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Words
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INTRO
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The
Cannes film festival's most important prize, the Palme d'Or, for best
film has been given to The Italian film "The Son's Room" by the director
Nanni Moretti. From Cannes, BBC Correspondent, Jo Episcopo reports. |
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IN
FULL
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to the report in full |
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21st
May 2001
Cannes
Film Festival - Palme d'Or Winner
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NEWS
1
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to the first part of the report |
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A
clearly delighted Nanni Moretti beamed as the jury’s
president, the Norwegian actress Liv Ullman, announced his film had
proved the critics right and won the festival’s top prize.
(LIV ULMAN: The Palme d’Or goes to the Nanni Moretti...) "The Son’s
Room" is a powerful exploration of how a family falls apart
after the death of a teenage son. When it showed earlier this week
it had audiences, male and female alike, visibly affected by its emotional
depth. While the Italians celebrated, it was a good year all round
for European art house movies. An Austrian film about
sexual repression, "The Piano Teacher" by Michael Heneke, won three
awards. And the first ever Bosnian film in competition at Cannes won
best screenplay. But the American didn’t go away empty-handed.
Two strong films from the United States shared the award for best
director, Joel Coen for his film noir about murder and blackmail
in small-town California in "The Man Who Wasn't There" and
David Lynch for his film "Mulholland Drive", about how Hollywood can
crush dreams and lives. |
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WORDS
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delighted:
If you are delighted, you are extremely happy and excited
about something
beamed: If you beam, you smile because you are happy
top prize: the highest, most important prize
falls apart: If something falls apart, it breaks into
pieces - so if a family falls apart it stops being complete
and all the people in it stop being close.
art house movies: classic and new films which appeal to limited
audiences.
(The term ‘Art House’ is of American origin used to describe
cinemas showing classic films and new films which have limited audiences.
Art house movies or films are therefore films which get shown
in such cinemas.)
empty-handed: If you come back from somewhere empty-handed,
you have failed to get what you intended to get.
film noir: dark, suspenseful thriller
(originally, a term used by French film critics - dark, wet city
streets, the play of shadows and complex plots are important elements
of film noir.)
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| NEWS
2 |
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to the second part of the report |
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Opinion
is divided over whether Cannes has achieved its goal of rewarding
films on the grounds of artistic merit. Some argued
the absence of some of the bigger American studios, worried about
the impact of a possible actors’ strike next month, meant there was
more interest this year in foreign language films. Cannes may be regarded
as the world’s most important film festival but winning here is no
guarantee of a film’s commercial success. The real test will be
at the box office when the films go on general release
around the world later this year. |
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| WORDS |
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divided:
split
on the grounds of: Here means because of.
merit: If something has merit, it is good or worthwhile.
no guarantee: no certainty that something will happen.
box office: a place where tickets for film, theatre and concerts
are sold.
general release: When films go on general release
they get shown at local cinemas throughout a country as opposed
to selected cinemas in city centres.
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Read
about the background in BBC News Online |
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