The Out of Competition category (often a refuge for favored auteurs) is also an American hotbed this year, perhaps because films by some of the festival's European favorites—like Pedro Almodaovar of Spain, Lars von Trier of Denmark, and Stephen Frears of Britain—are still in production.

Besides one South Korean movie (a Western, thematically enough), the Out of Competition category includes Vicky Cristina Barcelona by Cannes regular Woody Allen; DreamWorks Animation's Kung Fu Panda; and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull by Steven Spielberg.

Not only is May 18 at Le Palais des Festivals the world premiere of the latest Indiana Jones epic, which opens in America four days later, it's the first time that anyone other than insiders gets to see the movie.

Dogged by rumors of arduous, late editing to cut it down to a user-friendly running time, the movie has also been described by the Los Angeles Times as a risky financial proposition.

The Times' Claudia Eller reckons that Crystal Skull needs to gross $400 million before it can start paying off either Paramount Pictures or stakeholders Spielberg, George Lucas, and Harrison Ford.

It's nonetheless the festival's gorilla. When this correspondent, who'll be blogging from Cannes, was emphasizing just how vital it is that he see it, a Cannes publicity person said, with a certain Gallic amusement, "Yes! The entire planet wants to see this."

And the actual screening isn't the only hot ticket associated with the film. Most of the 3,200 credentialed journalists in attendance will be fighting for one of 400 seats at Spielberg's postscreening press conference.

But the competition to witness the competition has always been part of the festival. Cannes Mayor Bernard Brochand, former co-chairman of the worldwide advertising firm DDB, remembers sneaking into festival screenings as a schoolboy.

Besides, he adds, the frenzy has its benefits. Not least of them is the half-billion dollars that conferences and events like the festival churn into the local economy. That buys a lot of security (Cannes has 300 surveillance cameras) and even some street repairs, which is handy as a World War II-era tank tore up a patch of the main drag during last August’s reenactment of the liberation of the city from German control.

And the mayor, like many of his constituents, is a little bit starstruck. Brochand's dream is to become, like son Laurent, a film producer. He worries that at age 73, he's too old—"But then I see Clint Eastwood!"

Not insignificantly, in terms of the American theme, the president of this year's Cannes jury is Sean Penn, whose Into the Wild got a nice array of award nominations and placed him in an elite circle of actors-turned-director.

Joining Penn on that jury is Natalie Portman, along with representatives of Italy, Thailand, Germany, France, Iran, and Mexico (Alfonso Cuarón, the Children of Men director who's been a star at the Venice film festival).

Less reflective of the Franco-American love affair is the festival's catchall section, Un Certain Regard, which has but two U.S. entrants, including the documentary Tyson, by director James Toback.

The opening and closing slots of the festival aren't as prized as their bookend stature might suggest, but Fernando Mereilles' drama Blindness, with Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, and Gael Garcia Bernal, promises to strike a somewhat apocalyptic tone.

And finally, closing the festival—with many a discouraging word heard in the press, thanks to its underwhelming reception and failure to find a distributor at Sundance—is What Just Happened? by Barry Levinson.

Presumably in attendance to add to the excitement among the paparazzi along the Promenade de la Croisette will be stars Robert de Niro, Bruce Willis, Robin Wright Penn, and John Turturro.

Laurent Morlet, executive director of the film and television office of the Consulate General of France in Los Angeles, says the festival could be considered as a film in itself. Everything in Cannes is movielike: the nice weather, the sweet temperatures, the sea that is so smooth, the flowing champagne, and the parties.

"Maybe that's why Cannes attracts so many people—it's not unlike jumping into a dream," Morlet says. "The magic and the strength of the festival is that for many years now, it's not just one dream in your life—it's every year the same dream. And the festival fights every year to keep this magic."