Like most festivals, Cannes used to have a traditional retrospective, i.e. a themed program revolving around a given topic (filmmaker, actor, country, etc.), in addition to occasional special screenings of restored prints of recognized classics and documentaries about cinema. Then, in 2004, the fest’s General Delegate Thierry Frémaux decided to group it all under a brand new banner, Cannes Classics, which effectively replaced the retrospective. Venice followed suit in 2012, and even festivals that still do the conventional themed programs (Locarno, Berlin, San Sebastián, Karlovy Vary) are now implementing their own version of the Classics category, sometimes under a different name.
Over the years, the section has risen in importance, as its curator Gérald Duchaussoy explains over Zoom: “When I first started, we received 45 submissions for restored films, and two documentaries. Now it’s 200 and 85, from all over the world. More archives are carrying out restorations, and reaching out to us to premiere them.” Duchaussoy, whose cinephile credentials include co-authoring a book on Mario Bava (published in 2019), joined Cannes Classics in 2014, after a nine-year stint in the festival’s press office, and selects the films jointly with Frémaux, with whom he also spearheaded the Classic Film Market at the Festival Lumière, which runs every October in Lyon, the birthplace of cinema.
The Classics screenings are usually housed in the Salle Buñuel or the Salle Agnès Varda, two of the smaller venues within Cannes’ main hub, the Palais des Festivals. On occasion, they migrate to the larger Debussy auditorium, as was the case in 2018 and 2019 when 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Shining played with on-stage introductions by Christopher Nolan – who made his first ever trip to Cannes for that screening – and Alfonso Cuarón, respectively (the latter memorably poked fun at the conspiracy theories surrounding Stanley Kubrick’s body of work by saying the film was going to be screened backwards to reveal its true meaning).
Then, in 2021, Mark Cousins’ The Story of Film: A New Generation became the inaugural “pre-opener”, a Cannes Classics entry screened in the Debussy on the afternoon of the first day, as an appetizer before the opening ceremony proper in the evening. This is now a festival tradition, and a coveted spot in the calendar: in 2024, while introducing the (first half of) the reconstructed Napoléon, Abel Gance’s famous 1927 epic, Frémaux revealed the Cinémathèque Française had reached out to him a few years prior and called dibs on the pre-opening slot once the monumental restoration was finished.
Last year, a second Debussy event occurred at the end of the festival, with the unveiling of the 4K restoration of Paris, Texas, with Wim Wenders in attendance to celebrate the film’s 40th anniversary. This year, the same honor is bestowed upon Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, for the 50th anniversary, in association with Warner Bros. and Criterion. Will this also be an annual tradition? “It could become one, but nothing is set in stone,”, Duchaussoy replies. “That’s something we decide on a case-by-case basis.”
On the subject of anniversaries, there are a few acknowledged in the program (100 years for The Gold Rush, 50 for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), but also a notable omission: the oldest major French studio, Gaumont, is turning 130 (“Since the existence of cinema”, as their slogan goes). “We did have conversations with them, but it’s always a question of how their plans align with what we want to showcase.”
That last remark highlights a key element: while not a retrospective in the traditional sense of the word, Cannes Classics is just as curated, every title being part of a grand design. Specifically, a healthy mixture of recognized masterworks of world cinema and lesser known films from countries that don’t get as much exposure (the Festival Lumière has introduced a similar section in recent years, called “Treasures and Curiosities”). Duchaussoy cites two examples of gems worth rediscovering: La Paga (1962) from Colombia, and Saeed Effendi (1955) from Iraq (“A powerful portrait of Baghdad in the 1950s, which isn’t something we have seen much of”).
On the special guest front, Quentin Tarantino presented a double bill of Westerns directed by George Sherman, and Kevin Smith will be introducing the 4K version of his 1999 comedy Dogma, which was hard to see for years because of rights issues. Given his relationship with the festival, did Cannes reach out to him, or the other way around? “The distributor contacted us, at which point the conversations began to make sure he would be in Cannes, as part of this Resurrection Tour he’s doing with the film. It’s also interesting for us because it’s a fairly recent film, so it redefines what we view as a ‘classic’. A whole generation has elapsed since it first came out, so it definitely qualifies.”
Thierry Frémaux has frequently talked about the different ages of cinema being in dialogue with each other. As luck would have it, the great French filmmaker Marcel Pagnol is represented in two different sections: Cannes Classics with the restored version of Merlusse (which inspired Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers), and Special Screenings with Sylvain Chomet’s animated tribute A Magnificent Life. What was the timing on those two submissions? “They arrived around the same time. Pagnol is an important part of Cannes’ history, most notably as the jury president in 1955, and his work is getting rediscovered lately, so it felt right to honor him once again.”
In fact, some of Pagnol’s films were re-released theatrically in France by Carlotta, a distributor that specializes in what is locally known as cinéma de patrimoine, and is handling the reissue of less than three titles in this year’s Classics lineup. This begs the question: since there is a proper market for restorations, including dedicated ones at festivals such as Lumière, how has the attendance evolved in a more mainstream context like the Marché in Cannes?
“There’s a whole population of attendees with an interest in classic cinema. If we’re talking strictly theatrical distribution, there’s plenty of arthouse companies that include some re-releases in their lineups, in addition to countries like France and the US where there are labels devoted entirely to reissuing older films. The tricky thing in the context of Cannes, which is a huge machine where buyers and distributors spend a large chunk of the day in meetings, is finding the time to see our selection. It’s usually easier at festivals that are all about classics.”
Still, those who do find the time are usually delighted by what they see on screen, even if they know the movie by heart. Case in point, this year’s pre-opening: the 100th anniversary screening of The Gold Rush, with two of Charlie Chaplin’s grandchildren in attendance. While the film itself has been widely available for a century, getting it to resemble what originally came out in 1925 was a huge, 18-month endeavor carried out by Cineteca di Bologna’s Immagine Ritrovata laboratory.
The reason? When he re-edited the movie in 1942, adding music and narration and removing some scenes, Chaplin also disposed of every single print from the original run, making it impossible to find a complete vintage version as the basis for the restoration. Various fragments were located in international archives, allowing for a reconstruction as close as possible to what audiences first saw 100 years ago, and will get to experience again on the big screen in multiple countries on June 26, the date of the actual centenary. Even for seasoned Chaplin aficionados, it felt like seeing the film for the first time, as though it were a genuine world premiere alongside the Official Selection entries. And that is why, every year, most attendees make an effort to catch at least one Cannes Classics screening: the section is just as ripe for discoveries as the competition, Un Certain Regard and the rest of the gang.
