50 Years Ago This Week – “Fracas at the Cannes Film Festival”

The 1968 Cannes Film Festival opened on May 10 for what was supposed to be a two week run, with twenty-eight films screening in competition. It only made it through eight days and eleven of those entries, before shutting down on May 18. Jury President Louis Malle, along with François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard (with the support of others including Milos Forman and Roman Polanski), interrupted the film screenings to express solidarity with the massive protests that were taking place in Paris—the legendary May 1968 uprisings that saw millions of workers on strike, hundreds of thousands marching through Paris, and violent clashes between the police and student demonstrators.

The Cannes festival did not shut down quietly. As memorably described by Renata Adler, disputes between those who wanted the festival to continue and those who favored shutting it down were intense; in one uproarious scene, a young group of artists pulled the curtains shut to prevent one screening, looking “a little like the group planting the flag at Iwo Jima.“ Godard, who characteristically struck a position at odds with all parties, offered a very Godardian take on the controversy in the heat of the moment: “We’re talking solidarity with students and workers, and you’re talking dolly shots and close-ups. You’re assholes!” (Great footage of this and more can be seen here.)

What did New Wave filmmakers have to do with revolutionary fervor of May ’68? More than you might think. Three months earlier, they had their own bloody confrontation with the State on the streets of Paris—then in protest of the De Gaulle government’s abrupt and cavalier dismissal of Henri Langlois, co-founder and director of the legendary Cinémathèque Française. Langlois was a father figure to many in the New Wave, and the film community was upset. Very, very upset. “Without Langlois . . . there would be neither Cahiers du Cinema nor new wave,” the film journal editorialized. Cahiers mobilized in response, garnering the support of filmmakers around the world. “Protest this arbitrary action in the strongest possible terms,” read the telegram from Orson Welles, “will not permit screening of my films at Cinémathèque Française until further notice.” Nicholas Ray, Roberto Rossellini, Charlie Chaplin, and Samuel Fuller were among the hundreds of luminaries who supported the boycott—and showed up on the streets. On February 14, 2,000 protestors clashed with the police – Truffaut and Godard were roughed up, Bertrand Tavernier bloodied. Movie stars mingled with protestors; Claude Chabrol haggled with the cops; Jean-Pierre Léaud mesmerized the crowd with an impassioned speech. Decades later these events, including with a dramatic re-creation of Léaud’s call to arms, would form the backdrop for Bernardo Bertolucci’s film The Dreamers. (Roger Ebert’s review opened with the relevant context: “In Paris, what began as a protest over the ouster of Henri Langlois, the legendary founder of the Cinematheque Francais, grew into a popular revolt that threatened to topple the government. There were barricades in the streets, firebombs, clashes with the police, a crisis of confidence.” All this for a movie house? Yes. A. O. Scott describes how The Dreamers captured that now-distant moment when young people embraced the notion of “living in and through movies.”)

The streets eventually quieted, but the New Wavers did not abandon the struggle, forming a “committee for the defense of the Cinémathèque.” Remarkably, its efforts were successful, and Langlois’ dismissal was rescinded. From Truffaut’s perspective, with “the passing of time, it seems obvious that the demonstrations for Langlois were to the events of May ’68 what the trailer is to the feature film coming soon.”