Stars and filmmakers arrive at major European film fests with political agenda
By Jeffrey Jolson
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 9/1/07 — With George Clooney stumping for Barack Obama at the Venice Film fest and Michael Douglas singing praise for Hilary Clinton at the Deauville Film Festival, you’d think you were in Washington, or at least Hollywood.
Those stars and others brought political agendas to the big European film fests, encouraged by the world press in attendance, many of whom look for the next US President to deal with the war fallout and President Bush-related controversies in their own countries.
The Iraq war itself and the troubled region were also the focus of several films in Venice, Italy and Deauville, France, perhaps the most significant US film-heavy Euro fests after Cannes.
Clooney, in Venice to tout his new legal drama “Michael Clayton ,” told reporters “I’d love Barack Obama to be president, quite honestly.” “If you’ve been in a room with a rock star, you know. (Obama) walks into the world, and he takes your breath away.”
Clooney, who banked a check for Obama at a private $1.3 million fundraiser in Beverly Hills last February, praised the U.S. senator for speaking out early against the Iraq war. He thinks Americans will fix the Iraq war situation with a new administration at the helm. “That’s what America is good at – fixing things,” he said.
Douglas, campaigning for his new film “King of California” at the Deauville fest, told world press that he was would be “very happy” if Sen. Hillary Clinton was voted in as US president.
“I would like my president to have pillow talks with (her husband and ex-president) Bill Clinton,” he told AFP in an interview. “I would be very happy with that.”
Douglas is taking center stage at the Deauville Film Festival opening Friday that also brings George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie to the French beach resort- several of them fresh from the Venice fest, like Clooney, Pitt and Jolie.
Douglas is being paid special tribute for his 40-year career in film as an actor and producer. “King of California” is in competition and his past fare will be screened as part of the tribute, which comes 30 years after Kirk Douglas, Michael’s father, received the same accolades at Deauville.
“I think more about my father than I do about me,” Douglas said. The award gave him a “sense of immortality,” he said. “Together we have 65 years in the business, 140 movies.”
But politics and war went much deeper at the European festivals where that help shape international public opinion on what US opinion is on the war. Throughout the history of film, it has been used to support or oppose wars.
Two U.S. films competing for the Golden Lion in Venice deal directly with the impact of the Iraq conflict.
“Redacted”, Brian De Palma’s drama about a rape and multiple murder in Iraq and Paul Haggis’ “In the Valley of Elah” are both high-profile anti-war films based on true events.
Like “Redacted”, “Elah,” starring Tommy Lee Jones and real-life activist Susan Sarandon explores the conditions, attitudes and stresses experienced by US soldiers in Iraq, and, like De Palma, Haggis said he felt the US public was being kept in the dark about the war.
“During Vietnam we had terrific journalists doing their job,” Oscar winner Haggis (“Crash”) told a news conference. “We were seeing it on television. Now we don’t have it.”
Haggis — whose movie “Crash” won the best picture Oscar last year — said he wanted the film to be “political but not partisan,” noting that he wrote it “through the eyes of a very proud American who believes he knows — who knows right from wrong.”
The film shows “the truth of what’s happening,” he said. “We had better open our eyes to these concerns.”
At Venice Brad Pitt will unveil the western film “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” on Sunday. It is not a political animal, but Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who will be with him, certainly are.
Others who have spoken out about US politics that will be attending the 75th Venice film fest include Woody Allen was also expected ahead of the Sunday screening of his “Cassandra’s Dream” and director Spike Lee, who will turn up at the fabled Hotel Excelsior to promote the his new Babelgum Online Film Festival.
AFP contributed to this report