Today, May 16, 2013, the 66th Cannes Film Festival, one of the largest art events in France, officially opened. France prepares for this film festival more thoughtfully, carefully and professionally than anywhere else in the world. I have not had the opportunity to attend many film festivals, but at least I have been lucky enough to set foot in two of the largest film capitals, Los Angeles, where the American Oscars are awarded annually, and Cannes, where the Palme d'Or is awarded annually in France.
Since its inception in 1946, Cannes has hosted the film festival 65 times, an art-commercial activity that can be said to be the most bustling cultural activity of the year for the seventh art world from all over the world. The French were wise enough to choose Cannes, not any other place on the hexagonal land (I suddenly wondered why Vietnam did not choose Ha Long or Do Son?) to host the biggest festival for this charming and attractive art form. Because Cannes, with its 9 km long coastline and fine golden sand, is even more beautiful than Nice, a very famous coastal city in the Provence region, about 20 km away.
It is difficult to compare two famous places of the silver screen world in the two film powerhouses of France and the United States. Because while Los Angeles is a large, vast and spacious city, Cannes, on the contrary, is just a small, poetic town located on the Mediterranean coast, in the Côte d'Azur region. Los Angeles with the capital Hollywood has dozens of film studios, is both a place to make movies and a place to hold awards ceremonies, while Cannes, perhaps, is mainly just a place to hold the Film Festival.
How is the Cannes Film Festival different from the Oscars? It is difficult, because all comparisons are lame. We can only know that Cannes and Oscars may be different in terms of organization, but the common purpose of both is to honor the beauty and talent of the works, directors, actors and a series of other categories of a giant group that makes a film. If Oscar is simply an Awards Ceremony in its true sense, then Cannes, in addition to the above activities, is also a bustling and exciting fair. Coming to the Cannes Film Festival, people can participate in many activities: watching movies, meeting and interacting with the film crew, exchanging and buying movies, meeting between young filmmakers and sponsors, attending the awards ceremony; at Oscar, there is only one awards ceremony, attendees can only admire the actors and actresses from afar, but do not have the opportunity to interact and talk directly with them.
I don't know exactly how many cinemas there are in Hollywood, but in Cannes, a very small city, even just a town, there are cinemas everywhere. Not to mention that on festival days, right at the Palace of Fairs, around the Lumière Theater, there are dozens of satellite cinemas of all sizes, which can accommodate from fifteen to three or four hundred audiences, set up to serve the audience. Those who have had the opportunity to come to Cannes as a guest, meaning they were given a separate membership card (depending on the type), passionate about the seventh art, wanting to take advantage of the short ten-odd days of the Film Festival to see as many of the works being screened as possible, are no different from a marathon runner, after a day of tired legs, just like an athlete at the end of the race (unlike the Oscars, where films are screened sporadically throughout the year, viewers can even buy discs to watch before going to the theater to enjoy them and just wait for the awards ceremony to nervously compare the jury's decision to see if it matches their predictions?).
To have the opportunity to step into the Kodax Theater to witness the Oscar Awards (since 2013, due to the bankruptcy of the Kodax film company, the Oscar Awards ceremony has been moved to the Dolby Theater), it can only be famous figures in the film industry and the press, but to get an invitation to watch a movie at the Lumière Theater, it will probably be easier. Because during the 12 to 15 days of the Film Festival, at this luxurious Theater, apart from the final award ceremony, which is definitely the most difficult to get tickets for, for the remaining screenings of competing films, as long as you are an officially invited member, or know a member of the jury or the Organizing Committee, you can get a ticket. Of course, to be accepted to watch a movie at this theater, in order not to "burn a hole in your pocket", you must pay close attention to your clothes. The French are inherently "stylish", so if the "dress" is not polite enough, the security guard will definitely not let you in. Myself and a few friends who had the opportunity to go to the Lumière theater in 2008 “paid the price” for this. To walk on the red carpet, you had to have a black suit, tie, white shirt, black leather shoes (not necessarily a “big” guest). Because we were not fully prepared, we had to rent only one outfit each for a few hours, which cost us more than a hundred euros. In Vietnamese currency, that was about half of our monthly salary at that time. And with that amount of money, in Vietnam, one could buy a “genuine” suit like the one we rented from the store for “superstars” as the ostentatious, flashy sign of the French store owners (which we later bitterly called “New Thénardier”).
Dedicating an entire city (even though it is small, and usually held only once a year) to an artistic activity considered “the most important of all arts”, of course, the French do not only have the activity of showing movies. As a poetic seaside city located on the Mediterranean coast, Cannes is also an attractive and charming place with millions of tourists every year in the world. With long white sand beaches, clear blue water and an ideal year-round temperature of around 20 degrees Celsius, with hundreds of yachts of all colors, solemn and polite, with thousands of young men and women, Cannes is truly an ideal address for those who always have “plenty” of money in their pockets.
Regarding the artistic quality of films participating in the Cannes Film Festival and competing for the Oscar in Hollywood, I have heard many concerns from many people, even film experts: Which is more artistic, the Palme d'Or or the Oscar? And what criteria are used to award the award? It is indeed very difficult to distinguish and clearly evaluate the artistic quality of a film that wins an Oscar in Hollywood or a Palme d'Or in Cannes. I think both of these film capitals pay great attention to the artistic quality of a film. Cannes has a jury consisting of representatives of the most excellent filmmakers who watch and judge the awards during the festival. The Oscar has a jury of hundreds of people invited from many film centers along with experts from the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who watch and judge before the awards ceremony. However, according to some experts in the industry, people still think that the Palme d'Or values more the discovery, novelty and uniqueness of a film; while the Oscars seem to prioritize appeal and box office revenue. Of course, I think that is only relative, because through the reality of awarding the award in recent years, many Oscar films have been forgotten immediately after the awarding (and have no record in terms of revenue), and there are also Palme d'Or films that have not left much of an artistic mark on viewers and experts. Recently, people have commented that the Oscars have been "politicized" (for example, Argo in 2013), while Cannes has been "formalized" (paying too much attention to artistic expression and not enough attention to entertainment, for example, Uncle Boonmee in 2010 by Thai director Apichatpong). Oscars award more categories for films and filmmakers, Cannes is more selective. Oscars are mainly for American films (there is only one award for foreign films), but Cannes does not discriminate: any excellent film from any participating country has a chance to win. And another strange thing: since the Palme d'Or has been officially awarded until now (65 years), the US has definitely won more awards than the host country France (only counting from about 1946 to 1996, the US won 14, while France only had 7). So it seems that the French are completely objective and do not have any bias. Is that why, even though there is no official announcement, people have been "secretly" affirming that: The Palme d'Or is more "artistic" than the Oscars?