King of Cannes: Madness, Mayhem, and the Movies [Paperback]

Stephen Walker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2001

Stephen Walker is a neurotic British filmmaker with a mixed track record and a great idea: to give audiences a peek inside the world of filmmaking by documenting the madcap adventures of four fledgling directors at the annual Cannes Film Festival. Walker's cast of Cannes hopefuls includes an unknown American with a full entourage, a Rastafarian who hijacks a phone booth to use as his office, a first-time French director with a film in the official competition, and a London cabbie who drives to Cannes in a van emblazoned with a giant marijuana leaf, hoping to raise money for his film called Amsterdam. Walker himself plays a starring role in this wild romp, always near a breakdown as he tries to film these four in their determined, and sometimes lunatic, quests to be discovered.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Long before the first agent tromped through the snow at Sundance, newly crowned directors were walking down the red carpet at Cannes. In his lively carnival of a book, documentary filmmaker Walker writes about the king of film festivals from the perspective of the people to whom it means the most: the filmmakers. Charged with making a documentary about Cannes for the BBC (titled Waiting for Harvey), Walker follows four filmmakers who take their projects to the festival in search of fame and fortune, and the person empowered to bestow them, Miramax capo Harvey Weinstein. Walker's cast includes the hip and tough-talking director James Merendino (SLC Punk), the serious and soft-spoken Frenchman Erick Zonca (The Dream Life of Angels) and a few lesser lights, like an East London cab driver who drives to the Riviera in a van decorated with a large cannabis leaf. Predictably, the film business turns out to be a gamble, and Cannes offers rewards and punishments to the filmmakers in equal measure. While Walker's characters are funny and well drawn, their viability as subjects for Walker's film is never far from his mind. The author's apparently scrupulous honesty in detailing the stretching-of-the-truth and out-and-out deceptions necessary in documentary filmmaking is diverting, but inevitably distances us from the lives he depicts and rebounds against his own sincerity. Part diary, part film script, the book ultimately tells us more about Walker's own hopes and dreams than anyone else's. But perhaps that is the point: to the glamour of Cannes, no one is immune. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

This is a rare animal--a book about the making of a documentary film. As documentaries are the neglected mutts of the movie industry, a shaggy dog story is to be expected. With lots of predictable pathos and wry humor, Walker relates the production of Waiting for Harvey, his BBC-funded project about four unknown directors who aspire to greatness at the Cannes Film Festival. His quartet of hopefuls includes an American B-movie prodigy, an independent Rastafarian dynamo, a taxi driver from East London, and--quelle chance!--Erick Zonca, the neophyte French director whose La Vie Rev?e des Anges actually wins prizes in the official competition. Of course, it wouldn't be Cannes without an accompanying cast that includes rapacious Hollywood executives, fatuous marketers, and sleazy Eurotrash. It's all rather droll in a nihilistic sort of way. Recommended for public libraries.
-Neal Baker, Earlham Coll., Richmond, IN
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 262 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (May 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 014100147X
• ISBN-13: 978-0141001470
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,847,326 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars King of Cannes, March 30, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: King of Cannes: Madness, Mayhem and the Movies (Hardcover)

This is a great book. It accomplishes what it sets out to do: to give the reader a look at the "behind the scenes" happenings of the biggest film festival in the world! The narrative voice is very strong and the dry british wit makes it quite a page-turner! You do laugh out loud...and you just want to keep reading and reading.

Another thing that also made this book very interesting, was the fact that it didn't merely focus on the "star-gazing" aspect of the industry, rather it mentions some important personalities in indie cinema and allows the readers to see the difficulties that independent filmakers face -- all this is juxtaposed to the glamorous stars and personalities of Hollywood who attend Cannes and are actually welcomed there (as opposed to our narrator here!)

A great read!

2.0 out of 5 stars 'Frankly' dishonest, October 2, 2003

By 

Trevor Willsmer (London, England) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: King of Cannes: Madness, Mayhem, and the Movies (Paperback)

While often amusing, documentary maker Stephen Walker's account of his attempted manipulation of a handful of filmmakers at the Cannes Film Festival is ultimately a fundamentally dishonest book. Despite making a memorable if over-directed 'Everyman' documentary on veterans of the Somme, the author proved hopelessly out of his depth when faced with an industry that failed to conform to his often facile preconceptions. Walker set out to mock a group of hopefuls trying to launch their careers for comic effect, only to be occasionally frustrated in his attempts to manoeuvre them into stereotypical situations by (most of) the filmmakers' inherent professionalism and dignity. Absurdly uninformed on his subject and held in growing contempt by his own production team, he cut one duo of filmmakers out of the programme because, to his dismay, they had a successful series of meetings, only to be blown out himself by another who turned out to be a major award winner who saw through him in moments.

While often telling stories against himself and stressing his own inadequacies as a documentarian (he makes no bones about not knowing the first thing about his subject), it's often to cover up worse transgressions. In the resulting TV documentary, 'Waiting for Harvey,' one of his 'victims' produced a video tape shot before their meeting detailing exactly how Walker was going to try to get easy laughs out of his attempts to sell his feature, hitting the nail on the head with astonishing accuracy, but whereas Walker admits to all kinds of minor offences, you'll find no mention of his unmasking here - maybe his ego couldn't handle it.

It's an easy, gossipy read, but don't mistake it for the truth.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars King of the Cannes a gem of a book, April 22, 2001

By 

ashley holder (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: King of Cannes: Madness, Mayhem and the Movies (Hardcover)

This book was fabuously written. It brings together the work and comedy element of the Cannesfilm festival and the characters portrayed within. I laughed all the way through.