George Lucas Risked Everything
Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:
American Godfathers, a Memorial Day best forgotten, Jeffrey Wright is playing games, Leos Carax on Leos Carax, and an existential chicken.
Let’s go!
AMERICAN GODFATHERS
On Saturday, Francis Ford Coppola presented George Lucas with an honorary Palme d’Or.
The pair co-founded American Zoetrope (production company: The Godfather, Apocalypse Now), which was home to Lucas’s first two features, THX 1138 (1971) and American Graffiti (1973).
Coppola recounted:
“I also remember, George, when he returned so sad and rejected, having gone to the owners of Flash Gordon, the protagonist of a space comic book in 1934, and he said they told him he wasn't important enough to trust with their famous character, the star of serial movies that he loved so much as a kid.”
He continued:
“And he looked at me and he said, well, I'll make my own movie. I'll call it
Star Battles or Star Wars or something. And so he did. And in the process risked everything he did to make it. Congratulations, George.”
Amongst the next generation of filmmakers that were anointed with honors from Cannes:
Opening winning, Baker expounded that he’d reached the apex of his career and was unsure of what to do with the rest of his life, but he was clear on one thing:
“I will continue to fight for cinema because right now, as filmmakers, we have to fight to keep cinema alive. This means making feature films intended for theatrical exhibition, the world has to be reminded that watching a film at home while scrolling through your phone and checking emails is just not the way, although some tech companies would like us to think so.”