Hitting 60 with savoir-faire

The Festival de Cannes turns 60 this year and, as befits a festival of a certain age, it’s not making too much of a fuss about it. You know, just inviting some friends over to show their films, no big deal.

But because this festival remains the world’s preeminent cinema occasion, a 10-day event where this year it’s possible to watch 3D versions of both John Wayne’s 1953 “Hondo” and a contemporary U2 concert, its idea of not making too much of a fuss is not the same as everyone else’s.

So Cannes’ opening film tonight, “My Blueberry Nights,” is not just whatever festival favorite Wong Kar Wai could throw together, it’s the Hong Kong auteur’s first work in English, an American road movie that is also the first starring role for singer Norah Jones.

American films, as it turns out, are some of the most anticipated, from “No Country for Old Men,” the potentially combustible combination of the Coen brothers and novelist Cormac McCarthy; to the always combustible Michael Moore, whose “Sicko” takes on the American healthcare system; to “A Mighty Heart,” the story of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl with Angelina Jolie starring as his wife, Mariane, and Michael Winterbottom directing. And that’s not all.

Also from America’s shores, among others, are “We Own the Night,” starring Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg, the first film in seven years from director James Gray; “Ocean’s Thirteen,” the third “Ocean’s” epic in six years; Gus Van Sant’s “Paranoid Park”; and “The 11th Hour,” yet another global warming documentary, this one co-written and fronted by Leonardo DiCaprio.

But even though Cannes is not doing a ton to celebrate (“no return to the past, deadly commemoration or blissful self-congratulation” in the words of President Gilles Jacob), that doesn’t mean the festival is just sitting on its hands. Set for Sunday is “To Each His Own Cinema,” a specially commissioned compilation film composed of three-minute shorts from 33 directors from 25 countries and five continents, everyone from Theo Angelopoulos to Zhang Yimou, all having the motion picture theater as their subject.

Also seriously festive is the official 60th-anniversary poster. Inspired by the famous jumping photographs of Philippe Halsman, photographer Alex Majoli asked film celebrities to leave the ground and then designer Christophe Renard constructed a montage of nine jumpers, including Pedro Almodovar, Penelope Cruz, Gerard Depardieu, Samuel L. Jackson and Bruce Willis. The poster is in shop windows all around Cannes and several versions of it blanket the entrances to the Palais des Festivals.

Getting into the anniversary spirit, a local casino is offering a sampling of 60 years of Cannes photos from Paris Match, the French Life magazine, and L’Oreal has put up a billboard announcing it has been the official makeup of the festival for 10 years. Even a local fruit distributor is offering apples packaged with “Cannes Select” stickers on them. “Unique in the world,” announced a vendor in the Marche Forville, the local equivalent of a farmers’ market. No one was about to argue.

All this notwithstanding, no one comes to Cannes for the apples. Film professionals come to get hints of what the future has in store, which is why New Line is showing scenes from “The Golden Compass,” the forthcoming adaptation of the Philip Pullman novel, just as it did with “Lord of the Rings” in 2001.

People also come to catch first glimpses of small gems like “The Band’s Visit,” the first theatrical feature for Israeli writer-director Eran Kolirin. Displaying a deadpan comic sensibility, the equivalent of having the Scandinavian “Kitchen Stories” transplanted to the Middle East, Kolirin shows what happens when Egypt’s Alexandria Police Ceremonial Orchestra visits Israel and no one picks the members up at the airport. Droll and low-key, “Visit” tells its strangers in a strange land story in a way that is amusing and pointed.

Though Moore’s “Sicko” will likely get the lion’s share of the publicity, this year’s festival has numerous promising documentaries. Ken Burns’ 14-hour “The War” gets big-screen exposure, and Variety film critic Todd McCarthy contributes “Man of Cinema: Pierre Rissient,” an examination of the man the official program calls “the least known massively influential person in international cinema.”

Also of a documentary nature is Mike Kaplan’s spirited “Never Apologize: A Personal Visit With Lindsay Anderson.” This record of a one-man show by the actor and commanding storyteller Malcolm McDowell examines his 25-year relationship with the director who gave him his film start in “If ...” and “O Lucky Man!,” offering charming anecdotes as well as insights into the actor-director relationship.

Finally, for those who can’t get enough of cinema in all its manifestations, there is always the Marche, the marketplace where films that sometimes lack the most imposing credentials get bought and sold. On tap this year are “Jesus on Line Four,” “30,000 Leagues Under the Sea” (for those who thought 20,000 wasn’t enough) and the ever-popular “Road Ragin’ Zombie Chicks.” Nuff said.

kenneth.turan@latimes.com