“What are you doing up there?” asked his costar Chris Rock, from the dock on the beach below.
“I’m promoting a movie!” Seinfeld squawked.
Then he leaped off the roof of the eight-story hotel, bobbing and waving about as he glided down a cable over the cheering crowds to the beach.
That’s the International Cannes Film Festival, for you—glitter, glitz, stars on the red carpet (and the roof), and topless starlets on the beach. “For me, there were two things that have always made Cannes special: the extraordinary prestige and elegance of having a film in competition, and amazing stunts,” said Jeffrey Katzenberg, head of animation for Dreamworks. “We’ve had movies in competition, such as ‘Shrek.’ And we’ve had Angelina Jolie, Will Smith and Jack Black ride a blowup whale in the surf.”
And now Seinfeld buzzing overhead.
Cannes kicked off its 60th anniversary edition on Wednesday night with Chinese director Wong Kar Wai’s new movie, “My Blueberry Nights,” starring Jude Law and singer Norah Jones. The movie is one of nearly two-dozen films—including David Fincher’s “Zodiac,” Joel and Ethan Coen’s “No Country for Old Men,” and Emir Kusturica’s “Promise Me This”—vying for the Palme d’Or, the festival’s top prize.
“Maybe we’ll give no prizes this year,” cracked jury president Stephen Frears, the British director of “The Queen,” at the opening press conference. “Maybe we’ll refuse to sit in judgment!” His jury, which includes actors Toni Collette, Maggie Cheung, Maria de Medeiros, Michel Piccoli, directors Abderrahmane Sissako, Marco Bellocchio and Sarah Polley, and Nobel Prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk, cracked up.
Wong has long been a favorite at Cannes: he wooed them a few years ago with “In the Mood for Love,” and last year served as the festival’s jury president. So he was invited back this year to open the festival with his first English-language picture. It was a gamble. Three years ago, Wong gave festival organizers a collective heart attack when he delivered “2046” so late that he missed his screening slot (the schedule was re-jiggered to accommodate him). “We got the prints here yesterday,” Wong told journalists on Wednesday. “Everyone was surprised!”
The film is a sweet mood piece about a girl named Elizabeth (gamely played by Jones in her acting debut), who travels across the United States trying to cure her heartache. In the end, she finds that her true love was right in front of her all along. Wong was impressed by Jones’s innate acting ability. “Throughout the film, she asked, ‘Do I act?’ and I said, ‘No, be yourself.’ Then one day she had to do a scene where she had to cry. This time I said, ‘Now you have to act.’ And she said, ‘OK, give me a few minutes,’ and she came back and cried. Then she said, ‘Do you want to do one more?’ I thought, ‘This girl’s going to be an actress’.”
Wong was so late in completing the film that Jones and Law saw it for the first time at the black-tie premiere in the Palais des Festivals. “I’m absolutely thrilled, just thrilled,” Law told NEWSWEEK at the festival’s postscreening gala dinner. “It’s my first time in Cannes, and I’m proud that they invited our movie to be opening night. Standing on top of the red- carpet steps, looking out at the crowd tonight was the best, like I was getting married again.” And then Wong, Law and the rest of the crowd headed out to a celebratory Americana-themed blowout, replete with Airstreams, cheeseburgers and a giant rotating dance floor. But no bees.
