Cinematic sense of place: embodied celluloid spectres on the red carpet in Cannes

Ostrowska, Dorota (2019) Cinematic sense of place: embodied celluloid spectres on the red carpet in Cannes. In: Wise, N. and Harris, J. (eds.) Events, Places and Societies. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 85-96. ISBN 9781138482470.

Abstract

The location of the Cannes International Film Festival on the French Riviera as well as the presence of star guests – actors, directors, artists and writers - are the elements of the festival which shaped it over the years and allowed it to endure as one of the world’s most successful film events. This triangular relationship between the Riviera, Cannes festival and stars determines the way in which the experience of the film festival event has been mediated to the general public through different media including photography which provides one of the most comprehensive visual records of the festival event. In his account of stardom at Cannes film festival Edgar Morin uses a set of religious metaphors to describe the body of a star attending a festival as mystical. For him at the time of the festival (the only place according to Morin where stars can be truly themselves, and which in itself has many markers of a site where religious ceremonies are conducted) attending stars become a kind of embodied spectres. In other words the unique location of the festival in the Riviera, coded as a place of leisure, freedom and relaxation but also death, encourages the stars to become privileged Riviera tourists whose celluloid spectres become momentarily materialised and real. There they exist at the same time both on and off screen as embodied celluloid spectres. Photography is the principle vehicle for conveying to the general public the notion of the embodied celluloid spectre. I examine the photographic archive of the Cannes film festival from 1946 to 2016 in order to understand the ways in which the embodied celluloid spectre of a star has been created and transformed over time through a diverse choice of representations of the stars attending the festival, of the spaces of the festival and activities in which the stars are shown to be engaged in.

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