Every year, the Cannes Film Festival program yields its riches. And every year, documentaries are kept to the selection sidebars, with the exception of just three over the years, two of which won the Palme d’Or: “The Silent World,” co-directed by Jacques Cousteau and Louis Malle in 1956, and Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” in 2004.
This year, out of 16 documentaries in the Official Selection, two are in the Competition, the first time nonfiction titles have joined that storied roster since Moore’s inclusion.
This is progress, but a quick glance at the latest Palme d’Or predictions reveals that Wang Bing’s “Youth” (marking the first 3.5-hours of an eventual 10-hour triptych) and “Olfa’s Daughters” from Kaouther Ben Hania are not high on the list of likely winners. Both are recognized by critics as boundary-pushing examples of the form but seem unlikely to become consensus award picks from Ruben Östlund’s eclectic Competition jury.
This year, out of 16 documentaries in the Official Selection, two are in the Competition, the first time nonfiction titles have joined that storied roster since Moore’s inclusion.
This is progress, but a quick glance at the latest Palme d’Or predictions reveals that Wang Bing’s “Youth” (marking the first 3.5-hours of an eventual 10-hour triptych) and “Olfa’s Daughters” from Kaouther Ben Hania are not high on the list of likely winners. Both are recognized by critics as boundary-pushing examples of the form but seem unlikely to become consensus award picks from Ruben Östlund’s eclectic Competition jury.
- 5/26/2023
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
Tár writer/director Todd Field discusses a few of his favorite movies with Josh Olson and Joe Dante.
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
You Only Live Twice (1967) – Dana Gould’s trailer commentary
Tár (2022)
Man With A Movie Camera (1929)
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Koyaanisqatsi (1982)
The Big Parade (1925)
Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)
The Crowd (1928)
Star Wars (1977)
The Servant (1963)
Parasite (2019) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Dennis Cozzalio’s review
The Three Musketeers (1973) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary
Figures In A Landscape (1970)
M (1931)
M (1951)
I Am Cuba (1964)
The Cranes Are Flying (1957) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review
Letter Never Sent (1960)
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965)
Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969)
The Towering Inferno (1974) – George Hickenlooper’s trailer commentary
The Great Waldo Pepper (1975)
The Sting (1973)
The World of Henry Orient (1964) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary
Thelma And Louise (1991)
Murmur Of The Heart (1971)
The Silent World (1956)
Opening Night (1977)
The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie (1976) – Larry Karaszewski’s...
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
You Only Live Twice (1967) – Dana Gould’s trailer commentary
Tár (2022)
Man With A Movie Camera (1929)
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Koyaanisqatsi (1982)
The Big Parade (1925)
Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)
The Crowd (1928)
Star Wars (1977)
The Servant (1963)
Parasite (2019) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Dennis Cozzalio’s review
The Three Musketeers (1973) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary
Figures In A Landscape (1970)
M (1931)
M (1951)
I Am Cuba (1964)
The Cranes Are Flying (1957) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review
Letter Never Sent (1960)
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965)
Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969)
The Towering Inferno (1974) – George Hickenlooper’s trailer commentary
The Great Waldo Pepper (1975)
The Sting (1973)
The World of Henry Orient (1964) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary
Thelma And Louise (1991)
Murmur Of The Heart (1971)
The Silent World (1956)
Opening Night (1977)
The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie (1976) – Larry Karaszewski’s...
- 1/10/2023
- by Kris Millsap
- Trailers from Hell
Who really was Jacques-Yves Cousteau?
For Baby Boomers and Generation Xers, Cousteau was part of the cultural universe. Not only did he take us on his explorations of life under on the sea on his beloved ship the Calypso, he and co-director Louis Malle mesmerized viewers with his Cannes and Oscar-winning 1956 documentary “The Silent World” (the first non-fiction film to win the Palme d’Or). He went on to win two more Oscars and 10 Emmys (from 40 nominations) for his television series and documentaries. Cousteau also managed to find the time to write 50 plus books. He co-invented the revolutionary Aqua-Lung which allowed longer deep-sea dives, created the environmental advocacy group the Cousteau Society in 1974 and, five years before his death in 1997, addressed the historical first Earth Summit.
Tthe new National Geographic documentary “Becoming Cousteau” from two-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker Liz Garbus reveals just how complex and complicated an individual the adventurer was.
For Baby Boomers and Generation Xers, Cousteau was part of the cultural universe. Not only did he take us on his explorations of life under on the sea on his beloved ship the Calypso, he and co-director Louis Malle mesmerized viewers with his Cannes and Oscar-winning 1956 documentary “The Silent World” (the first non-fiction film to win the Palme d’Or). He went on to win two more Oscars and 10 Emmys (from 40 nominations) for his television series and documentaries. Cousteau also managed to find the time to write 50 plus books. He co-invented the revolutionary Aqua-Lung which allowed longer deep-sea dives, created the environmental advocacy group the Cousteau Society in 1974 and, five years before his death in 1997, addressed the historical first Earth Summit.
Tthe new National Geographic documentary “Becoming Cousteau” from two-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker Liz Garbus reveals just how complex and complicated an individual the adventurer was.
- 12/1/2021
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
Jacques Cousteau was an adventurer, filmmaker, inventor, author, unlikely celebrity and conservationist. But for National Geographic’s “Becoming Cousteau,” director Liz Garbus focused on his legacy as an explorer.
Garbus chronicled the highs and lows of Cousteau’s life as an adventurer who was a dedicated conservationist and was highlighting climate change half a century ago.
To tell this story, Garbus partnered with editor Pax Wasserman to comb through Cousteau’s archival footage, and rather than use talking heads, Garbus and Wasserman let the explorer narrate this timely documentary.
Garbus and Wassterman spoke to Variety about their collaboration.
I grew up in the U.K, but wasn’t familiar with Jacques Cousteau, what did he mean to you growing up?
Liz Garbus: He certainly was on in the U.K. I think in some ways, that’s exactly why we made this film. For me, and I think people who...
Garbus chronicled the highs and lows of Cousteau’s life as an adventurer who was a dedicated conservationist and was highlighting climate change half a century ago.
To tell this story, Garbus partnered with editor Pax Wasserman to comb through Cousteau’s archival footage, and rather than use talking heads, Garbus and Wasserman let the explorer narrate this timely documentary.
Garbus and Wassterman spoke to Variety about their collaboration.
I grew up in the U.K, but wasn’t familiar with Jacques Cousteau, what did he mean to you growing up?
Liz Garbus: He certainly was on in the U.K. I think in some ways, that’s exactly why we made this film. For me, and I think people who...
- 10/27/2021
- by Jazz Tangcay
- Variety Film + TV
Jacques-Yves Cousteau had one of those faces that seemed to come from an earlier time — before the world wars, maybe even before the 20th century. It was a face so thin and tapered yet open, so creased with character, so French. The hawkish Gallic nose. The Aznavour eyes. The big wide stretchy geek smile that seemed to grin back at the entire world. Cousteau didn’t just popularize undersea diving as we know it; he created it. To accomplish what he did, he needed to be an athlete, a scientist, an inventor, an adventurer, a filmmaker, and a sea-dog ringleader. Somehow he was a man who fit each of those roles. Standing aboard his American-made vessel, the Calypso, in his red wool cap and bathing suit, surrounded by a crew of devoted French roughnecks, he looked too skinny to be a mere jock, too earthy to be a professor, too...
- 10/22/2021
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
Glenn here. Each Tuesday we bring you reviews and features on documentaries from theatres, festivals, and on demand. In celebration of not just the Cannes Film Festival, which launches this week, but also the release of my book Cannes Film Festival: 70 Years out now through Wilkinson Publishing, we're looking at the first documentary to win the Palme d'Or. The book is a glossy trip through history, looking at the festival's beginnings, the films, the moviestars, the fashions and the controversies. You better believe I convinced my editors on a double-page Nicole Kidman spread!
Despite the belief that documentaries are as rare among the Cannes line-up as rain in the desert, the Cannes selectors of old were particularly fond of them. Especially so through the 1950s and 1960s. That just happens to be where we find the first documentary winner of the Palme d’or, The Silent World, or Le monde du Silence.
Despite the belief that documentaries are as rare among the Cannes line-up as rain in the desert, the Cannes selectors of old were particularly fond of them. Especially so through the 1950s and 1960s. That just happens to be where we find the first documentary winner of the Palme d’or, The Silent World, or Le monde du Silence.
- 5/10/2016
- by Glenn Dunks
- FilmExperience
Werner Herzog's documentary about a triple murder in Texas is a compelling reflection on capital punishment
Many film-makers cut their teeth directing documentaries before moving on to features. Relatively few continue making them in tandem with their fiction work. Louis Malle is perhaps the most notable example of a director who did, and there is a fascinating and fruitful interplay between the two aspects of his career stretching from his first movie, Le Monde du silence, the film of marine exploration he co-directed with Jacques-Yves Cousteau in 1956, to his final film, Vanya on 42nd Street, in 1994, where it is hard to say whether it's a documentary about an Andre Gregory production of Chekhov in New York or a fictional film built around the play.
Born a decade after Malle and a key member of the German new wave that followed the French one, Werner Herzog's career has taken him along a similar path.
Many film-makers cut their teeth directing documentaries before moving on to features. Relatively few continue making them in tandem with their fiction work. Louis Malle is perhaps the most notable example of a director who did, and there is a fascinating and fruitful interplay between the two aspects of his career stretching from his first movie, Le Monde du silence, the film of marine exploration he co-directed with Jacques-Yves Cousteau in 1956, to his final film, Vanya on 42nd Street, in 1994, where it is hard to say whether it's a documentary about an Andre Gregory production of Chekhov in New York or a fictional film built around the play.
Born a decade after Malle and a key member of the German new wave that followed the French one, Werner Herzog's career has taken him along a similar path.
- 3/31/2012
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Chicago – It’s difficult to find a thematic trilogy with a conclusion as triumphant and potent as “Au Revoir Les Enfants.” The 1987 fact-based drama emerged as one of the great masterpieces in the career of Louis Malle, a giant of the French New Wave perhaps best known for his intimate two-character piece, 1981’s “My Dinner With Andre.” His films possess a purity and authenticity unmatched by many of his peers.
After a few critical and financial disappointments in America, Malle decided to get back in touch with his roots as a documentarian in the mid-80s (he won the Palme d’Or at age 24 for co-directing Jacques Cousteau’s “Le monde du silence”). Soon afterward, he returned to France and finally tackled the project he had promised to make once he was ready to do it justice. The plot of “Enfants” was directly inspired by an indelible memory from the director’s childhood.
After a few critical and financial disappointments in America, Malle decided to get back in touch with his roots as a documentarian in the mid-80s (he won the Palme d’Or at age 24 for co-directing Jacques Cousteau’s “Le monde du silence”). Soon afterward, he returned to France and finally tackled the project he had promised to make once he was ready to do it justice. The plot of “Enfants” was directly inspired by an indelible memory from the director’s childhood.
- 3/23/2011
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.