Does Cannes Have a Future? Yes, But the Festival Needs to Change

The red carpet, in America, is a flat expanse of star-studded glamour, a VIP corral.

At the Cannes Film Festival, the red carpet starts off as an expanse but then, as it approaches the Grand Palais, it ascends, in 24 Cinderella steps — a literal stairway to heaven.

The meaning of that stairway isn’t stardom.

It’s all about what the films, and the competition, aspire to.

It’s about how they want to lift us aloft, to carry us into the shimmering pantheon of Art.By the time this year’s awards ceremony was over, the mission, as always, felt like it had been accomplished.

A new auteur had been crowned high king: Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda, whose winning of the Palme d’Or for “Shoplifters,” a tale of family, poverty, and social injustice, had an “It’s time” earnestness about it.

The Grand Prix went to Spike Lee’s “BlacKkKlansman,

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