Whilst Cannes Film Festival is set to announce its line-up tomorrow, the big story is that Netflix is pulling all five of its films in response to the festival’s backtracking. It seems that the most prestigious of film festivals can’t make up its mind as to how to handle the film industry’s latest incomers.
After last year’s festival where the streaming platform Netflix presented two feature films in competition, Cannes subsequently banned streaming films from official competition only to go back on the decision and admit five Netflix films. Then in March 2018, in an interview with a French film website, Festival director Thierry Frémaux announced that Netflix films would only be screened out of competition. Word on the boulevard is that Netflix have in response pulled its films from the festival altogether.
All of which means that five potentially great films will be excluded: Alfonso Cuarón’s Mexico-set Roma, Jeremy Saulnier’s Alaskan thriller, Hold the Dark, starring Alexander Skarsgård, Paul Greengrass’ Norway, based on the white-supremacist killer Anders Breivik, and not one but two Orson Welles-related films (the documentary They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead and Welle’s unfinished final film The Other Side of the World – surely a coup for any festival).
When new kid on the block Netflix debuted its first films at Cannes last year – Okja directed by Bong Joon-Ho and The Meyerowitz Stories directed by Noah Baumbach (both brilliant) – both were booed during the title credits. Critics literally couldn’t wait to judge the films on their own merit. Instead it was all about principal: the assumption that films funded by streaming services signalled the death of cinema itself.
But do they? While for many people the big screen experience is no match for watching a film on a laptop, streaming services are a reality for which there is huge demand (Netflix alone has over 100 million subscribers worldwide). As long as people still have an appetite for going to the cinema (in the UK at least, cinema admissions are on the up) there is no reason why the two formats can’t co-exist.
Secondly, and perhaps foremost, the single biggest barrier to getting a film made is money. Not only does Netflix have pots of it (its content budget this year alone is a hefty $8 billion), it is willing to invest in films and documentaries that otherwise would not have been made. Take the Welles restoration, for example. “There would be no movie without them (Netflix). Every studio and financier in town passed on this film, for years,” said producer Frank Marshall. Furthermore, Netflix gives directors what they most crave: creative control.
Netflix is a company that can afford to take a risk where traditional studios might hold back. “There’s no mechanism to make a movie like Okja today outside of what we’re doing,” said Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos last year. “No studio would take that risk on a Korean director on a film that barely has any English language in it. And in my opinion while that may sound risky, putting it in the hands of director Bong? Not very risky at all.” Film’s new financier is clearly a man of taste.
In an ideal world all great films would get a theatrical release whether or not they are also streamed, however a theatrical release is no guarantee of quality. Moreover theatrical releases can also have distribution issues, as was the case with Bong Joon-Ho’s previous film Snowpiercer – the blockbuster-that-never-was. (Harvey Weinstein didn’t like the director’s cut – he deemed it “too clever” for a theatre audience and thus sabotaged its theatrical release.)
Whilst criticism of Netflix might stem from a passion for film, it seems that Cannes Film Festival is, to a certain extent, shooting itself in the foot with its protectionist attitude. If the purists are so in love with the art of film, why demean talented filmmakers with an out of competition slot and a likely showering of boos? And if the big screen is so essential, wouldn’t Cannes be the perfect opportunity to showcase a streaming film in large format?
It is ironic that the golden age of French filmmaking was the famous New Wave period of the 1950s and 1960s, famed for its out-with-the-old in-with-the-new attitude (see my post on Zazie in the Metro) where filmmakers rejected the conventional and conservative, breaking with tradition to produce experimental, radical films that addressed key social issues. To quote the website New Wave Film, “These filmmakers proved that they didn’t need the mainstream studios to produce successful films on their own terms.” Sound familiar?
In fact, the official poster for Cannes features a still from the New Wave film Pierrot Le Fou by Jean-Luc Godard (1965). It’s a gorgeous poster yet somewhat ironic considering the attitude of Cannes towards streaming.
Rather than put up barriers, why not work together to help ensure the longevity of cinema in all formats? The Netflix-produced Welles restoration is a great example of how streaming services can contribute to the legacy of cinema. This is a situation where a little bit of goodwill could go a long way.
Streaming platforms and their role in filmmaking are only set to become stronger not least as Apple has now joined the field promising an initial investment of $1bn in TV and film production. Banning Netflix films from competing at Cannes will do nothing to stem the tide.
Whilst it appears that Netflix have until now been doing their best to woo Cannes, the retraction of its films from the festival indicates a significant shift in power. It’s easy to imagine that next year it will be Cannes wooing Netflix and not the other way round.
There’s a lesson to be taken from Zazie in the Metro. Zazie’s dream is to come to Paris and ride the Metro only when she arrives there’s a strike and she finds herself locked out. What does she do with all that energy and thirst for adventure? She sets out on foot and creates a whirlwind of her own. Cannes: be warned!
Jeanie in the Metro 