Kicking the Pricks

V

V This page intentionally left blank TEN GO MAD ON THE RIVIERA The crew of Aria met at The Carlton. The dead centre of the Cannes festival, a mammoth fin-de-siecle hotel, papered with lurid posters advertising the naked delights of Sex Sluts in the Slammer, and Surf Nazis Must Die, presided over by the Lares and Penates of the quick buck: Golem and Globus of Cannon films. Razor-sharp smile of cine sharks. Barely up the steps into the crowded hall, we were pushed back, helter-skelter onto the streets to rush to the opening (in the Grand Palais) of Lindsay Anderson's The Whales of August, in the presence of their Royal Highnesses. So muddled is Cannes that at the press-show for the film this morning the paparazzi confused the title of the film with the Princess of Wales, and Lindsay found himself dealing with the gossip columnists of Tout le Beau Monde. Tripping along in our self-conscious glad-rags, ogled by a thousand camera persons, gendarmes, officials and trumpeters. Desperate-looking celebs pushed and jostled us with their gun-toting bodyguards, snarling at by roaring crowds, dresses trampled in a designer death-walk. This way! This way! That way! Selena, Selena, Selena! That way! Carried up the steps in a whirling vortex, to the theme tune of 2001. At the other side of the guillotine a miraculous change of perspective. For an hour and a half The Whales of August transported us to an old wooden house on the coast of Maine, inhabited by Lillian Gish and Bette Davies. A gossamer film which drew you into a web of love for the two old sisters they played; you wanted to stretch out your hands like Jean Marais in Orphee and walk through the 219 silver beam into the magic house. What a contrast to the commercial cattlemarket with its apology of a competition . At one moment Bette Davies, who plays the blind and slightly tyrannical sister, says—'I always had beautiful hair'; time had spared it. Lillian Gish brushed its silver strands, dusted old photos in silver frames, put her own hair up. When the irascible Bette Davies finally consents to the installation of a picture window: 'We're much too old to do anything new' the radiant surpriseon Lillian's face crept upon me so that I nearly fell off my seat. And when she said 'Perhaps we have outlived our time', 'No, No, No,' I could hear the audience shout silently, 'you haven't!' I've never gone to the cinema to see the stars, but this night I did, and I saw them. Tilda said from the moment the film began you knew you were in good hands. At the end of the film Lillian Gish came onto the stage,far below, a little white butterfly lady from the Kabuki; there she was, we allshouted: 'Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!' Today the British contingent (contingent is a good word for them) were not so enthusiastic. I kept rather quiet: neither Lindsay nor these two ladies need my help; they are quite canny enough. I, for one, couldn't imagine anyone crossing Bette Davies, who retorted to one critic's praise for Lillian's close-ups: 'Of course she should be good, sheinvented them with Mr Griffiths in 1916.' The evening ended at a ponderous dinner for Alec Guiness in the presence of the Prince and Princess of Wales. An orchestra played forgettable tunes from British films, including a number with a boy soprano, which gave the event a musty church-like air. 220 8 out of 10 go mad on the Riviera 1987 Which of the deadly sins threw the bottle to christen Aria? What constellationscollided to bring us together, to board this ship of fools? To cross unchartered waters? There's Admiral Ken who, you remember, made Revenge of the Killer Sequins, and Captain Bob, top of the pops, Altman, bad taste never looked so good, one two, one two, take your partners for the last waltz, it's Billy Bryden, entertainments officer, with Sir John and Lady Hurt dancing, Champagne! Champagne! The end of thisjourney is dinner our destination petits fours. At 4 am the champagne turnsflatin the blood. Jean Paul Gaultier, a truant schoolboy, dancesin his shorts under the pines, while Donna Hurt creeps up on her husband, who is being devoured by a Japanese refugee from Petrouchka...