Older European Directors’ Golden Age

Seen from Hollywood’s point of view, this year’s Cannes Film Festival must have appeared as the cinema of senior citizens. Indeed, the competition was filled with international filmmakers in the advanced phase of their careers, well into the autumn of their lives.

For starters, the combined age of three directors who made some of the festival’s strongest films was 235: Manoel de Oliveira, 92; Jacques Rivette, 73; and Jean-Luc Godard, 70. Other major directors whose new work premiered in Cannes included Chilean-born, Parisian-based Raul Ruiz, 60, whose “Savage Souls” will be released this year by Paramount Classics; Japan’s veteran director Shoei Imamura, 76; and Italian Ermanno Olmi, 69.

What’s exciting about these directors is not only that they’re still alive and kicking--though, that’s an achievement, too--but that they have made their most mature, subtle and poignant work. This double achievement is an anomaly in Hollywood today. With the notable exception of Robert Altman, 76, and John Frankenheimer, 72, it’s hard to name older American filmmakers who still enjoy viable careers, let alone make good or vital pictures. What has happened to Sidney Lumet, Arthur Penn and Blake Edwards, all talented directors at the forefront of American cinema two decades ago, but now in decline--or out of work?

Hollywood’s obsession with youth has always been the bane of aging performers, particularly women. But in the last two decades, that shadow has fallen behind the camera as well, onto directors and writers. Commercial American cinema has become extremely cruel to its aging practitioners, even the gifted ones. In contrast, it’s no coincidence that the three aforementioned directors who excelled in Cannes are all European.

The first Godard film to be shot in Paris in decades, “In Praise of Love” (Eloge de L’Amour) was one of the most eagerly anticipated premieres at the festival, mainly because Godard hasn’t made a feature in years. For the last decade, he has lived in a Swiss village, making films that were hermetically sealed from the rest of the world. Much of his production was for television, and his film work received scant distribution, including the ambitious multisegmented “Histoire du Cinema.”

“In Praise of Love” signaled a return to form by a celebrated master with a film that recalls his 1960s groundbreaking essay-like features. Densely rich in textual and subtextual connotations to Godard’s earlier work and to 20th century art history, “In Praise” is a rigorously structured meditation on love, aging and the role of language and memory in shaping human consciousness, past and present.

Like Godard’s vintage films, “In Praise”--which has been picked up for distribution in the U.S. by Manhattan Pictures--is a poetic essay that’s complex yet serene, combining criticism and fiction, interwoven in a format that expresses melancholy rather than protestation and anger. In short, it’s a self-reflexive movie that could have been made only by a mature artist.

Oliveira Makes Almost a Film a Year

The enduring career of Portuguese director Oliveira is one of the wonders of the modern film world. He still makes a film almost every year--a productivity level matched by few except Woody Allen. In “Voyage to the Beginning of the World” (1996), Oliveira coaxed a touching performance from Marcello Mastroianni as a Portuguese director who revisits his childhood.

In the new film at this year’s Cannes festival, “I’m Going Home,” eloquent French actor Michel Piccoli brings similar understatement and subtlety to his portrayal of Gilbert, a dignified actor who has devoted his entire life to the theater. Like Godard’s film, there are autobiographical elements in the story of an aging, ethical actor who sadly realizes the world is slipping from his grasp.

After a performance of an Ionesco play in which he shows regal command, Gilbert is told that his family has been killed in a car accident. He embraces a lifestyle of solitude, brightened by the presence of his surviving grandson, vehemently refusing to indulge in any old age follies. Showing disdain for the new mores, he declines a lucrative offer to appear in a TV series on principle; Gilbert belongs to a vanishing breed of professionals who prize their commitment to the classics, disregarding the pursuit of riches and fame.

It’s tempting to say that it was worth waiting for “Va Savoir!” (Who Knows)--Rivette’s first feature in years. Resplendent from the first frame to the last, “Va Savoir!” is the jewel in Rivette’s crown, a film that in its artistic quality and subtlety resembles Jean Renoir’s “The Rules of the Game” and Ingmar Bergman’s “Smiles of a Summer Night.” This superbly acted ensemble piece, which chronicles the fables and foibles of an Italian theatrical company performing in Paris, focusing on its leading actress and her lover-director, was the most fluently staged and enjoyable film shown in Cannes. Sony Classics will release the film in the U.S.

A leader of the French New Wave, this controversial, uncompromising filmmaker has made few, mostly unorthodox films. A former Cahiers du Cinema critic, Rivette began his career as an assistant to Renoir and cameraman for Francois Truffaut and Eric Rohmer, directors who have influenced his sensibility. “Va Savoir!” marks Rivette’s 19th feature in a career that began 40 years ago.

A glance at Cannes’ program of recent years shows that the only veteran major American director to be in competition during the last decade is Altman, whose “Kansas City” premiered in the 1996 festival. Altman has had an erratic career, but at least he’s still working.

Hollywood directors past the age of 60 have a hard time financing their projects or practicing their skills. This may explain why most of the publicity that George Cukor generated while directing what turned out to be his swan song, “Rich and Famous,” was about his age--82. Similarly, a lot was written about John Huston’s age when he made his last three pictures: “Under the Volcano” (1984), “Prizzi’s Honor” (1985) and “The Dead” (1987)--all three among his best and all made when the director was in his late 70s and early 80s.

Unlike many American directors, who reach the peak of their creativity in the first decade of their careers, European directors continue to develop their skills and refine their singular vision up to their death. Take Luis Bunuel, an innovative filmmaker who got better as he grew older with his provocative satires that attacked the Catholic Church and middle-class morality with ferocity, irony and humor. In the last decade of his career, Bunuel’s biting criticism mellowed, but he still spoke with a bold voice.

Film scholar Robin Wood once observed that visual style in American movies has become more assertive, but no more personal. Recent Hollywood films such as “Pearl Harbor,” “Swordfish” and “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” all display aggressive style, but their directors (Michael Bay, Dominic Sena and Simon West, respectively) are interchangeable, because their movies are impersonal products lacking distinctive vision.

This may be the most significant contrast between American and European cinema, which tends to be more personal and expressive. French filmmaker Robert Bresson, who died in 1999, made great, personal films well into his old age. Bresson never made films casually: “L’Argent,” made at the top of his idiosyncratic form in 1983, when he was 76, was only his 13th feature in a four-decade career.

A Stroke Fails to Stop Antonioni

Perhaps the best example of a tenaciously creative director--one who refuses to succumb to age--is Italian master Michelangelo Antonioni. A stroke felled Antonioni in 1985, but instead of sinking into despair he went back to work, reaffirming his motto: “To direct is to live.”

At 83, in 1995, Antonioni showed his creativity in “Beyond the Clouds,” a film that flaunted a glamorous cast and dealt with tangled sexual relationships. When insurance companies refused to guarantee the project, the producers hired director Wim Wenders as a standby. But from the very first day, Antonioni was in full control, angry at any interference. It became a totally Antonioni film, reflecting his uncommon vision.

Oliveira, Rivette, and Godard, like Antonioni, demonstrate in their new works that cinematic creativity knows no age boundaries. Functioning as philosophers with a camera, they have cultivated what has become a rare sight in Hollywood: a subtle yet entertaining cinema of ideas.