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...Pierre Billard's historical survey D'or et de palmes; le Festival de Cannes (Gallimard, 1997), and recent attempt to produce an ethnographic study of the festival in a collection edited by Emmanuel Ethis entitled Aux Marches du palais: le Festival de Cannes sous le regard des sciences sociales (La Documentation francaise, 2001). Within Anglo-American academia the festival is even less visible. Kenneth Turan's useful overview of film festivals Sundance to Sarajevo: Film Festivals and the World They Made (University of California Press, 2002) does include a chapter devoted to Cannes which provides a lucid distillation of the festival's changing identity. However, as film critic for the Los Angeles Times Turan avoids sustained analysis in favour of rather light-hearted reports. Whilst his work provides an engaging and suggestive depiction of the workings of the festival and what it feels like to be part of this "grueling, crowded, complicated, unforgiving [event] ... likened by a survivor to 'a fight in a brothel during a fire'" (13), it makes little contribution to an understanding of the place of the festival in French and global film cultures, its particular constructions and representations of cinema and the competing discourses which have shaped its agenda. Strikingly Cannes is very rarely mentioned in academic accounts of film history. Even those works devoted specifically to French cinema make little or no mention of the festival. It seems likely that this absence is partly a symptom of the festival's increasingly international and commercial reputation which sits uneasily with the tendency exhibited by the majority of these works to focus on the national and the non-commercial (the construction of a distinctly French auteur or art cinema). Indeed this apparent paradox--the fact that arguably the most important date on the French film calendar is an international, commercial festival--lies at the very heart of my interest in Cannes. It poses a whole series of questions about what we mean by French cinema, its place in a global film industry and how it sets out to construct and maintain an identity within this context.
Before embarking upon a discussion of the festival it is, I believe, necessary to say a few words about French cinema and the various discourses which have shaped its identity and indeed to underline the central role cinema plays in French cultural life. This is evidenced by a number of factors including long-standing government sup port for the film industry and attempts to claim cinema as a part of a specifically French patrimoine. Whilst most countries marked the centenary of cinema in 1996, France celebrated a year earlier, tracing the birth of the medium back to the first screenings of the Lumiere brothers in 1895. Although the notoriety of Cannes may tend to eclipse other cinematic gatherings in France, it is in fact one of around 170 film festivals currently held annually in metropolitan France. The diversity of these events, both in terms of subject and geographical location, is striking indeed. Festivals include the Rencontres du Cinema Italien held in Bastia in February, the Festival International du Film Documentaire sur la Ruralite in Ville-sur-Yron in May, the Festival du Film Marin in Saint-Cast-le-Guildo in September, and the Festival International Train et Cinema held in Lille in November.
It is perhaps self-evident that these gatherings, for the most part, will not attract the crowds or the coverage dedicated to Cannes. However their sheer number bears witness to a thriving cinematic culture in France which extends well beyond the level of production. This is a culture of reception, of discussion, indeed of the celebration of cinema and it can perhaps be traced back to the cine-club movement of the 1920s and, in particular that established by Travail et Culture and encouraged by Bazin in the years following World War Two.
A number of ethnographic and / or sociological studies have emphasised the central role cinema plays in French cultural life like Olivier Donnat's Les Pratiques culturelles des Francais (La Documentation francaise, 1997) and Jean-Michel Guys' La Culture cindmatographique des Francais (La Documentation francaise, 2000). It is worth mentioning that the recent collection on Cannes edited by Emmanuel Ethis was, like the two studies named above, supported by a number of public bodies, in this case the Ministere de la Culture et de la Communication, the Direction de l'Administration Generale and the Departement des Etudes et de la Prospective. In a series of forewords to the volume the directors of these bodies reveal their reasons for supporting the collection. Thus Catherine Tasca, then Ministre de la Culture et de la Communication stresses the importance of Cannes: Le Festival de Cannes eblouit par son prestige. Plus de cinquante ans apres sa creation, il ne cesse d'operer une extraordinaire force d'attraction sur tousles
createurs et sur tousles publics du cinema dont on sait la place eminente qu'il tient dans les pratiques culturelles de nos concitoyens. (qtd. in Ethis 7) [The Cannes festival is dazzlingly prestigious. More than fifty years after its creation, it continues to be extraordinarily
attractive to all those who create and view the cinema which holds such a central place in the cultural practices of our fellow
citizens.] Meanwhile Paul Tolila, director of the Departement des Etudes et de la Prospective states: Si le Departement des Etudes et de la Prospective a soutenu ces recherches, c'est bien sur parce que le cinema tient une place majeure dans les pratiques
culturelles des Francais et que la culture cinematographique constitue un element fondamental de l'education artistique dans notre pays ... (qtd. in Ethis 17) [If the Ministry supported this research, it was of course because cinema holds an important place in French cultural practices...
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