CANNES, France -- If Gilles Jacob, the overlord of the Cannes Film Festival, had gotten his way, the Palais des Festivals would have been trembling Wednesday night with the THX soundtrack of "Star Wars -- Episode I: The Phantom Menace." Jacob likes to open his festival with a blockbuster, just to remind everyone what a movie is, before they disappear into intense screenings of tortured adaptations of obscure novels by Herman Melville.

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