Here are a few photos from the Cannes Film Festival final ceremony. Late last week, two films premiered at Cannes and those two films ended up picking up some big prizes, so now I feel bad for not paying more attention. The two films: Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here, which stars Joaquin Phoenix, and the German-language film In the Fade, starring Diane Kruger. Both Phoenix and Kruger picked up acting awards in Cannes, and Sofia Coppola became the second woman in history to win the Best Director gong for The Beguiled. I’m including photos of Diane Kruger (in a custom Jonathan Simkhai gown) and her director Fatih Akin, plus Joaquin and a pic of Sofia from earlier in the festival, because Sofia didn’t go to the closing ceremony. Here’s the list of awards:
Palme d’Or: “The Square” (Ruben Östlund)
Special Prize: Nicole Kidman
Grand Prix: “BPM (Beats Per Minute)” (Robin Campillo)
Director: Sofia Coppola, “The Beguiled”
Actor: Joaquin Phoenix, “You Were Never Really Here”
Actress: Diane Kruger, “In the Fade”
Jury Prize: “Loveless” (Andrey Zvyagintsev)
Screenplay — TIE: “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” (Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthimis Filippou) and “You Were Never Really Here” (Lynne Ramsay)
Kidman got a special prize because she was the princess of Cannes, and she had like a half-dozen projects she was promoting. I’m surprised that Coppola won Best Director – I read a lot of reviews coming out of Cannes, and while critics liked The Beguiled, they didn’t necessarily love it. I think maybe this was a situation of Sofia being in the right place at the right time, and Cannes wanting to give the award to a female director this year.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
Whoa! Joaquin cleaned up quite a bit, didn’t he?
I read that Joaquin had on sneakers because he had already packed up his dress shoes and did not expect to win. He’s often a mess [in many ways] but a heck of an actor.
@ third ginger – totally agree. He seems to live on some other planet, psychologically, but he is a fantastic actor. I’ve never seen him “phone it in” or be anything less than totally committed in a role.
He’s a strict vegan and doesn’t wear leather
Have you seen him in The Master? Absolutely mind-blowing. And the film stayed with me for months, a bit like Leviathan.
The best description of Joaquin belongs to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler at the Golden Globes when they said that his movie Her takes place in not such a distant future which is great becaise so does Joaquin Phoenix. But serioisly he is an amazing actor and despite everything I had a crush on him ever since Gladiator.
Rooney was right there next to him, and the two were actually really cute together. They seem officially official now.
Yes. I’m surprised at how cute they were.
Joaquin seems like he is in a good place. A lot of the film critics on twitter said he was being very affable and seemed happy, and apparently he mentioned Rooney a bit. Both of them looked pretty loved up.
I still side-eye him for being friends with Casey Affleck and other awful people, but I’ve never rumors of him doing anything truly terrible a la Casey.
Maybe the Casey Affleck thing was due to them being in-laws?
Casey was friends with Joaquin first. Joaquin set him up with his sister.
I am rather surprised about Kruger. Obviously, I haven’t seen the movie, but she’s always struck me as a very average, not to say bad actress, more known for her sense of style than acting chops.
She won for her first role in german. Obviously I have not seen the movie but I think it’s nice story.
you should read up on the NSU killings…not a nice story. horrible.
This isn’t her first film in German, though. There once was an apparently forgettable film called “Merry Christmas”: WWI, opera singer couple, truce, Christmas trees and such.
In my opinion she is a much better actress in French than she is in English. I thought she was excellent in Farewell, My Queen and Disorder. As this role is in her native German, I wonder if it is the same kind of situation where she may be more comfortable/confident in one language as opposed to the other and it shows in her performance. Also, Akin is a really good director and sometimes fantastic directors can coax amazing performances out of even average performers (although I do think she is quite good in French).
Yes, I think her performances depend a lot on the language. She’s better in French films than in English speaking ones and I could imagine she’s just as good an actress or even better when she talks German.
I’m happy for her. I follow her on Instagram and she was so excited and proud last year when they were filming to be in her first German movie. Also Fatih Akin is an amazing director!
I feel the same way about Marion Cotillard.
Her best work is in french, “auteur” films (Anything for her, Farewell my queen, Frankie…). In my opinion, her american career is not that interesting. So ,yes, she’s actually a good actress, it’s just not really known outside of France.
I like Diane as an actress but I’m honestly surprised by this – the film was quite poorly reviewed, and the best I heard critics saying about her performance was that she didn’t suck/was ill-served by the script.
I saw several critics who were very meh about the film (shame since the director is normally excellent) but raved about Diane’s performance. Maybe it was one of those divisive wins? A lot of Cannes films tend to be kind of polarizing.
I’ve read several reviews calling it “white saviour”-y, in that the focus is solely on a white blonde lady stepping in for revenge when her husband’s community do nothing. Other reviews I’ve read have also mentioned that all other characters are basically bare sketches with nothing to do other than progress her character (one review called it a “solo project”) so it was probably made as a vehicle for her and it’s unsurprising she’s getting noticed if that’s the case. I like Akin as a director, but this film’s concept (and a lot of what I’ve read about its execution) has left me a bit :/
Good lord Sophia Coppola looks like my 60 year old posh French friend.
What a strange idea to dress like that. I’m all for having your style but this is puzzling.
Much prefer the denim breezy pants she was sporting the other day.
And here I was thinking about how fabulous Sofia looked! I guess it’s because I’m closer in age to your posh friend.😉
Lol. She is definitely not dressed for her age imo but also not for the event she’s in. I actually like those Chanel blazers but for a very classy cocktail party, not for Cannes.
I hope I did not come across as callous.
I thought The Beguiled was generally getting good reviews, barring a couple of critics (Variety, Vulture) who have made their dislike of Sofia Coppola’s style very clear in the past and disliked the fact that she took the story from the women’s pov.
This isn’t the first time one of her films won a major film festival prize either – Somewhere won the Golden Lion at Venice in 2010, so I doubt this is a ‘toss her a bone’ win any more than her muse Kiki winning for Melancholia was.
In the Fade’s theme is very current and valid right now in many ways – it’s about a woman whose family was killled in a nail bombing, but the victims are Muslim and the attackers are neo-nazis. I wouldn’t be surprised if Kruger was nominated for an Oscar with this role, even if she isn’t the best actress. It seems like the kind of movie that would win a lot of awards.
I haven’t seen In the Fade but just judging her from Inglourious Basterds and her interviews I would say she isn’t a great actress in German. She sounds stiff, unnatural and sloppy at the same time and doesn’t have good command over the language. But judges in Cannes most likely don’t speak German and aren’t able to tell.
I’m sorry come again?
German is her native tongue.
She sounds “stiff, unnatural, sloppy”. Funny you say that when this is the FIRST movie she’s done in German.
“Doesn’t have good command over the language?”
She’s German. It’s her native language. I assume it’s your native language too, so are you saying she never fully learned it? Was she a child actor who came to France or the US as an infant?
No, her German is perfect, she just doesn’t know how to use it properly as an actress. German isn’t the prettiest language and it takes some effort to make it sound good. You can always tell right away if a German actor took acting lessons or not. Diane didn’t have any voice training and it’s obvious in the way she speaks. It made her looks very out off place in Inglourious Basterds among all these classical trained actors ( it helped that Til Schweiger was there who also has no idea how to use the language ), especially when she was supposed to play an actress in that movie.
Omg, I didn`t even recognize Joaquin. The scruff is gone!
This may finally be Joaquin’s year! I’ve always had a crush on him (also since Gladiator, as someone mentioned upthread) and the man’s talent is undeniable.