Shades of Gray

CANNES, France--Early success at European film festivals can remind a filmmaker to be careful of what he wishes for.

As the most conspicuous of world cinema's proving grounds, Cannes can set you on a long upward trajectory--Jack Nicholson's arrival as an international star pretty much coincided with the smash success of Easy Rider at the festival, and Quentin Tarantino will always be the guy who rejiggered crime movies for years to come with Pulp Fiction. Rabid acceptance by the Cannes gatekeepers, however, can also root you in expectations that are hard to shake off.

James Gray came to Cannes this year wondering if he was about to be caught in that trap with his new Two Lovers. Although he's quick to point out that his 1994 debut, Little Odessa, made its splash not at Cannes but with two awards at Venice, his similarly themed The Yards, six years later, and We Own the Night, from last year, consolidated his name as a filmmaker beloved by the French and held in suspicion by American critics.

Call it the Jerry Lewis syndrome if you like--Americans like to point out what we see as misguided cultishness by the French, perhaps since they more often get to apply their snobbism toward us--but it's worth remembering that, as with their lionizing and support of American jazz masters like Dexter Gordon (see Tavernier's Round Midnight), sometimes they're right.
    
I met with Gray in a hotel bar where he was hoping an espresso would restore the brain function he'd lost in a long, scattered migration that included switching airports in Paris during a rainstorm with his wife and two young children in tow. He was wearing the jeans and black T-shirt he'd later wear in a photo call with co-stars Gwyneth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw. They are twin attractions for male lead Joaquin Phoenix, who is fascinating to watch as a troubled but emotionally resourceful son of a Brighton Beach Jewish family and is appearing in a Gray film for the third time.

If earlier Gray films have been marked by characters wrestling with an often unforgiving destiny, this one is an exploration of love--and an attempt to do so seriously while acknowledging that romantic comedies may be the best way to handle such an absurdity as romance.

"We wanted some feeling of danger still, but I wanted a situation where there was sense of parallel lines of desire and every single person was involved in a totally unfulfilled love relationship. It's that perverse vindictiveness of desire," said Gray.

Phoenix was sick at home with a stomach virus and couldn't be there to lend the support the director clearly would have liked to have in bringing his first love story to an audience that has looked to him for a certain amount of action involving fists, knives, clubs, guns, and felonious offenses. "I have been concerned," he admitted, "because its different. There's nobody getting killed, there's no crime, and I have no idea what the French press reaction is going to be, because they have been very supportive of my work over the years, but this is different subject matter. It's subverting expectations, I would think."

He didn't have to wait long for at least a partial answer. The French daily Le Monde appeared this morning with a fairly neutral headline that he was taking a risk ("James Gray se hasarde sure le terrain de l'amour") and went on to conclude that it was a forgivable stretch ("On rangera le film dans le classeur des experiences probablement necessaries...") but that they'd be awaiting material that suits him better.

Critical rep counts, but equally important to Gray, who made the film on a fairly tight budget with more freedom than he'd ever enjoyed, was finding a North American distributor with the cash and commitment to nurture his film. Gray disputes trade paper reports that We Own the Night had been enough of a box-office disappointment to not earn its keep, pointing to robust DVD sales, but although his new one looks to be garnering its share of positive ink, it may be a harder sell.

For his next project, Gray has plans to scale up to what he sees as a very particular (but closely guarded) sort of period war movie that may include "horses galloping in the fog."

"I've been obsessed lately, watching a lot of Kurosawa movies. They have a sparseness to them--the ones I really like, like Throne of Blood and Ran. They have a very Shakespearean tone to them that I've been contemplating."

Which may be just what his French friends ordered.