The annual Festival de Cannes has always defined itself as a showcase for new, original filmmaking by the most challenging and inspiring auteurs working around the world. At the same time, its programming inevitably breathes with an equally international-minded book-based sensibility. In recent years, films inspired by F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (2013), José Saramago's Blindness (2008), Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code (2006), and Joe Klein's Primary Colors (1998) have opened the festival. And the jury has often rewarded literary filmmaking with the Palme d'Or; Roman Polanski's 2002 World War II drama "The Pianist," based on the Wladyslaw Szpilman memoir; Laurent Cantet's 2008 high school drama "The Class" ("Entre les murs"), based on the autobiographical François Bégaudeau novel; and Abdellatif Kechiche's 2013 lesbian coming-of-age romance "Blue Is the Warmest Colour" ("La Vie d'Adèle, Chapitres 1 et 2"), based on the Julie Maroh graphic novel, among others, have earned the festival's top honor.
With the sixty-eighth annual Cannes fest launched as of May 13 (it runs through May 24), we have pulled five book-based films officially competing for the Palme, plus two others screening in festival sidebars, that have our curiosity majorly piqued.
"Marguerite et Julien"
Directed by actress Valérie Donzelli ("Saint Laurent"), this romantic drama about real-life siblings Julien and Marguerite de Ravalet, who were executed in the early 1600s for having an incestuous relationship, has its origins in French filmmaking history. Oscar-nominated screenwriter Jean Gruault ("My American Uncle"), who co-wrote several adaptations with iconic New Wave director François Truffaut, including "Jules and Jim" and "The Wild Child," penned a screenplay for Truffaut about the Ravalets in the 1970s that was never made. Donzelli wrote this new iteration with Jérémie Elkaïm, who stars as Julien.
"Carol"
This one is unquestionably a must-see. Todd Haynes, who wrote and directed the Golden Globe-winning 2011 HBO miniseries based on James M. Cain's Mildred Pierce, here takes on frequently adapted mid-century provocateur Patricia Highsmith (The Talented Mr. Ripley, Strangers on a Train). Written under a pseudonym, Highsmith's controversial 1952 novel, The Price of Salt (sometimes published as Carol), tells the story of the romantic and sexual relationship that develops between a lonely young woman and the older married woman who wanders into the store where she works. After taking off on a road trip together, they are blackmailed by the private investigator hired by Carol's angry husband to tail them. Phyllis Nagy ("Mrs. Harris") wrote the adaptation, which stars the riveting trio Rooney Mara, Cate Blanchett, and Kyle Chandler.
"Our Little Sister"
Based on the manga Umimachi Diary by award-winning writer/artist Akimi Yoshida (Banana Fish), this family drama written and directed by Hirokazu Koreeda ("Like Father, Like Son," Cannes 2013) tells the story of three twenty-something sisters in a seaside town who take in their teenaged half-sister after their father dies.
"The Tale Of Tales" / "Il racconto dei racconti"
Seventeenth-century Italian soldier and poet Giambattista Basile's The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones is considered the very first published collection of global fairy tales (pre-Brothers Grimm), a compendium that includes early versions of the Hansel & Gretel, Rapunzel, and Sleeping Beauty stories, among other classics. Matteo Garrone, whose crime drama "Gomorrah" won Cannes's second-highest award, the Grand Prix, in 2008, co-wrote and directed this fantastical R-rated adaptation, which stars Salma Hayek, John C. Reilly, and Vincent Cassel and comes off like some unholy cross between the stylistic and thematic fixations of Terry Gilliam and Lars von Trier.
"Macbeth"
Shakespeare is a regular on the Croisette: Kenneth Branagh's 1996 "Hamlet" screened at Cannes, as did Orson Welles's 1952 "Othello," Polanski's 1971 "Macbeth," and others. This time, Australian filmmaker Justin Kurzel, who co-wrote and directed the 2011 crime drama "The Snowtown Murders," which also screened at Cannes, has recruited Michael Fassbender to play the tormented Scottish duke and Oscar winner Marion Cotillard to be his conniving Lady. Michael Lesslie and Todd Louiso and Jacob Koskoff ("The Marc Pease Experience") wrote the screenplay.
"A Tale Of Love and Darkness"
The feature writing-directing debut of Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman ("Black Swan," "Closer"), this coming-of-age drama is inspired by Israeli journalist-author Amos Oz's 2002 book, which covers both his own early years growing up in Jerusalem and those of Israel as a whole, including his mother's suicide and his time working on a kibbutz. Portman stars in the special screening.
"The Little Prince"
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's globally popular 1943 children's classic about an adventurous boy whose galactic travels eventually bring him to Earth gets a lushly animated film adaptation courtesy of director Mark Osborne ("Kung Fu Panda") and screenwriter Irena Brignull ("The Boxtrolls"). The out-of-competition film features the voices of James Franco, Rachel McAdams, Jeff Bridges, Albert Brooks, and Cotillard.
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