Cannes Film Festival Opens with Fittingly Lavish ‘Great Gatsby’
Baku, May 15 (AZERTAC). The 2013 Cannes film festival opens on Wednesday with Baz Luhrmann`s 3D version of "The Great Gatsby", a lavish throwback to the "Roaring Twenties" that befits the glamour and excess of the world`s biggest cinema showcase. The Australian director`s adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald`s novel starring Leonardo DiCaprio surprised some Hollywood insiders, because Cannes traditionally launches on the palm-lined French Riviera with a splashy world premiere. But "The Great Gatsby" has already opened in the United States to mixed reviews and solid box office, potentially dampening buzz surrounding the start of 12 days of screenings, champagne-fuelled parties and dealmaking. Stars expected to face a phalanx of flash bulbs along the red carpet include Michael Douglas, Matt Damon, Ryan Gosling, Emma Watson and Bollywood veteran Amitabh Bachchan. Their pictures will undergo one of the most gruelling tests in movie making - pleasing Cannes` notoriously picky critics who regularly boo as the credits roll if they are unhappy. And behind the scenes at the event, up to 40,000 film professionals will be seeking to buy and sell the next box office hit at the most important movie market of the year.
Also in focus is Joel and Ethan Coen`s "Inside Llewyn Davis" about New York`s gritty 1960s folk music scene, James Gray`s "The Immigrant", Jim Jarmusch`s vampire movie "Only Lovers Left Alive", and Alexander Payne`s "Nebraska". French filmmakers are also well represented with five films in the main competition, including Roman Polanski`s French-language "La Venus a la Fourrure" (Venus in Fur), a backstage drama starring his wife Emmanuelle Seigner. Two Japanese movies are in the running and one each from China, Chad, Mexico, Iran, Tunisia, Italy and the Netherlands while Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn`s "Only God Forgives" with Ryan Gosling in a Thai gangland thriller is creating buzz. Critics have earmarked "Le Passe" by Iran`s Asghar Farhadi and "Like Father, Like Son" by leading Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda as strong domestic dramas. Farhadi won an Oscar for best foreign language film in 2012 for "A Separation". Despite criticism of an all-male lineup last year, only one woman director has made the 2013 competition. Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, sister of former French first lady Carla Bruni, is in the field with "Un Chateau en Italie".
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