People usually ask me if I met some actors in Cannes during the Festival. Yes I did, but that’s not the most juicy part of the tale.
The really interesting thing that no journalist tells is that it’s all fake: all this inaccessibility is actually just a way the Cannes Council uses to let people talk about this event on which they spend a lot of money.
If people knew Actors are around, make shopping and go to restaurants it would all become something usual, like in London and Los Angeles.
Cannes is a nice little town that lives on tourism and for 10 days a year earns the attention of the World: they can’t afford an actor to walk alone the 200 meters that separate the Hotel Martinez from the Palais.
So at a certain time of the afternoon the main street is closed and the police start bottle up the pedestrians.
All of a sudden you can’t walk freely anymore: you’re stopped to let pass cars of the Festival that care VIPs.
Policemen force passers by to press themselves against the barriers of the Hotel Martinez (from where the cars of the Festival pull off), and this increases the mess.
Then start to come passers by who are attracted by all this concentration of people.
Confusion becomes frenzy to see and take pictures of someone known passing in the cars.
From a balcony of the hotel a young lady waves her arm to the people like a goddess, and all of us take pictures of her enthusiastically, even thought she’s too far to understand who she is.
The black cars of the Festival come and go from the hotel, all now, but who’s inside them? Hard to say, because the wind shields are darkened.
Isn’t it strange? This event is based on the opportunity for normal people to see some actors just a few meters from them: darkening the screens doesn’t make any sense.
Unless…
I bend a little, in an uncomfortable position and the Sun on my face. From there, I can see the inside of the cars that slowly pass by in front of me, and…
they’re empty.
All this people are jubilant and fight to take pictures of empty cars.
So there aren’t any actors at all? No, they’re in the not obscured screen cars.
It’s the idea of the inaccessibility of these people that makes them fascinating: the guy who until a few minutes ago was just getting an ice cream in the main street now is surrounded by bodyguards to protect him.
But is the Festival itself that made up this need for security.
It’s all fake: last year I was cueing for the screening of a film, and behind me there was the Actress of Notte Prima degli Esami Oggi. I didn’t remember what her name was, so I didn’t say anything.
I get into the cinema, I sit down and I have a mega screen where they show in real time what happens outside, and here is the Actress who a few minutes ago was cueing with me, now on the red carpet, to let the photographers take pictures of her, and all of a sudden inaccessible.
And here’s another news: what happens when an Artist hasn’t time to go to the Hotel Martinez and for any reason is already at the Palais, without doing his crowd bath?
Then there’s a secondary entrance that leads them in a reserved area, where one of the official cars takes them, does roughly 150 meters to circle the Palais and leaves them in front of the photographers and the crowd.
The really interesting thing that no journalist tells is that it’s all fake: all this inaccessibility is actually just a way the Cannes Council uses to let people talk about this event on which they spend a lot of money.
If people knew Actors are around, make shopping and go to restaurants it would all become something usual, like in London and Los Angeles.
Cannes is a nice little town that lives on tourism and for 10 days a year earns the attention of the World: they can’t afford an actor to walk alone the 200 meters that separate the Hotel Martinez from the Palais.
So at a certain time of the afternoon the main street is closed and the police start bottle up the pedestrians.
All of a sudden you can’t walk freely anymore: you’re stopped to let pass cars of the Festival that care VIPs.
Policemen force passers by to press themselves against the barriers of the Hotel Martinez (from where the cars of the Festival pull off), and this increases the mess.
Then start to come passers by who are attracted by all this concentration of people.
Confusion becomes frenzy to see and take pictures of someone known passing in the cars.
From a balcony of the hotel a young lady waves her arm to the people like a goddess, and all of us take pictures of her enthusiastically, even thought she’s too far to understand who she is.
The black cars of the Festival come and go from the hotel, all now, but who’s inside them? Hard to say, because the wind shields are darkened.
Isn’t it strange? This event is based on the opportunity for normal people to see some actors just a few meters from them: darkening the screens doesn’t make any sense.
Unless…
I bend a little, in an uncomfortable position and the Sun on my face. From there, I can see the inside of the cars that slowly pass by in front of me, and…
they’re empty.
All this people are jubilant and fight to take pictures of empty cars.
So there aren’t any actors at all? No, they’re in the not obscured screen cars.
It’s the idea of the inaccessibility of these people that makes them fascinating: the guy who until a few minutes ago was just getting an ice cream in the main street now is surrounded by bodyguards to protect him.
But is the Festival itself that made up this need for security.
It’s all fake: last year I was cueing for the screening of a film, and behind me there was the Actress of Notte Prima degli Esami Oggi. I didn’t remember what her name was, so I didn’t say anything.
I get into the cinema, I sit down and I have a mega screen where they show in real time what happens outside, and here is the Actress who a few minutes ago was cueing with me, now on the red carpet, to let the photographers take pictures of her, and all of a sudden inaccessible.
And here’s another news: what happens when an Artist hasn’t time to go to the Hotel Martinez and for any reason is already at the Palais, without doing his crowd bath?
Then there’s a secondary entrance that leads them in a reserved area, where one of the official cars takes them, does roughly 150 meters to circle the Palais and leaves them in front of the photographers and the crowd.
It's true, but it says more about our relationship to celebrity than about the organisers! I've occasionally found myself in queues and chatted with people only to be asked afterwards, "Do you really know X, Y or Z?" You will also find a few minor celebrities that actually walk to the Palais, plus I've run into Catherine Deneuve, Michel Drucker, Shaggy, Almodovar and others in the street. That's not the same as "meeting" them.
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