Every year (as I understand it) the Cannes Film Festival jury panel has a different President. This year it’s Sean Penn. Helping to clarify things, Penn has let it be known in advance that the panel will not consider any film for the Palm d’Or (basically their Best Picture award) if it lacks a hip, now political message.
According to UK’s Telegraph: “Penn said it was impossible to separate film from politics, and promised that the winning film would be a reflection of the current climate.” [emphasis mine]
Of course, this has actually been true for a while now, so maybe we should just be glad that somebody sufficiently arrogant got in there to admit it. One still remembers Quentin Tarantino’s less than credible assertion when the panel he chaired awarded to Palm d’Or ot Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, wherein he said that the film’s politics had absolutely nothing to do with it winning the award.
I leave it our your imagination whether Penn means only a political message he himself would agree with. I think even most democrats and liberals would admit that Penn is an outright, and often borderline insane, leftist. (Which makes his bitching that he’s being “discouraged from smoking” following France’s recently implemented smoking ban, pretty damn hilarious. He did, however, chain smoke his way through the press conference wherein he made this complaint, apparently without being arrested.)
Ironically, Penn’s father was blacklisted back in the ’50s (although in his case, not entirely without cause). You’d think perhaps that this would make his son more fervently fight for the separation of art and politics. On the other hand, his pop was a Stalinist, so I guess he really did learn at his father’s knee. All Penn needs is to start outright calling for Social Realism in all Art, lest it be decadent and counter-revolutionary.
Guess not.
