Moore Wins Top Prize At Cannes

AP ^ | 5-23-04

[My Favorite Headache]

CANNES, France - American filmmaker Michael Moore (news)'s "Fahrenheit 9/11," a scathing indictment of White House actions after the Sept. 11 attacks, won the top prize Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival (news - web sites).

AP Photo

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AFP Slideshow: Cannes Film Festival

'Fahrenheit 9/11' Wins Cannes' Top Prize (AP Video)

"Fahrenheit 9/11" was the first documentary to win Cannes' prestigious Palme d'Or since Jacques Cousteau's and Louis Malle (news)'s "The Silent World" in 1956.

"What have you done? I'm completely overwhelmed by this. Merci," Moore said after getting a standing ovation from the Cannes crowd.

The grand prize, the festival's second-place honor, went to South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook's "Old Boy," a blood-soaked thriller about a man out for revenge after years of inexplicable imprisonment.

Moore was momentarily flabbergasted when he took the stage to accept the award, a big difference from his fiery speech against President Bush (news - web sites) after winning the best-documentary Academy Award for 2002's "Bowling for Columbine."

"You have to understand, the last time I was on an awards stage, in Hollywood, all hell broke loose," Moore said.

The best-actress award went to Maggie Cheung (news) for her role in "Clean" as a junkie trying to straighten out her life and regain custody of her young son after her rock-star boyfriend dies of a drug overdose.

Fourteen-year-old Yagira Yuuya was named best actor for the Japanese film "Nobody Knows," in which he plays the eldest of four sibling raised in isolation, who must take charge of the family when their mother leaves.

The directing and writing prizes went to French filmmakers. Tony Gatlif won the directing honor for "Exiles," his road-trip about a couple on a sensual journey from France to Algeria.

Agnes Jaoui and her romantic partner, Jean-Pierre Bacri, won the screenplay award for "Look at Me," their study in self-image centering on an overweight young woman who feels neglected by loved ones. Jaoui and Bacri also co-star.

"Fahrenheit 9/11" won the top award at a festival that sharply divided Cannes moviegoers, who found a solid crop of good movies among the 19 entries in the festival's main competition but no great ones that rose to front-runner status.

While "Fahrenheit 9/11" was well-received by Cannes audiences, many critics felt it was inferior to Moore's Academy Award-winning documentary "Bowling for Columbine," which earned him a special prize at Cannes in 2002.

Some critics speculated that if "Fahrenheit 9/11" won the top prize, it would be more for the film's politics than its cinematic value.

With Moore's customary blend of humor and horror, "Fahrenheit 9/11" accuses the Bush camp of stealing the 2000 election, overlooking terrorism warnings before Sept. 11 and fanning fears of more attacks to secure Americans' support for the Iraq (news - web sites) war.

Moore appears on-screen far less in "Fahrenheit 9/11" than in "Bowling for Columbine" or his other documentaries. The film relies largely on interviews, footage of U.S. soldiers and war victims in Iraq, and archival footage of Bush.

Just back in Cannes after his daughter's college graduation in the United States, Moore dedicated the award to "my daughter and to all the children in America and Iraq and throughout the world who suffered through our actions."

"Fahrenheit 9/11" made waves in the weeks leading up to Cannes after the Walt Disney Co. refused to let subsidiary Miramax release the film in the United States because of its political content. Miramax bosses Harvey and Bob Weinstein are negotiating to buy back the film and find another distributor, with hopes of landing it in theaters by Fourth of July weekend.

Moore said after the ceremony that he expected right-wing media outlets in the United States to characterize his prize as an award from the French, whose government opposed the U.S.-led war on Iraq. He noted that the nine-person Cannes jury that awarded prizes had only one French member and four Americans, including jury president Quentin Tarantino (news) and actress Kathleen Turner (news).

Many Americans now realize the French are "good friends of America who tried to do the right thing and tell us this was the wrong road," Moore said. "We owe the people of this country an apology for the way they were debased and treated in our media."

Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul's "Tropical Malady" — widely regarded by Cannes audiences as a snoozer for its elongated scenes of a man wandering a jungle alone, with no dialogue — won the festival's third-place jury prize.

Another jury prize went to Irma P. Hall for her role as an elderly Southern woman who foils a casino robbery in the Coen brothers' crime comedy "The Ladykillers," starring Tom Hanks (news) as the heist's ringleader.

Keren Yedaya's "Or," about a Tel Aviv prostitute in failing health and her teenage daughter, won the Golden Camera award for best film by a first-time director. The U.S.-born Yedaya, who grew up in Israel, gives lectures about the problems of prostitution for government officials and mental-health professionals.

Earlier Saturday, Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembene (news)'s "Moolaade," an examination of the ritual of female circumcision that earned rave reviews, won the top prize in a secondary Cannes competition called "Un Certain Regard."

The 12-day festival's closing film — "De-Lovely," Kevin Kline (news)'s musical biography of Cole Porter — screened immediately after the awards. Kline and co-star Ashley Judd (news) then hosted a beach concert featuring Sheryl Crow (news), Alanis Morissette (news), Natalie Cole (news) and other singers from "De-Lovely" performing Porter tunes.

The festival was to wrap up Sunday with encore screenings of award winners and other key movies that played the festival, including a combined, four-hour version of Tarantino's two "Kill Bill" installments.

[TC Rider]

"Fahrenheit 9/11" was the first documentary to win Cannes' prestigious Palme d'Or since Jacques Cousteau's and Louis Malle (news)'s "The Silent World" in 1956.

I'm sure he'll cherish it as much as his Palme d'Hair.

[TC Rider]

I see that your account has been closed. Gee...now there's a surprise.

Hey, somebody emailed it to him, it must be true.

/sarcasm

[hoosierham]

Plenum HAS raised points of view which should be either soundly refuted or wryly acknowledged; simply banning all who post controversial or unpopular messages is nothing but the totalitarian suppression of free speech. If the other posters here can't debate then the value of this site is questionable.

I have enjoyed and learned from the dissection and refutation of various posts plus other impassioned discussions that are rarely seen anymore.

Blandness is not a good thing.

If you desire free speech for yourself you must be willing to allow it for others.

[Jim Robinson]

No thanks. If you want to "debate" these idiots, you're certainly welcome to do it on DU or elsewhere. They're not welcome here. If we allowed them here, FR would soon look just like DU--a hell hole. No thank you. FR was created to be a troll-free zone. And this in no way hampers their rights to free speech. I'd never dream of attempting to get their boards shutdown. Freedom of association is also part of the first amendment and is worth defending.

[COEXERJ145]

Well I just learned something the hard way. Moore is god and to diss him in front of liberals is the unpardonable sin. I had my 3+ year old user name on Airliners.net banned for quoting Moore's statement about the Iraqi "minutemen". I was told that it violated the rules against "flame bait", "factually wrong posts", "harsh language", and "copyright violations".

(Of course Airliners.net only enforces these rules on those the moderates don't like, i.e. Americans and Conservatives.)

[sheik yerbouty]

Get bent, jihad lover!

[jonrick46]

I am sure there were lots of films that would have made Moore's film look like a fly on a pig's snout. When "Fahrenheit 9/11" wins something like this, for raw politics, what effect does it have on the other film producers? I am sure, behind the scenes, there are lots of people who are saying that the Cannes Film Festival was ruined by politics gone amuck.

The truth, if one could get the truth in these "Alice Through the Looking Glass" times, would reveal that many would see Michael Moore as more of a barbarian than a film artist. Many should have deep anger at the fact that all of their artistic efforts were overlooked for someone unworthy of the top award.

This award and the entire festival was used as an instrument to insure this propaganda hit film gets distributed to the American market before the elections. All the efforts by all those film artists whose hopes for recognition by the Cannes board were totally ignored for a agenda that has no place in the festival. Whoever orchestrated this effort should be exposed and their future position on the board terminated. As Donald would say, "YOU'RE FIRED!"

[Rocko]

Try an original thought.

[Squantos]

Europeeing's down our legs again........so the film fest isn't about art at all.......it's just a PAC in sheeples clothing ! Good we'll tax em in November !!

Stay safe MFH !

[potlatch]

[Squantos]

Well Now.....A well discliplined troll........ sure hid in yer hole a long time before ya showed yer true colors.

Ba Bye !

[potlatch]

France has banned all homosexual marriages

And they had already banned Muslim girls from wearing the head covering at schools. They are being strong in ways that we aren't!

[Brimack34]

go to hughhewitt.com and look under blogs. Northern alliance is who brought up the lies. I am not sure which one there are 4 or 5 sights under northern alliance.

[hosepipe]

[ Moore Wins Top Prize At Cannes ]

Says more about the people at Cannes than about Moore.

[Floratina]

That was beautiful. Thank you.

[Floratina]

Thank you, too! Great points.

[Diva Betsy Ross]

How is it they keep getting ways with calling his fictional movies documentaries?

[GBA]

I may be over generalizing in this specific case. None the less, logically responding to Plenum's post reminds me of attempting to discuss issues with someone who has memorized some talking points and their mission is to put them out as fast and as loudly as possible. They are not open to contrary opinion. They do not hear. They are not listening. They are only waiting for an opening to regurgitate more talking points.

Here's another example. I have heard Terry MacAwful on various radio talk shows and on the Sunday morning news programs. His purpose is to shout out as much of the Democrat's line as he can. When challenged, he just raises the emotional volume to shout down any logical opposition. James Carvelle (sp?) is another example.

Your language is similar. "Totalitarian suppression of free speech." Yikes! High emotional content, but severely lacking in fact based, logical content. For what it's worth, Plenum's post wasn't pulled. Those ideas, my comment and yours were all available to anyone wanting to read them. Sounds like free speech to me.

I hope that you continued reading. A couple of people, with much more patience than I had yesterday morning, took the time to argue each and every point Plenum had so diligently cut and pasted. And they were reasonably polite about it, too.

There you have it: Free Republic = Freedom of speech with class. And that's a group I would like to freely associate with.

[lillybet]

sunday news overhere Top film critic, said his last effort changed nothing, neither will this rubbish, so dont be worrying, Hes a bit hard on the eyes, are you sure hes American, check out the front page of the Sun newspaper April 8th 2003, now those guys are AMERICANS NO DOUBT , my favourtie pic,

[lillybet]

sunday news overhere Top film critic, said his last effort changed nothing, neither will this rubbish, so dont be worrying, Hes a bit hard on the eyes, are you sure hes American, check out the front page of the Sun newspaper April 8th 2003, now those guys are AMERICANS NO DOUBT , my favourtie pic,