Now that is a standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival.
Martin Scorsese brought his epic “Killers of the Flower Moon” to Cannes on Saturday night, and the crowds that packed the 3,200-capacity Grand Theater Lumiere responded in much the same way they would be expected to respond to an iconic director who He first came to this festival with a small film called “Taxi Driver” which won the Palme d’Or 47 years ago.
If Cannes is the movie palace, Scorsese is the royalty that can stand alongside Fellini, Godard, Kurosawa, Bergman and a few others. And “Killers of the Flower Moon” has the feel of a work of the first magnitude late in its run, so Cannes audiences showed no reservations in their enthusiasm for it and the extraordinary lineup of stars it brought with it, Robert DeNiro and Leonardo. DiCaprio to start.
If you want to put a clock on it, the standing ovation lasted around eight minutes, longer than the five or six minutes that have become the Cannes average. Scorsese got the most enthusiastic reaction, of course, but the audience was also wowed by Lily Gladstone, who covered her face and walked away from the camera to compose herself. The applause stopped only when Scorsese took the microphone and began to speak, then started again for another three minutes, finally ending when he walked into the lobby.
Did it matter that “Flower Moon” could be exhausting for some with its running time of three hours and 26 minutes? No. Did anyone mind that I came with the go-ahead from a computer company, Apple Original Films? Hell no.
(Okay, maybe that part would matter to a handful of famously cranky French exhibitors if they got the hottest ticket in town, but none of those naysayers got a chance to be heard above the cheers.)
This is a Cannes that in its first five days has also seen an outpouring of sentiment for Michael Douglas, who was awarded the Honorary Palme d’Or on opening night, and Harrison Ford, who received the same award as a surprise before the premiere of “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” two days later. But while Douglas and especially Ford are beloved and legendary, Cannes is a director’s festival and Scorsese is a whole new ball game.
And while there was nothing terribly unexpected about the length or volume of the standing ovation that erupted at the end of his film from an audience that had reason to be exhausted at the time, it was nonetheless a thrilling injection of energy.
Scorsese began by thanking the Osage people and talking about how much fun it was filming in Oklahoma. “There was a lot of grass. I’m a New Yorker!” he said. “We also lived in that Osage world, and now we really miss it.”
In the end, he turned his attention to the director of the festival: “Thank you, Thierry (Fremaux), for this extraordinary and moving experience.”
While it’s only May, and at this time last year, even the most ardent “Everything Everywhere All at Once” fans weren’t predicting a Best Picture win, it’s impossible. No Think about this year’s Oscar race and start calculating “Killer Moon’s” chances in all the usual categories. It may not be DiCaprio’s most unanimously praised performance, but he’ll be in the running, as will De Niro in a juicy supporting role and especially Gladstone as the heart of the film. The three and a half hour runtime may scare off some viewers, but it doesn’t drag. It’s from Apple, so why not think of it as a four-part miniseries?
Suffice it to say that an expansive, passionate, and monumental Scorsese film is a major player, even if the last film to fit that description, “The Irishman,” finished 0 out of 10 on Oscar night.
Check out TheWrap’s Cannes Magazine here and all our Cannes 2023 coverage here.
