No Cure for Lukatmi

Let’s face it, sleaze is to professional party-givers what jail is to burglars: an occupational hazard. I’ve been reading about parties in Cannes, described in glowing terms by stars-in-their-eyes hacks who should, but do not, know better. Well, dear readers of Taki’s Magazine, I’m afraid I’ve been there and done it all and believe you me, “squalor” is the operative word. Obscene publicity-seekers posing as role models, sartorial decay, and a chronic inability to keep their clothes on is the order of the day.

Cannes used to be fun, during the ’50s. Eden Roc, the restaurant and swimming pool of the Hotel du Cap, was terra incognita to the Hollywood crowd. Monsieur Sella, the owner, was an old-fashioned gentleman who disliked actors but allowed Jack Warner and Darryl Zanuck to keep a cabana on the premises. After his death and the inevitable sale, the new owners opened the gates to the flamboyant crowd of Cannes, but with caution. Now the place makes Rodeo Drive look like Harold Vanderbilt’s yacht.

The trouble, as always, is money. The Croisette in Cannes during the film festival fortnight was festooned with studio posters of up-and-coming movies. Now it looks like a catwalk. Luxury houses and megabrands rule the roost—and call the shots. The major studios came to Cannes for international gravitas, spending money to show the world that they produced serious films along with singing cowboys and talking horses. Now Dior and Chopard, Vuitton and Jaeger-LeCoultre are the stars. Branding has become more important than the insatiable hunger for fame and celebrity. A gold Rolex watch is now ubiquitous among the fans crowding the boardwalk in front of the Carlton and Martinez hotels—in fact, it has replaced the beret, once the trademark of the French working classes.

Actors have now been turned into pitchmen for high-end products, and everyone’s a salesperson. And the parties, written about in glowing terms by the hacks who know which side their bread is buttered on, are no better. Last time I was there was three years ago, and all I can say is I went to the two that are supposed to be the most exclusive, but I’ve met a better type of person in certain Parisian brothels of the time than in the so-called fabled Hotel du Cap. Sleazy agents and brand salesmen were everywhere, and every single person there was selling something, yours truly being an exception. I didn’t even mention the greatest movie of all time—Seduced and Abandoned, in which I had a tiny part—such was my embarrassment being there.

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