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Canadian director David Cronenberg tells a very human ghost story of a Hollywood family in his new movie Maps to the Stars, which was screened on Monday in Competition at the 67th Cannes Film Festival.
According to the official daily of the film festival, Cronenberg's new movie is "an uncompromising portrait of the way Hollywood operates."
In Hollywood, the stars collide in the story of the Weiss family: Benjie, 13, has already been a star; his father, Sanford Weiss, is a successful TV self-help therapist and coach to celebrities. Cristina Weiss has her work cut out managing the career of their disaffected child-star son.
Meanwhile, the husband's client, actress Havana Segrand, Havana's assistant Agatha, and limousine driver Jerome Fontana, also aspire to fame.
"The result is a Gothic tale that verges on tragicomedy, haunted by the ghosts of the past," said the daily comment.
In the Canadian director's film, the psychological fear or horror is typically intertwined with the physical one.
The press conference for Maps to the Stars was held Monday, presented by Cronenberg and the cast, including Julianne Moore, Sarah Gadon, Mia Wasikowska, John Cusack, Evan Bird and Robert Pattinson, as well as screenplay writer Bruce Wagner.
Commenting on the vision of Hollywood expressed in the film, Cronenberg said: "It's not an attack on Hollywood. You have to look deeper than that."
"The action could have taken place in Wall Street or anywhere, like Washington for example, it's also about those people who are fighting to succeed and make money," explained the director.
Moore, who played Segrand in the movie, said: "David Cronenberg is an incredibly enthusiastic person. As an actress you want to make him happy."
"About the script I would say there is a funny side to everything: the script was funny and serious the same time," said Moore.
Cronenberg has been selected in Competition in Cannes five times. He received the Special Jury Prize for Crash in 1996. In 2012, Cronenberg presented Cosmopolis in Cannes. He was President of the Jury for the 52nd edition of the Festival.
On the same day, a movie behind the sport directed by U.S. filmmaker Bennett Miller was also screened in Competition.
In the movie Foxcatcher, Miller's third feature film, the U.S. director examines "the tragic links" between John E. du Pont, a paranoid multimillionaire found guilty of murder, and two champion wrestlers.
The movie is mainly on an incident that took place in 1996: the murder of one of the two brothers, Olympic champion Dave Schultz, played in the movie by Mark Ruffalo, by the billionaire, played by Steve Carell.
The film's screenplay is based on the autobiography of Mark Schultz, played by Channing Tatum, the dead champion's brother, an Olympic champion in the same discipline in 1984.
"Bennett Miller's cinema aims to retrace real events and to focus on carefully selected aspects of the lives of the personalities he depicts, thus minimizing the purely chronological and fictionalized approach characteristic of the biopic," commented the official daily of the festival.
Miller has opted for a similar approach with Foxcatcher, exploring the inner depths of a true story.
"When I first got to know this story, I knew that there were messages in it that went beyond the story itself, and had something to say about us and our country," said Miller.
"It's not a political film, it's a film that tries to understand certain phenomena, such as decline," the director told reporters.
"We used a microscope to look at the inside of the story. You can understand the universe by using a telescope, but also at times by using a microscope," continued the director.
Meanwhile commenting on the movie, Carell said: "The film was exactly what Bennett had described to us at the beginning. We sometimes took detours but the film perfectly reflects the script."
The ongoing Cannes Film Festival opened here on Wednesday evening and will last till May 25.
A total of 18 films have been selected to compete for the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm), the top prize of the annual international film festival, as well as other prizes.
The winners will be announced on May 24, one day before the originally planned date due to the European Parliament elections on May 25.
Jane Campion, New Zealand director, producer and scriptwriter, is heading the Jury.
Besides the main Competition for feature films, the festival also includes other selections such as Un Certain Regard, Out of Competition, Special Screenings, Cinefondation selection of student films all over the world, and Short Films.
