Cannes Classics 2013

Jean Cocteau, 20th Century Fox, Liz Taylor and Richard Burton, the World Cinema Foundation, a 1964 Palme d’or, Ted Kotcheff and Duddy Kravitz, birthdays and celebrations, Yasujirō Ozu, the return of Lino Brocka and Sembène Ousmane to Cannes, the Munich Olympic Games, a meet up with Alain Resnais, a Grande Bouffe and a bit of Saké will be the ingredients for Cannes Classics 2013.

As cinema’s link to its own history was about to be turned upside down by the arrival of digital and because films from the past are an integral part of the Festival de Cannes, 2004 saw the creation of Cannes Classics, a programme presenting old films and masterpieces from cinematographic history that have been carefully restored. A natural, vital part of the Official Selection – and an idea which has made its way into other international festivals – Cannes Classics is also a way to pay tribute to the essential work being down by copyright holders, film libraries, production companies and national archives throughout the world.

Thus, Cannes Classics lends the prestige of the Festival de Cannes to great works from the past, accompanying their release in theatres or on DVD.

The films selected for the 2013 edition will be screened in the company of those who restored the films as well as those directors that are still with us today.

This year’s programme of Cannes Classics is made up of twenty feature-length films and three documentaries. The films will be screened according to the wishes of copyright holders in 35mm, DCP 2K or DCP 4K.

As announced previously, Kim Novak will come to present the restored print of VERTIGO by Alfred Hitchcock. Furthermore, the Cannes Classics 2013 program will be placed under the sign of a movie having marked the history of the Festival de Cannes LA GRANDE BOUFFE by Marco Ferreri, who aroused during her presentation in 1973 one of the biggest scandals of Croisette.

 

 

The films will be screened according to the wishes of the copyright holders, in 35mm, DCP 2K or DCP 4K.

• To mark the 50th anniversary of one of the best known and most controversial epics in the history of the cinema, 20th Century Fox, in partnership with Bulgari, presents a restored copy of Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s CLEOPATRA (1963, 4h03).

Digital restoration was carried out in 4K by 20th Century Fox. The screening will take place in the presence of Richard Burton’s daughter Kate Burton, and Chris Wilding, Elizabeth Taylor’s son.

• The film of the 1972 Munich Olympic Games: VISIONS OF EIGHT (1973, 1h49) by Youri Ozerov, Milos Forman, Mai Zetterling, Claude Lelouch, Arhur Penn, Michael Pfleghar, John Schlesinger, and Kon Ichikawa. Presented by the International Olympic Committee.

Digital restoration 4K from the original negative by Warner Bros. Motion Picture Imaging, Burbank. Sound restoration from the original magnetic tracks by Audio Mechanics, Burbank.

• LA REINE MARGOT by Patrice Chéreau (1994, 2h39) presented by Pathé.

Twenty years have passed since Patrice Chéreau, produced by Claude Berri, shot La Reine Margot, which he presented at Cannes the following year. Now twenty years on, ten years after serving as Chairman of the Jury, Patrice Chéreau returns to the Croisette, in the company of some actors from the film, including Daniel Auteuil, member of the Cannes 2013 Jury.

Ahead of the 20th anniversary of the film’s release, Pathé restored the film in 4K in 2013 and entrusted the work, under the direction of Patrice Chéreau, to Eclair Group for the image and L.E Diapason for the sound.

• As part of Cannes 2013’s celebration of the centenary of the birth of Indian cinema, RDB Entertainments presents CHARULATA (1964, 1h57), one of the masterpieces of Satyajit Ray (1921-1992), a filmmaker who figured in the world pantheon from his beginnings and whose work is gradually being restored in his country of origin.

The film is presented in a copy restored from the negative, restoration supervised by RDB Entertainments and carried out in Studios Pixion in Bombay, India.

• Another celebration, that of the 110th anniversary of the birth of Japanese filmmaker Yasujirô Ozu: Schochiku Studios continue the restoration of his immense body of work with the presentation of SANMA NO AJI (AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON) (1962, colour, 2h13), the filmmaker’s last film.

Digital restoration by Shochiku Co., Ltd., the National Film Center and the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. The film will be distributed in France by Carlotta Films.

• LE JOLI MAI by Chris Marker and Pierre Lhomme (1963, new length 2013: 2h25) distributed by La Sofra and Potemkine Films.

When the project to restore Le Joli Mai was launched, Chris Marker was still with us. He died on 29th July 2012, and the Cannes screening of this film, now very rare, will be a tribute to the filmmaker by the Festival de Cannes and his friends, including Pierre Lhomme, co-director of the film who also supervised the restoration.

The photochemical restoration followed by digitization and restoration of the original film in its complete version were carried out by Mikros Images with the support of CNC/Archives Françaises du Film. According to the wishes of Chris Marker, Pierre Lhomme, co-director of the film, then made some twenty minutes of cuts for the restored version.

The 2K scans, and restoration of the image and sound were carried out by the Mikros Images laboratory.

• GOHA by Jacques Baratier (1957, 1h18)

As it does every year, Archives Françaises du Film du CNC present one of their restorations of French film heritage. This year the honour goes to a rarely seen filmmaker, Jacques Baratier, director of the 1967 film Le Désordre à vingt ans, thanks to the support of his daughter Diane. It should be recalled that Goha, presented at Cannes in 1957 under the Moroccan flag, was Claudia Cardinale’s first film  and that Omar Sharif, who came to Cannes for the first time with Youssef Chahine, appeared in it as Omar Cherif.

Restoration from the negative by Archives Françaises du Film du CNC in collaboration with Diane Baratier. Digital restoration of the sound (originally in mono).

• The indefatigable Martin Scorsese carries on with the restoration of historical masterpieces of contemporary film from New York, thanks to the Film Foundation. While waiting to see his next excursion into Italian film, it turns out he has found the financing to present a 4K restored copy of Francesco Rosi’s LUCKY LUCIANO (1973, 1h55).

Restoration financed by the Film Foundation and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and carried out by the Cinémathèque de Bologne at the L’immagine Ritrovata laboratory, in collaboration with Cristaldi Film and Paramount Pictures.

• IL DESERTO DEI TARTARI (THE DESERT OF THE TARTARS) by Valerio Zurlini (1976, 2h20).

Taken from the novel by Dino Buzzati, The Tartar Steppe brings together Vittorio Gassman, Philippe Noiret, Max von Sydow, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Francisco Rabal, and Fernando Rey, not forgetting Jacques Perrin who produced the film. No longer possible to screen, it was time to restore it.

Digital conversion by Digimage Classics. 4K Image restoration from the original negative with the consent of Cinecitta and under the supervision of Luciano Tovoli, the film’s director of photography. Sound restoration by Gérard Lamps. Produced by Galatée Films and distributed in France from 12th June by Les Acacias. World sales: Pathé International.

• THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ by Ted Kotcheff (1974, 2h)

Known worldwide as the director of the first Rambo, Ted Kotcheff (born 1931 in Toronto) is also the stage director of the great Australian classic Wake in Fright (1971), Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe (La grande Cuisine, 1978) and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, with Richard Dreyfuss, who had a major international career. The film will be screened in the presence of Ted Kotcheff, the restoration and production crews, as well the staff of the Toronto international festival.

Digital restoration in 2K by the crew of Technicolor Creative Services Toronto. The film was cleaned frame by frame. Colour and sound correction was supervised by Ted Kotcheff. The project was financed by The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, Astral, Technicolor Creative Services Canada, Telefilm Canada, The National Film Board of Canada and  La Cinémathèque Québécoise.

• LES PARAPLUIES DE CHERBOURG (THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG) by Jacques Demy (1964, 1h31)

Following on from La Bataille du Rail by René Clément and Il gattopardo (The Leopard) by Luchino Visconti, here comes another Palme d’or now reserved and visible in digital. As part of the exhibition taking place at the Cinémathèque française (until 4th August 2013), a restoration of the complete filmography of Jacques Demy.

A digital restoration in 2K from the 2K scan of the trichrome selection, made by Ciné Tamaris at the Digimage laboratory, with the support of the Festival de Cannes, LVMH, the City of Cherbourg, the Basse-Normandie region and a crowd-funding campaign on kisskissbankbank. All the restoration work was supervised by Agnès Varda and Rosalie Varda-Demy. Mathieu Demy supervised the calibration.

• HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR by Alain Resnais (1959, 1h32)

Last year saw Alain Resnais presenting Vous n’avez encore rien vu (You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet) in competition, and this spring 2013, he is shooting his new film, Aimer boire et chanter. Hiroshima mon amour was his first fiction film, produced by Anatole Dauman, whose daughter Florence looks after the catalogue, and presented at Cannes in 1959. Here we see him presented reborn in sparkling digital form.

The restoration in 4K was carried out from the original negative by Argos Films, the Technicolor Foundation, the Groupama Gan Foundation and the Cineteca di Bologna, with the support of the CNC. It was supervised by the director of photography Renato Berta. The work was done by L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory with manufacture of conservation materials as well as digital and 35 mm copies for distribution. Scheduled for re-release in French cinemas on 17th July 2013.

• BOROM SARRET by Ousmane Sembene (1963, 20’) and MANILA IN THE CLAWS OF LIGHT by Lino Brocka (1975, 2h04) will be presented by the World Cinema Foundation, an association launched in Cannes in 2007 by Martin Scorsese and a number of filmmakers, in order to restore treasures from around the globe, especially from those countries that have no tradition of heritage preservation.

Sembene Ousmane’s short film has been restored by the L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory and the Éclair laboratory, in collaboration with the Institut National de l’Audiovisuel. Lino Brocka’s film was digitally restored in 4K also by L’Immagine Ritrovata, supported by the Philippines National Council.

• THE LAST DETAIL by Hal Ashby (1973, 1h44)

To mark the occasion of the 40th anniversary of its cinema release, Sony Pictures is giving a second lease of life to one of the great American films of the 1970s: Hal Ashby’s The Last Detail, by now unwatchable on the big screen. It will be recalled that Jack Nicholson won the Male Acting prize when the film was presented at Cannes in 1973.

Digital restoration in 4K by Sony Pictures carried out by Grover Crisp at Sony Pictures Entertainment – Sony Pictures Colorworks. Cinema release scheduled for November 2013 by Park Circus Films.

• THE LAST EMPEROR 3D (LE DERNIER EMPEREUR) (1987, 2h43) by Bernardo Bertolucci

Restoration in 4k by Recorded Picture Company and Repremiere Group in Technicolor Rome’s laboratories. The restoration was supervised by Bernardo Bertolucci, by the producer Jeremy Thomas and the cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. The conversion to 3D was done by Prime Focus.

• FEDORA REMASTERED by Billy Wilder (1978, 1h50)

FEDORA is Billy Wilder’s second-to-last film and was originally presented Out Of Competition in Cannes in 1978. It is one of Wilder’s most underestimated films and can been seen as the testimonial of the great director of “Sunset Boulevard” and “The Apartment”. It stars Academy® Award winner William Holden ("Stalag 17", "The Bridge on the River Kwai") and Marthe Keller ("Marathon Man") in the lead roles, next to a roster of high-caliber international stars such as Henry Fonda, José Ferrer, Frances Sternhagen, Michael York, Hildegard Knef and Mario Adorf.
Restoration by Bavaria Media in cooperation with CinePostproduction, Germany. The source material for the restoration were the original picture negative and sound elements. Custom solutions in the 2K digital restoration workflow were designed with the aim to preserve the original look of the work in the new release for cinema and BluRay.

• PLEIN SOLEIL by René Clément (1960, 1h55)

The film was restored in 4K by Studio Canal and La Cinémathèque francaise with the support of the Franco-American cultural fund (DGA, MPAA, SACEM, WGAW). The work was done by L’Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna.

Marking fifty years since the death of Jean Cocteau

Jean Cocteau was Chairman of the Festival de Cannes Jury and was a great contributor during the fifties with his constant efforts and his part in making it what it rapidly became. Cocteau died in 1963 and will be commemorated in 2013: the writer, poet, painter, and diarist. Cannes will be paying tribute both to the man and to the filmmaker with a special evening screening of La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast), selected at Cannes in 1946, followed by Opium, a musical comedy directed as part of the Cocteau year by Arielle Dombasle which recounts the loves of Raymond Radiguet and Jean Cocteau in the early 1920s.

LA BELLE ET LA BETE (BEAUTY AND THE BEAST) by Jean Cocteau (1946, 1h34)

Digital restoration carried out by SNC / Groupe M6 and La Cinémathèque française, with the support of the Franco-American cultural fund.

OPIUM (2013, 1h15) a musical comedy directed by Arielle Dombasle and produced by MARGO cinéma, with the support of Pierre Bergé and Canal Plus. With Grégoire Colin, Samuel Mercer, Julie Depardieu, Hélène Fillières, Niels Schneider, Philippe Katrine and Anna Sigalevitch. French release in October 2013 (Ad Vitam).

TWO DOCUMENTARIES SCREENED AT THE BUNUEL THEATRE

• CON LA PATA QUEBRADA (2013, 1h23), a documentary by Diego Galán produced by Enrique Cerezo P.C and El Deseo. From the thirties to the present day, a chronicle on the representation of women in Spanish film, which is also a look back at the country’s history.

• A STORY OF CHILDREN & FILM (2013, 1h40) by Mark Cousins is the first global portrait of children in the cinema. Using excerpts from 53 films from 25 different countries, this documentary is a “infantile” sequel to THE STORY OF FILM : AN ODYSSEY by the same director. A documentary produced by Mary Bell and Adam Dawtrey of BofA Productions.

Lastly, in a tribute to Joanne Woodward (whose presence is still unconfirmed), whose picture appears with her husband Paul Newman on the poster of the 66th edition, the Festival will screen a film that she has produced and which she wanted to show: SHEPARD & DARK by Treva Wurmfeld (2013, 1h29).

In addition, Cannes Classics will also be part of Cinéma de la Plage where the following restored films will be shown:

CINEMA DE LA PLAGE

JOUR DE FETE de Jacques Tati (France, 1949, 1h27)

Digital restoration in 2K by Les Films de mon Oncle

THE GENERAL de Buster Keaton (1926, 1h18)

Digital restoration in 4K made by la Modern Videofilm under the supervision of Cohen Film Collection.

THE BIRDS d’Alfred Hitchcock (1963, 2h09)

Restauration in 4K made by Universal Studios Digital Services to mark their Centenary. (2012)

SIMEON (1992, 1h55) d’Euzhan Palcy

Euzhan Palcy’s film will be screened to mark the 2013 centenary of the poet Aimé Césaire.

LE GRAND BLEU (THE BIG BLUE) (1988, 2h16) de Luc Besson

Digital restoration in SCOPE made by Gaumont in partnership with the Eclair Group laboratory.

THE LADIES’ MAN de Jerry Lewis (1961, 1h35)

Digital copy from the restoration of the negative carried out by Technicolor for Paramount and Swashbuckler Films.

L’HOMME DE RIO (THAT MAN FROM RIO) de Philippe de Broca (France, 1964, 1h52)

Restoration in 2K supervised by TF1 Droits Audiovisuels with the support of the CNC. Re-released on cinemas on 29th May and in DVD, Blu Ray and VOD on 15th May.

SAFETY LAST (USA, 1923, 1h13) de Fred C.Newmeyer and Sam Taylor

Restoration by Janus Films, Criterion and Harold Loyd Entertainment.