The Next Attraction Is Only A Distraction

Michael Hedges May 22, 2019 Follow on Twitter

Nothing shows star power better than the Cannes Film Festival, underway through the rest of this week. The industry knows it and plays it with all their might. Big names under bright lights adorn the red carpet, night after night, day after day. Fans arrive, hoping for a glimpse. Photographers arrive, hoping for a shot that makes a front page.

Cannes has changed, adapted, over the years but never more than in this decade. The parties have not stopped but producers and directors cavorting with starlets is far less in evidence. The MeToo Movement put everybody on notice to keep their hands to themselves. Taking “selfies” on the red carpet was banned in 2015. Last year Netflix’ productions were effectively banned. Coming to grips with a changing world has brought in rules.

“Cinema was born to be experienced in a communal experience,” said Cannes jury president and esteemed filmmaker Alejandro González Inarritu in remarks to open the festival’s 72nd running. It is a point that bears some reflection. Motion pictures, most certainly, coexist with theaters, which have been part of civilization for 25 hundred years, as places for public performance. People gathered, artists performed.

All media have in their genesis that communal experience. As literacy expanded the precursor to the newspaper was affixed to castle walls in the 15th Century for all to read. Alas, it was the original billboard. Within a hundred years the printing press allowed people to share more widely. Invention, it has been said, is the mother of invention.

The first medium not designed as communal was the telephone. While early telegraphy required multiple operators, the telephone device was individual. Later, listening-in on a telephone conversation was generally considered impolite. The internet and, then, mobile phones are the offspring of the telegraph.

Radio, a bit more than 120 years in existence, was invented and developed as a communal experience. People gathered around the radio; some still do. As radio receivers became smaller, less expensive and portable, ear buds arrived. Within the last century television entered the global consciousness, also as a communal medium. In many respects, television remains a collective medium, with everything to see.

“That’s a real problem,” continued Mr. Inarritu in a separate interview with the New York Times (May 16). “How many of the films we are lucky enough to have the privilege to see here in Cannes will make it to the world, accessible to Joe Smith in Arkansas? These great stories can empower him to grow in every sense, but when will they be available, and how? Some of the films will only get to you through streaming services, but I think the big problem is that when it comes to the way films are being produced, distributed and exhibited, the system is homogenized. It leaves almost no space for other kinds of films in the world. The easy way out has been to blame Netflix. They have been the scapegoat. But my point is that there’s nothing wrong with Netflix. Netflix is capitalizing on the lack of diversity in cinemas and putting it on TV.”

Social media, an affect of this century, has changed the idea of what is communal. Or, perhaps, social norms have changed the notion of community allowing social media to define the common discourse. Everybody performs, loudness prevails. The Cannes Film Festival was interrupted last weekend by the final episode of Game of Thrones.

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