FILM NEWS
Armstrong Coconut in Cannes
I am sat on the boardwalk sipping a disgustingly expensive cappuccino and pulling hard on a Gitanes. The sun slinks sexily into the sea like Scarlet Johansson into silk sheets. The opulence, the elegance is everywhere.
I can be in only one place - CANNES.
Everywhere is dripping with film. Actors parade full of fame, false fame, hopes and false hopes. Directors drip dastardly plots into the stratosphere of the stars, producers eye executives like forlorn prom princesses searching, in vain, for their king.
Everyday is night, every night is a first date: full of that tingle that frisson of excitement that you might, just might, before dawn, before the pulsating quick burst of fortune's fever get, yes, just for a minute before the clock strikes twelve and your shoes, the costume, everything, becomes a wash of dreams and made up insincere moments of unrequited love, a kiss.
Oh, my God, THIS IS CANNES.
Like seagulls we, the ladies and gentlemen of the press, swim by the trawler waiting for the fishermen to throw from the side sardines. Our crumbs of comfort the new films, the well-rehearsed and trailed delights that we have been sent forth to find, devour, digest and then review. Even those we hate, we will love. Why? Because this is Cannes!
Charles Volti, the well known Italian director/producer of "Il Fluto, Que Jasper!" and "Margo el copo in morto" said once "Cannes, she a women. Wear a best the dress and half all beautifuls." I can barely imagine what he would have thought on seeing Cannes now.
Oh, knowing Cannes. Oh, wild incoercible beauty. You most delightful pleasure!
We sit waiting for the films and my cappuccino chills like a chaffinch settling under a tree in winter, only I am not in winter, I am in summer where, perpetually, it is this season where sun and sky and beach and, oh, glamour into once place plunge like a diver into ocean under a carpeted rouge of fame and far flung fulfilment of dreams.
I am in the only place where the gods and mortals still sit together at one table, although I have no doubt that their playgrounds are very very different places.
It can be the only, the one and only, Cannes.
