theory and its facile glorification of a film’s director at the expense of everyone else, this is not the place to go to complain.

Not to France itself, which takes pride in originating the idea, and definitely not to this year’s edition of the Cannes International Film Festival, which is devoted body and soul to celebrated names on the world directing circuit.

From usual suspects like Robert Altman (“Kansas City”) and Bernardo Bertolucci (“Stealing Beauty”) to cult favorites on the order of Aki Kourismaki (“The Clouds Escape”) and Hou Hsiao-Hsien (“Goodbye South, Goodbye”), what Variety calls “heavyweight helmers” dominate both the official competition and parallel events like Un Certain Regard and the Directors Fortnight.

The festival opens tonight with “Ridicule,” a pointed period comedy set in the court of Louis XVI and directed by Patrice Leconte (“Monsieur Hire,” “The Hairdresser’s Husband”). Other well-regarded French directors with films somewhere in the madness include “Wild Reeds’ ” Andre Techine, whose new film is “Les Voleurs,” and the veteran Eric Rohmer, whose “Conte d’Ete” will close Un Certain Regard.

Closing the festival itself will be David Russell’s “Flirting With Disaster,” one of several American films already known to domestic audiences that have traveled over here. Other familiar faces are the Coen brothers’ “Fargo,” Spike Lee’s “Girl 6,” “The Pallbearer” and the just-opening “I Shot Andy Warhol.”

Previously unseen U.S. work includes “Lone Star” from John Sayles, set to open the Directors Fortnight, and two films (three if you count Al Pacino’s “Looking for Richard,” which screened at Sundance) from still more actors impelled to get to the other side of the camera, “Trees Lounge” from Steve Buscemi and “Bastard Out of Carolina” from Anjelica Huston.

This American presence does not extend as far as studio releases: Only Warner Bros.’ “Sunchaser,” the first film in six years from Michael Cimino, comes to Cannes from a major. And much to the dismay of the French media that means a shortage of big Hollywood stars. Things are so grim that hopeful local newspapers are floating the rumor that Bruce Willis will show up to sing with Tina Turner’s band.

And without stars, the French magazines that put Cannes previews on their covers are at a loss as to whom to feature. The winner looks to be Liv Tyler, the waif-like lead in the Bertolucci film, whose presence is noticeable in differently styled billboards promoting the project with either its English or its French title, “Beaute Volee.”

Perhaps in anticipation of next year’s sure-to-be-glorious 50th anniversary, the mood in rainy Cannes does not seem especially effervescent this time around. The festival poster is a rather pedestrian bunch of flowers, making it a look-alike for those Mother’s Day ads from FTD florists, and even the numerous billboards advertising Piper-Heidsieck champagne feature the sensible but non-scintillating slogan, “Consume With Moderation. The Abuse of Alcohol is Dangerous to Health.”

Still, maybe those auteur directors will come through and save the day. After all, three filmmakers who made the 1993 festival one of the most memorable in years are back with new productions. Stephen Frears returns with “The Van,” which has many of the same components as “The Snapper”; Mike Leigh (“Naked”) is contributing “Secrets and Lies”; and Chen Kaige, whose “Farewell My Concubine” shared the Palme d’Or that year, reunites stars Gong Li and Leslie Cheung for “Temptress Moon,” set in always-exotic 1920s Shanghai.

Co-winner Jane Campion (“The Piano”), whose “Portrait of a Lady” may be headed for Venice, has not come again. But her star, Holly Hunter, is in David Cronenberg’s “Crash,” the story, or so a press release insists, of “the sexual passion provoked by traumatic automobile accidents.” Based on a novel by J.G. Ballard, whose delighted letter to Cronenberg calling “Crash” “the film sensation of the 1990s” was dutifully reprinted as a full-page ad in Variety, looks to be one of the festival’s more offbeat selections.

But not the only one. Danny Boyle’s “Trainspotting,” a sensation in England over the last several months, gets a midnight screening out of competition. Also looking to be out of the ordinary is “The Eighth Day,” new from “Toto the Hero’s” Jaco Van Dormael; “Breaking the Waves,” the first English-language film from Denmark’s Lars Von Trier; and “The Quiet Room” by Australia’s Rolf De Heer.

And should all these official films prove not scintillating enough, there are always the 400-plus movies that go searching for international buyers in the film market. Among the more eye-catching items are “Air Bud,” which looks to be about a dog that plays basketball, and “Kraa! The Sea Monster,” touted as the successor to “Zarkorr! The Invader.”

In case you’d forgotten.