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James Gray: “My relationship with that festival is strange. The people that run the festival have been great to me, the whole selection committee has been beautiful to me and all that. But the reaction to the films is so weird because they play there, they’re hated, usually, they get a lot of boos. I say, ‘Why did I come here? This is so stupid.’ I’m the Susan Lucci of the Cannes Film Festival, because I think I have the record for the most movies that have played in competition that have not gotten any prizes. Let me say I do not go there — I promise you this is the case — I do not go there to win a prize. I did when I made my first movie that went to Cannes. But I learned my lesson very quickly. The point of this is not that you should feel sorry for me, quite the opposite. What I’m saying is that you feel the need to keep going back because you have to. It doesn’t matter what the reaction is to the movie. You have to do it. They care enough to boo. I know that sounds counterintuitive. You don’t want people to boo. But that passion, it shows you that actually the booing is in some way part of the love of the medium. I know this makes no sense.”

Michael Mann: “I’ve been editing remotely some of the scenes we shot, in this strange world of Evercast, which is the remote editing system that everybody’s been working on. Everybody all over the planet, whether they’re in Mozambique or Thailand or Taiwan or Detroit, is dealing with the same thing simultaneously and they’re doing it all in real time and everything is totally interconnected. That’s never happened before.”

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“We were uniquely positioned to respond quickly and allow folks to work from home given our emphasis on decentralization and supporting a distributed workforce capable of working from anywhere. The past few months have proven we can make that work. So if our employees are in a role and situation that enables them to work from home and they want to continue to do so forever, we will make that happen.”
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Cannes Reverie By Kyle Buchanan, Manohla Dargis And A.O. Scott
Scott: “There are few sights more touching to me than watching a first-timer walking up the Palais steps to their gala screening, walking the same path as Palme winners and pantheon auteurs. You can’t get that kind of excitement on a streaming platform, or the serendipitous sense of discovery that ripples from Cannes into the larger movie world. I said before that there’s something religious about the whole thing, and losing it feels like seeing a page ripped out of the sacred calendar. The question is whether it can be stitched back in.”
Dargis: “Going is a privilege, on many levels.”

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Mark Brown: “Zay Smith was the undercover bartender who wrote the famous Mirage tavern investigative series. He was long regarded as one of the most graceful writers in Chicago journalism, his work distinguished by a keen eye for detail and a sardonic sense of humor. It was Smith’s early work as ‘Norty the Bartender’ in the hard-edged Mirage investigation of everyday Chicago corruption that cemented his place in newspaper history. At the suggestion of now-legendary Chicago investigative reporter Pam Zekman, the Sun-Times bought a dive bar on Wells Street in 1977, renamed it the Mirage and operated it undercover for four months to document the payoffs and graft that were part of doing business in “the city that works if you know how to work it” — as Smith wrote in the introductory article. Smith had been at the paper only a short time when he was picked to join Zekman on the project in part because he already had established himself as a talented writer but also because nobody would recognize him. To further his cover, Smith chose to revive the “Norty” nickname bestowed on him by college buddies who mistook his middle name Nockton for Norton. In preparation, Smith attended bartender school, which became part of the series — with a story about how the school taught barkeeps not only how to make drinks but also how to steal and cheat. Between customers at the Mirage, Smith would slip behind the bar to take copious notes. It was from those notes that Smith culled the colorful details and conversations that brought the bar to life. The resulting 25-part series that began in January 1978 was a blockbuster in an era when newspapers had far more readers and consequently greater influence than they have today.”

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“The government of Prime Minister Abe announced that it was lifting the state of emergency for the 34 prefectures least affected. The remaining thirteen, including Tokyo and Osaka, are still under emergency advisories, which include theater closures, until the end of the month.”

Keri Putnam, Sundance Institute: “A few weeks ago, I read a letter from George Saunders to his students at Syracuse University. He pointed out that while we may not have experienced a pandemic quite like this before, this is not the first or the last time the world has been upended. ‘And always there have been writers to observe it,’ he wrote, ‘and (later) make some sort of sense of it, or at least bear witness to it. It’s good for the world for a writer to bear witness, and it’s good for the writer, too.'”

A. O. Scott: “For the next eleven days if you want to create an authentic Cannes film festival experience in your own home just shout Raoul every time someone turns on the television.”

“UK government confirms film and TV production can restart within social distancing guidelines”

Carolyn Reidy, 71, President and CEO of Simon & Schuster

Magill’s Cinema Annual Ends

“Google and Facebook employees were told this week that they could stay home until next year. Capital One said workers will be out through Labor Day and possibly longer. Amazon is saying October. “

“‘This story about leadership, tenacity, hope, love and the power of people to unite against the forces of adversity is both relevant and impactful,’ Iger was quoted as saying.”
Recorded Version Of “Hamilton” Performance From 2016 Goes Straight To Disney Plus July 3 Instead Of October 2021 Theatrical With Road Shows Dead For Now; Reported Price $75 Million; Early 2020 Oscar Contender?

“Jeffrey Katzenberg hasn’t left his Beverly Hills home in nearly 50 days. Deprived of a frenetic schedule that, before the coronavirus pandemic, typically meant three breakfast meetings, three lunch meetings and a working dinner, the veteran executive has filled his days with what he calls ‘Zoom-a-roo’ videoconferences as he tries to rejigger the streaming app he and Meg Whitman started a little more than a month ago… ‘If we knew on March 1, which is when we had to make the call, what we know today, you would say that is not a good idea. It’s regrettable. But we are making enough gold out of hay here that I don’t regret it.’”
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“All of our businesses are embarking on cost-cutting programs intended to deal with short-term need but also to ensure that the company is well-equipped to prosper in a decidedly different business environment after the crisis abates. [We are] continuing to simplify our company to highlight the intrinsic value of our core businesses, including the strategic review of our Australian newspaper holdings, focusing on our larger brands and our digital reach. Clearly the pandemic will have an impact on our results in the fourth quarter.”
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