Spielberg Visits Cannes With A Big Friendly Giant
The first time Steven Spielberg came to the Cannes Film Festival was 1982, when he showed up in the French Riviera with “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial”. That same year, author Roald Dahl published his beloved children’s book, which like Spielberg’s film, took its name from an acronym; “The BFG”. Now, 34 years later, Spielberg is returning to Cannes with the film adaptation of Dahl’s book about a big friendly giant who befriends a little girl.
Indeed both “E.T.” and “The BFG” have more than their director and an out-of-competition Cannes Film Festival slot in common. Longtime Spielberg producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, as well as screenwriter Melissa Mathison, worked on both movies. All but Mathison, who passed away last November, are here in Cannes to support the film. Spielberg noted the similarities between his first experience in Cannes and this years’, by noting Mathison’s absence. “This was a wonderful reunion, and a very bittersweet time for us,” he said.
In some ways, Spielberg is not only returning to Cannes, but also to the type of fantasy and adventure movie that helped establish him as a legendary filmmaker. Since 2011, he has made three historical dramas back-to-back, starting with “War Horse”, then “Lincoln” and finally “Bridge of Spies” last year. However, the director doesn’t see “The BFG” as a return to his roots. “It was revisiting something that I’ve always loved to do, which is just to tell stories that are from the imagination,” he said. “It brought back feelings I had as a younger filmmaker.”
This may be why, after directing movies non-stop for the past five years, “The BFG” has helped convince the 69-year-old Spielberg to keep going. Filmmaking he said, “is something I’ll be doing for the rest of my life.”
Like, “E.T.”, which told the story of a boy who rescues an alien, “The BFG” is the tale of an unlikely friendship. Mark Rylance plays the Big Friendly Giant as a computer animated character created through motion capture and 12-year-old newcomer Ruby Barnhill plays the little girl he ultimately befriends. BFG isn’t the only giant in the movie, he’s just the only one that doesn’t eat humans. There’s a cadre of nastier giants in the movie portrayed through motion capture by the likes of Bill Hader and Jemaine Clement, among others.
These are the cannibalistic brutes that BFG protects tiny Sophie from and, over time, the little girl transforms from a child he’s kidnapped from an orphanage to his one true companion. “It’s a love story that children have for their grandparents. It’s a love story that grandparents have for their children,” said Spielberg while talking to the press in Cannes on Saturday. “I think this is probably the closest I’ve ever come to telling a love story.”
It is also a story filled with fantasy and magic, which Spielberg stressed is rather important. “The worse the world gets, the more magic we have to believe in, because that magic will give us hope and that hope will cause us to be proactive,” he explained. “Hope comes from magic and I think that’s what movies can give people. It can give people hope that there will be a reason to fight on to the next day.”
