This festival is held under a shadow, Gillo Pontecorvo told journalists at yesterday's Presentation press conference. We're seeing cinema in crisis. There is a move in world film-making toward the infantile; toward the lowest common denominator. But Venice, in common with other festivals, was in a unique position to fight against the downgrading of cinema. That was why he set so much store by this year's conference on Cinema In The Third Millenium.
There was considerable local disquiet that venerable French actress Michele Morgan had been awarded a Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement Award. What about our very own Alida Valli, Italians murmured. Describing himself as one of Valli's biggest admirers (She helped nurse-maid me through my first feature), Pontecorvo pointed out that the lifetime achievement awards are rather like the Nobel prizes of filmmaking: if too many were given out, they'd inevitably lose their lustre. Besides, Valli might win next year. Given the recent rapprochement between French and Italian filmmakers, Michele Morgan was a correct choice.
l No sooner had the Presentation press conference broken up than photographers swarmed into the Sala Excelsior for their first glimpses of Sleepers co-stars, Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman, who appeared on stage alongside director Barry Levinson. Asked how he found working with fellow sacred monster Hoffman, De Niro replied, I just told him to make sure he learned his lines.
Geoffrey Macnab
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