A celebrity-packed screening

I wore my very dear, dearest Nina Ricci cropped beige jacket to the screening of “Le scaphandre et le papillon”, Peter Schnabel’s moving and sometimes surreal adaptation of an eponymous memoir by Jean-Dominique Bauby. Despite telling the story of a man suffering from locked-in syndrome, the film is intensely sensuous, focusing on such details as the sun on a woman’s legs, a girl’s hair floating in the wind, the texture of someone’s skin etc. Schnabel by the way really has something for tall, thin, blonde classic beauties, and all his ladies (Emmanuelle Seigner, Marina Hands, Marie-Josée Croze…) seem cast in pretty much the same gorgeous mold; they truly emerge as the heroines of the film.
A impressive lineup of celebrities also attended the screening: first and foremost, a spectacular Sharon Stone, as well as Elle McPherson (go figure), Toni Collette (a favorite with Cannesgirl), film directors Costa Gavras, Stephen Frears and Roman Polanski (whose wife, Emmanuelle Seigner, starred in Schnabel’s movie), Javier Bardem, Jane Birkin, and a bunch of French actresses (Julie Delpy, Maria de Medeiros, Julie Gayet, Ariane Ascaride…).
We had invitations to the ultimate Cannes party, the one thrown by Quentin Tarantino, whose latest opus was showing after “Le scaphandre…”. But we are way too cool even for the coolest parties, aren’t we? As someone who was never invited to any parties back in high school, there’s something intoxicating about shrugging “Quentin Tarantino’s party at the Cannes festival? Yeah, we had invitations but we didn’t go”…