Cannes in the Evening
In less than two months the core of the artistic family of film will descend upon the Cote D’Azure to join in the most prestigious film festival in the world. The relaxed attitude and beautiful scenery combine for an event that reveres not just the brilliant past of film, but the incredibly exciting future of it as well. In order to celebrate the moment and incite anticipation for this event I've chosen to focus on a particular year that saw the emergence of one of indie film's most exciting auteurs, while solidifying the career of one of film's most important directors and the kindred association between the two. I believe that in film, there is a grand family made up of the creators and the viewers that never ceases to give us some of the finest stories and experiences.
Jim Jarmusch
The story begins with Nicholas Ray who many fanatics of film remember as a bastion of Film Noir who was responsible for Rebel Without a Cause. In his final years he gained a rather unique student named Jim Jarmusch, a student who knew from the moment he began his education in film that he could never stick to the style most expected from Hollywood. Ray didn’t particularly approve of Jarmusch’s uncanny and dreamlike approach to film and when he was provided the script of Jarmusch’s thesis film he said it was too abstract and lacked proper action. This only spurred Jim to go back and make it even more devoid of action, much to the chagrin of Ray who would eventually approve as it showed that the young director was truly sovereign in his ways. The administration at New York University, on the other hand, were so disapproving of the final product that they decided not to award Mr. Jarmusch with a degree and so to this day we will always know him as an official film school dropout.
Stranger Than Paradise
However, Ray then chose Jarmusch to be his personal assistant and asked him to be his accompaniment as he was filmed for the documentary about Ray's final days Lightning Over Water. This documentary was a film by Wim Wenders, another director who considered Ray to be a tremendous influence. Through the experience on set he came to respect and admire the young Jarmusch whom he took on as a mentee. Offering to supply the leftover film stock from his 1982 film Der Stand der Dinge he enabled Jarmusch to create the short film that eventually became the first third of the feature length Stranger than Paradise; a film about a European traveling to the United States in earnest from Hungary to start a new life and begins by visiting her cousin in New York who emigrated a decade earlier and had quickly assumed the lifestyle of a typical American. It is a beautiful film that looks at the American Dream and the power of perception and desire. This brings us back to our original theme of the 1984 Cannes Film Festival where Wim Wenders, a prominent German director traveling to the United States himself, showcases his love for the American West and the journey a lost man takes to reform his life and restart the family that he has broken up in his own unfortunate rage of jealousy.
Paris, Texas
Paris, Texas is a story of love, loss, and redemption that features incredible performances from Harry Dean Stanton, Dean Stockwell and Natassja Kinski, daughter of Klaus Kinski who is no stranger himself to the Cannes Film Festival. It features many moments of heartfelt beauty that make it a cinematic experience you will remember for years to come. I mention these two films because the 1980’s are sometimes derided as the ‘sandwich year’ in film in that it is stuck between two of the most successful decades of Cinema in the 1970’s and 1990’s. However, I think this was actually a more pivotal time in film than we often allow. When most of the film industry was starting to consolidate into the pursuit of Box Office dollars we had two directors who were searching for something original and it led to films that, we realize now, started the conversation about where independent film was heading. When Roger Ebert described Wim Wender’s film he remarked “Paris, Texas is a movie with the kind of passion and willingness to experiment that was more common fifteen years ago than it is now. It has more links with films like Five Easy Pieces and Easy Rider and Midnight Cowboy, than with the slick arcade games that are the box-office winners of the 1980s. It is true, deep, and brilliant.”
Jim and Wim
The great critics were yearning for this type of originality. Looking back we had two of the finest directors in modern times erecting the footing for a rejuvenation of independent film. This laid the foundation for a style of film that audiences have come to respect and enjoy in the years succeeding. I certainly don't mean to make it seem as though I’m implying that the Box Office winners this year were bad for film, after all this was the year that could be described as the year of the cult classic. Just look at some of the titles that arrived in 1984: Ghostbusters, The Karate Kid, Footloose, Beverly Hills Cop, This is Spinal Tap, Gremlins, The NeverEnding Story, Sixteen Candles, The Terminator and even Prince’s Purple Rain.
Wim Wender's hands outside the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès.
You can argue that it was a great year for films that saw Box Office success, but was surely a pivotal point in Independent Film and showed that America was on the verge of it’s own New Wave resurgence. Returning to Roger Ebert, he said in his assessment of Stranger Than Paradise that it “Is like no other film you've seen, and yet you feel right at home in it.” He feels right at home because indeed the great generation of 70’s, and before, was not dead, it was just merely finding a new host. In 1984 Paris, Texas won the Palm D’Or at Cannes to signify the most impressive film of the entire festival and Stranger than Paradise took home the Camera D’Or celebrating the best first feature film of a new director. This was symbolic as not just the rewarding of two great directors, but a trumpets call to film lovers. Cinema was not hibernating for a decade, but instead building the bedrock for a generation of great filmmakers that would continue to revolutionize the exquisite and delightful art form of film for many years.