The Early Days and Hiatuses of the Palme d'Or
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
Cannes 1939.
The origins of Festival de Cannes — or The Cannes Festival — stem all the way back to the ‘30s, and the tampering of the then-biggest film festival out there: Venice Film Festival. During Benito Mussolini’s fascist reign over Italy, there was an obvious mission to prevent other countries from having a chance at this seemingly international film festival and its awards. From the get go, an upcoming festival — that would eventually become Cannes — didn’t want to make the same mistakes. There was a robbing of artistic integrity when awards were being handed out without the intention of rewarding films outside of wanting to make biased political statements. Where’s the honouring of expression in that?
Once an Italian film — Luciano Serra, Pilot — and a German documentary — Olympia — were awarded in 1938 for their obviously propagandistic ways (the latter in response to the rise of Adolf Hitler), the French, American, and British jury members at the Venice Film Festival pulled out and vowed to create a new festival that wouldn’t be swayed by these kinds of celebrations. Instantly in 1939, Cannes was decided upon via a vote, and the festival (then known as Le Festival International du Film, with an obvious emphasis on the welcoming of cinema from around the world) was set to show the globe how a film festival is supposed to be run.
Until it wasn’t.
As soon as the festival began, it was doomed to wrap up once Germany invaded Poland, and the spark of World War II was literally the same day. Then there was silence throughout the entire war, and the festival that was virtually about to get going was held off for an additional five years. In 1946, a year after World War II, Cannes was finally happening again. There was a massive lineup of films (feature and short) from all across the world, and the award for the best film of the year (then known as the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film, or simply the Grand Prix) was finally ready to be handed out. Even though it wasn’t intended, it’s as if this first complete festival wanted to make up for the lost years before, as a staggering eleven films won this prestigious award (slated as a tie, but an eleven way tie??). In alphabetical order, these films are Brief Encounter, Hets, The Last Chance, The Lost Weekend, Maria Candelaria, Men Without Wings, Neecha Nagar, Red Meadows, Rome, Open City, La symphonie pastorale, and Velikiy perelom. That’s a total of, yep, eleven nations being celebrated for their cinema; a fitting, if serendipitous, comfort after the harrowing years of Earth being on the verge of tearing itself apart.
The following year honoured numerous films for the top honour, but it was more deliberate, with each winning feature film being honoured for a specific genre or category. These include (again, in alphabetical order) Ziegfeld Follies (musical/comedy), Antoine et Antoinette (psychological and love), Dumbo (animation design), Crossfire (social film), and The Damned (adventure and crime); Inodations en Polonge was a short film that received the same honour. It is the only year that Cannes operated like this, and the idea seemed like a good one (although some of the categories were a bit strange in hindsight). Cannes would still give out many awards of various natures over the years, but the idea of having multiple films under different categories be honoured as the top films of the year in this way would cease to exist.
Even with all of this catching-up (of sorts), Cannes struggled to make back the money it spent this year, and there was no festival in 1948. This would happen again very shortly afterwards, with a similar cancelation only in 1950. In between these two “breaks” was the first time the Grand Prix was given to only one film, and it went to the highly deserving The Third Man. This would remain the only individual film to win for a number of years. In 1951, there was a tie between Miracle in Milan and Miss Julie, with 1952 also having tied winners with Othello and Two Cents Worth of Hope. Unlike the 1946 year with an apparent tie between so many films, the issuing of the top prize to two films in one year because of split votes is much more common in the history of Cannes. We would finally get a few more stand alone wins in the history of the Grand Prix, including 1953’s The Wages of Fear and 1954’s Gate of Hell.
Finally, in 1955, the Grand Prix had its title changed to the even-more fancy title of Palme d’Or (or Golden Palm in English). Why was there a change? Well, for a number of years, the jury had been entirely comprised of French panelists, and Cannes was starting to be accused of veering off the path it promised to walk (with an apparent lack of focus on the initial goals to award technical and artistic achievements). Rebranding itself, Cannes now had a multicultural jury and a new approach to how it handed out awards. Thus the Palme d’Or was what the Grand Prix once was: a jury prize for submitted films to compete for. This first film went to Marty, which also went on to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards the following year. This is the film that Films Fatale will start with for its Palme d’Or project, because it represents Cannes as we would now know it. While there are a number of previous winners, this was a very different festival at first, and even the latter years of these early days were of a different identity. Maybe one day I will cover them individually (there are numerous masterpieces that won the Grand Prix, after all), but not now.
The name stuck until 1964, when the award was reverted back to the Grand Prix title; this would last for ten years, when the Palme d’Or would return and be here to stay (seemingly) for good. I will review the films that won the top honour these years, because the festival was still business as usual; it just had a temporary name change. The nature of the festival was the same since the 1955 rebranding. What also stayed was the festival’s focus on doing what felt like the right thing. In 1968, the festival wrapped up early in response to the turmoils of France (a series of protests and strikes throughout the nation). This would be the last time Cannes would get cancelled until 2020, when COVID-19 had the festival on pause once more. Otherwise, the festival has run as it intended, with the honouring of the most imaginative, advanced, and well made films of each year.
The rest will be covered in our individual Palme d’Or winner reviews. There’s one final note that ties everything up nicely, as if to say that Cannes always cared about trying to do what was right in the name of art. While the two years of financial distress, the answer to May 68’s protests, and the COVID lockdown didn’t receive the same response, Cannes had a jury in 2002 go back to the first year: the one that lasted not even a single day. The original submissions for that year were presented again, and Cecil B. DeMille’s Union Pacific won the first Grand Prix (or Palme d’Or; whichever you’d like to call it). It feels harmonious, this way. The festival that never was — which is now all that it could have been and much more (as the most coveted film festival in the world) — was finally exactly what it should have been. It’s a beautiful tribute to a festival that nearly ended as soon as it began, and yet it persevered, all in the name of art and technology. Does Cannes have its qualms? Sure, but what festival doesn’t? It holds the honour as the top festival for a reason, and that’s what we will be focussing on. Our Palme d’Or review of Marty comes out this Monday.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.