The French cultural institution, which turns 75 this year, has always been a battle between radicalism and elitism – but that’s what makes it so essential
The Truman Show is a 1990s Hollywood movie about a man who lives in a bubble, cut off from the world. As played by Jim Carrey, Truman Burbank – surrounded by actors, his every move dogged by cameras – stares at a stage set and believes that it’s real. In the film’s final scene he climbs the stairs, finds a door and prepares to escape his gilded cage.
That keynote image – Truman’s ascent against a painted sky – is now the official poster for the forthcoming Cannes film festival, soon to be plastered on programmes, Blu-Tacked in shop windows and rigged like a godhead across the concrete Palais. And while we should be wary of judging an event by its cover, the choice of image feels apt. The organisers picked it, they say, because it “represents a poetic celebration of the quest for expression and freedom”. Others may read it as a self-owning comment on the festival as a whole.
