Previous Issue
Issue 16
The Five greatest pub gardens in London
London’s pub gardens are under threat, so here are five glorious places to smoke, squint at a QR code, and inhale the absolute peak of Western civilisation.
By Gentleman's Journal
The Five Most ‘Cannes’ Moments in Cannes History
- Put down your cameras
- Festival de Chien
- There is such a thing as bad publicity
- Simone Silva Bears All
- Anything Involving Lars von Trier
Words By Joseph Bullmore
The Festival de Cannes is about film in the way that a crème brûlée is about nutrition. Sure, there’s some substance there. (Substance singular, I’ll stress.) But really it’s about the bitter-sweet casing around it; the brittle, moreish, glossy edge, which threatens to crack gloriously at any moment under the slightest pressure. Plus, you could never really make it at home. Cannes is defiantly, poutingly French in its attitude and strange traditions — a political absolutist at one moment; a flamboyant drama queen the next. And as such, it tends to conjure strange and wonderful moments that could only happen, one feels, down on La Croisette. Here, then, as the festival enters its second week, are some of the most ‘Cannes’ moments in Cannes history.
1. Put down your cameras
While promoting her 1983 film ‘One Deadly Summer,’ French star Isabelle Adjani decided she’d had enough of the paparazzi and bailed on the traditional post-press conference photo call. The photographers, long the true power brokers of the festival, decided to get their revenge when she arrived at the red carpet of the film’s premiere the next day: upon her arrival, every single one of them laid down their cameras and turned huffily away from the actress, ignoring her completely. A lovely parallel came many years later, in 2011, when legendary actor Jean-Paul Belmondo arrived outside the Palais — and every single photographer put down their cameras again, only this time so that they could applaud him.
2. Festival de Chien
One of the more esoteric (and surprisingly coveted) awards at the Festival is the ‘Palme Dog’ (a play on the top-prize ‘Palme d’Or’): a gong awarded to the best canine performer of the year. The prize, which takes the form of a studded dog collar, has been awarded each year since 2001, and was the brainchild of British film journalist Toby Rose. In 2021, it was awarded to Tilda Swinton’s own three springer spaniels — Snowbear, Dora and Rosy — who starred alongside the actress in ‘The Souvenir Part II.’
“I have to tell you honestly, this is the prize to get,” Swinton said on collecting the award. “We’ve been eyeing it for years. I tried to get the dogs here but they’re busy. I hear they’re on the beach in the Highlands of Scotland.”
In 2019. Quentin Tarantino received the award on behalf of the dog actress in ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’. “I have to say I am so honoured to have this,” the director said. “I’ve told everybody, I have no idea if we’re going to win the Palme d’Or. But I did feel that I was in good standing to win the Palm Dog. So I want to dedicate this to my wonderful actress Brandy. She has brought the Palm Dog home to America.”
3. There is such a thing as bad publicity
Cannes is known for its attention-seeking publicity stunts, many of which are gently ridiculous — like the time that Jerry Seinfeld jumped off the roof of the Carlton while dressed as a giant bee to promote his new animated film ‘Bee Movie’. “They tell me that Scorsese did the same thing last year for The Departed,” he joked afterwards. In 2016, meanwhile, after many years of jewel-heists, assaults and robberies at the Festival, a French company called Oraxy thought it would be a fun idea to send six men in terrorist-grade militia gear and black masks on a speedboat to storm the jetty at Hotel du Cap Eden-Roc in order, somehow, to promote its new broadband offering. It didn’t go down particularly well. In 2001, to promote the film ‘24 Hour Party People’ about the Happy Mondays, the marketing team took their inspiration from a scene in the biopic, in which Shaun Ryder accidentally poisons an entire flock of pigeons. And so they commissioned the creations of hundreds of worryingly realistic fake dead pigeons and dumped them onto the Majestic Beach — completely horrifying members of the public, who thought they were real. Chaos ensued. “A pigeon landed on the table of a top French TV honcho,” Variety reported at the time. “Security guards threatened the actors with cans of mace. Joel and Ethan Coen, also lunching at the restaurant, reportedly were highly amused.”
4. Simone Silva Bears All
In 1954, a young actress called Simone Silva was named ‘Miss Festival’, and headed to the beach to do a photoshoot with the megastar Robert Mitchum as part of a publicity tour. Things quickly got out of hand. Or in hand, actually. “All of a sudden her bra fell or she dropped it," Mitchum said at the time, before adding: “I just put my hands out just to hide her breasts from the camera,” which seems like a completely watertight defense. The stunt caused such a ruckus between the photographers vying to capture the moment that two of them ended up with broken arms, and when Silva started posting the resulting photos along La Croisette the next morning, she was banned from the festival for life — only to die three years later from a stroke at the age of 29.
5. Anything Involving Lars von Trier
Director Lars Von Trier may well be Cannes’ spirit animal — anarchic, experimental, sex-obsessed, and prone to bizarre outbursts. In 2011, just before a press conference to discuss Von Trier’s film ‘Melancholia’, his producer told him: “You made a great film. If you can just keep your mouth shut, you'll win the Palme d'Or.” Instead, Von Trier responded to a question about the film’s visual style with a bizarre monologue that culminated in the director saying “What can I say? I understand Hitler. I think he did some wrong things, absolutely. I sympathize with him a little bit” and then: “Ok, I’m a nazi.” For some reason, the Palm d’Or went to Terrence Malick instead.
Don't miss next week
Sign up to the newsletter
Get The Friday Five and the week's best stories straight to your inbox.