Selections from Roger Ebert’s Cannes coverage…
Flashback #7: Hollywood Plays It Safe, Sorry
Film festivals provided Roger with an annual escape from the formulas that plagued so many Hollywood pictures. This superb essay, written during the 1992 festival, juxtaposes two pictures that take strikingly different approaches to similar subject manner: Billie August’s Palme d’Or-winner, “Best Intentions,” and Ron Howard’s unimaginative blockbuster, “Far and Away.” His closing line is especially chilling, providing readers with a cautionary message that will resonate throughout the ages: “A society that treats its citizens like children is sooner or later going to find itself without adults.”
