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It is the film Scarecrow by Jerry Schatzberg, Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1973, which will open the 4th edition of the Lumière festival to be held in Lyon and Greater Lyon from October 15 to 21, 2012.
A new and restored copy of the film will be screened in the presence of the director, accompanied by Bertrand Tavernier and Thierry Frémaux.
It will be presented by Guillaume Canet, special guest of the evening, a friend of the filmmaker with whom he made his last film, The Day the Ponies Come Back, in 2000.
Max Von Sydow, Jacqueline Bisset, Lalo Schifrin, Tim Roth, Agnès Varda, Mark Cousins, and Nicolas Winding Refn, special guests during the first days of the festival, will also attend this event, along with many other stars, soon to be revealed. | |
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Born in 1927 in the Bronx in New York, first famous as a photographer in the 1960s (his credits include portraits of artists, photos of the world of fashion, and work on Bob Dylan ‘s Blonde on Blonde period), Jerry Schatzberg is the author of one of the most brilliant and remarkable works in the history of cinema with three films that have so marked their era: Puzzle of a Downfall Child, released in 1970, The Panic in Needle Park, released the following year, and Scarecrow, released in 1973. |
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| © Paul Grandsard | |
| With this “very seventies” story of Max and Lion, two society dropouts (Gene Hackman and Al Pacino) who meet by chance on the road of vagabonds, and whose destinies will bind them, Jerry Schatzberg won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Due to the difficulty of finding quality copies, the film was impossible to present on the big screen. Thanks to Warner, the Hollywood studio which produced the film, and Park Circus, which holds the worldwide rights to the film, Scarecrow has been restored and a new copy has been printed especially for the Lumière festival, whose purpose is to show restored copies of classics and rarities in the history of cinema, in movie theatres, for a contemporary audience, and in the presence of artists of today. |
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| It is indeed one of the principles of the Lumière festival, to have filmmakers and actors present the works of their predecessors. Guillaume Canet is an admirer of Jerry Schatzberg, a filmmaker and a photographer. In 2000 they shot a film together: The Day the Ponies Come Back. Guillaume Canet enthusiastically agreed to be present for the event.
Scarecrow succeeds Singin 'in the Rain, which had opened the festival in 2010 with Stanley Donen in attendance, and The Artist, with its cast present, which Lyon had presented in a national avant-première, after the film’s triumph at Cannes and before its epic Oscar win. The Lumière festival thanks Warner and Park Circus, as well as BNP Paribas. The public can thus rediscover one of the greatest works of the 1970s. |
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"It is a great surprise that they’ve presented me with here; I am overjoyed at the idea that people can rediscover this film,” declared Jerry Schatzberg. “France has always been the country dearest to my heart, since Cannes in 1973. My first two films were recently reissued on DVD [by Carlotta films in France] and now the film closest to my heart lives again. I am proud to show it at the opening evening of the festival, in this city that I had the pleasure to photograph. In addition to this, I will be pleased to see my French friends again and proud to know that Guillaume will be on stage to greet me.”
"In this film,” writes Thierry Frémaux, “Jerry Schatzberg films the idea that the United States belongs to all humanity: a country where people doubt, hope, struggle – we have sometimes forgotten this these days. It was the American cinema of the 70s, and everything changed with the 80s. Like many artists and works of this glorious decade and with a heart-breaking end, Schatzberg's Scarecrow reminds us time and again that that things could have been different."(Excerpt from the catalogue).