The studio deliberated. Cannes is the world’s largest film festival, but Venice is the oldest and classiest. Besides, Kubrick clearly preferred it. “Venice had favored-nation status with Stanley,” says producer Julian Senior. Kubrick had sent “A Clockwork Orange” there in 1971, and in 1997 the festival gave him a lifetime achieve- ment award. Studio executives reasoned that Venice could be the perfect launch pad for the movie’s European release this fall.“Sounds like a good idea,” Kubrick said. He died three days later, on March 7.
On Wednesday the film’s stars, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, as well as Kubrick’s widow, Christiane, will glide up the red carpet of Venice’s Palazzo del Cinema to help kick off the 56th Venice Film Festival, an 11-day event with enough Hollywood star wattage this year to light up the entire lagoon. The 17 films in competition include Antonio Banderas’s directorial debut, “Crazy in Alabama,” a Columbia TriStar offering starring his wife, Melanie Griffith, as a wanna-be movie star who offs her abusive husband. There are also two Miramax entries: Jane Campion’s “Holy Smoke,” a comedy about cult deprogramming, with Harvey Keitel and Kate Winslet; and Lasse Hallstrom’s adaptation of the John Irving novel “The Cider House Rules,” with Charlize Theron and Michael Caine.
The out-of-competition offerings are no less star-studded. Along with “Eyes,” Venice will show the world premiere of Woody Allen’s latest film, “Sweet and Lowdown,” with stars Sean Penn and Uma Thurman on hand, as well as David Fincher’s controversial “Fight Club” (next story). In addition, Martin Scorsese will unveil the first half of “Il Dolce Cinema,” his three-hour documentary on the history of Italian film.
For actors and directors, attending Venice is like a ride in a gondola. Unlike Cannes, where tens of thousands of screaming fans mob celebrities and B-movie hucksters loiter in hotel lobbies, the Venice Film Festival is calm, civilized and elegant. “Venice is fun,” says Rick Sands, chairman of worldwide distribution for Miramax Films. “There’s no hype, no selling. You can direct your attention purely to the films. You can play there. You even get to sleep a little bit.” Tom Cruise has been spotted practicing his topspin on the Hotel Excelsior tennis court and Andie MacDowell swatting a paddle ball on the Lido beach. Chinese director Zhang Yimou (“Raise the Red Lantern,” “Farewell My Concubine”), a Venice veteran who will present his latest effort, “Not One Less,” there on Sept. 7, finds Venice “rather relaxed. For the film premieres, if it weren’t for the formal dress attire, it would feel as though you were just taking a stroll at dusk.”
That’s what Giuseppe Volpi intended when he created the world’s first film festival in 1932 to bring tourists to Venice after the high season. Volpi, a successful businessman who founded the Ciga hotel chain, cut a deal with Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini: the government would back the film fest, but let Volpi run it without interference.
Since then, Venice has weathered its share of troubles. Critics have charged that the government has too much control over the festival and plays favorites. But Barbera says that’s changing. Last year the Italian government passed a law to privatize the film fest and its parent, the Biennale contemporary art show. This year, the state will foot 80 percent of the Biennale’s $10 million budget, half of which goes to the film festival. Eventually, says Giovanna Legnani, the Biennale’s new general coordinator, the government will underwrite half, with corporate sponsors picking up the rest.
That’s largely why Barbera has set out to woo Hollywood: it sells. First he tried to get a big-name director to lead the jury. Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma and Jonathan Demme all turned him down. Eventually Barbera came up with Emir Kusturica, the Bosnian-born director of “Underground,” who is highly regarded in Europe. Barbera then tried to get Scorsese’s next feature, “Bringing Out the Dead,” but was told it wouldn’t be ready in time. So instead Barbera pulled together a centenary celebration of Alfred Hitchcock, which will include never-seen footage from “Frenzy” and from his unfinished work, “Kaleidoscope.”
Barbera has his work cut out for him, cleaning up the mess his predecessors left. In 1995, festival director Gillo Pontecorvo was blasted for allowing Denzel Washington to motor into the lagoon harbor in an Italian Navy submarine to promote “Crimson Tide.” His successor, Laudadio, took a beating for being too intellectual; he quit after only two festivals. To distance himself from Laudadio, Barbera has scrapped several unpopular projects, including the small-film market. “It didn’t make any sense to try to compete with other film markets that already have a strong reputation, like Cannes,” Barbera told NEWSWEEK. Instead of going head-to-head with Cannes, Barbera has decided to play up Venice’s strengths. “Who doesn’t want to go to Venice?” says Jean Doumanian, Woody Allen’s producer, who has launched Allen’s last seven pictures there. “When you are on the boat from the airport and you see the city sitting on water in the fog, it’s the most incredible sight.” That’s a tough standard for Cannes to meet.
