Typically, the Cannes Classics section is not one of the festival’s major noise-makers. Mostly comprising restorations of classic titles and new documentaries about film history, it is, for most attendees who don’t specifically work in repertory cinema, a place to take a breather, to dip into the pleasures of the old amid the whirling rush of the new, at least if your schedule permits. Rarely is a Cannes Classics screening the hot ticket of the festival. But so it was in the early days of this year’s edition, as securing a place at the Thursday night unveiling of a new 4K restoration of “The Devils” — British auteur Ken Russell‘s incendiary 1971 imagining of the 17th-century Loudun possessions — became a critical challenge.
I got lucky. The festival’s ticketing system provided as soon as booking opened four days prior. Many others did not. Cue a lot of messages from friends and colleagues politely enquiring whether I was definitely planning to use that ticket — yes, sorry, I was — and publicists checking in to see if their ticket-wrangling skills were needed. The day of the screening, hopefuls repeatedly, feverishly refreshed the booking page, waiting for last-minute returns; outside the festival’s Buñuel cinema, where the screening was starting within the hour, I saw two men embrace each other when their patience finally paid off.
