This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/may/23/jerry-lewis-cannes-max-rose
The article has changed 5 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 1 | Version 2 |
|---|---|
| Jerry Lewis: women doing broad comedy bothers me | Jerry Lewis: women doing broad comedy bothers me |
| (4 months later) | |
| The French adoration of comic Jerry Lewis is a legendary, and the country at last got its wish: Lewis has a film at the Cannes film festival for the first time since 1989, and the 87-year-old duly turned up to receive the plaudits, waspishly shouting "[The French] kept me alive for 50 years!" | The French adoration of comic Jerry Lewis is a legendary, and the country at last got its wish: Lewis has a film at the Cannes film festival for the first time since 1989, and the 87-year-old duly turned up to receive the plaudits, waspishly shouting "[The French] kept me alive for 50 years!" |
| The film in question, Max Rose, was written and directed by Daniel Noah, and casts Lewis as a newly widowed jazz pianist (also 87) who is concerned that his entire apparently happy marriage may have been illusory, and that his recently deceased wife may have been in love with another man. | The film in question, Max Rose, was written and directed by Daniel Noah, and casts Lewis as a newly widowed jazz pianist (also 87) who is concerned that his entire apparently happy marriage may have been illusory, and that his recently deceased wife may have been in love with another man. |
| At his press conference, Lewis was vocal in his praise for the film. "I thought it was the best script I'd read in 40 years … it's an incredible movie, that's going to give a lot of people a lot of pleasure. Daniel Noah wrote from his heart and put it on paper." | At his press conference, Lewis was vocal in his praise for the film. "I thought it was the best script I'd read in 40 years … it's an incredible movie, that's going to give a lot of people a lot of pleasure. Daniel Noah wrote from his heart and put it on paper." |
| More specifically, he felt the film made a valuable contribution to cinema about the elderly. "It's a wonderful thing to think about people who are ordinarily ignored, and the elderly taught us all, we know everything we know from them." | More specifically, he felt the film made a valuable contribution to cinema about the elderly. "It's a wonderful thing to think about people who are ordinarily ignored, and the elderly taught us all, we know everything we know from them." |
| But Lewis' comedic instincts reasserted themselves, and he regularly had the French press corps in stitches. When one journalist asked him about his "artistic and human relationship" with onetime partner Dean Martin, Lewis gazed at him levelly and quipped: "He died, you know." It brought the house down. | But Lewis' comedic instincts reasserted themselves, and he regularly had the French press corps in stitches. When one journalist asked him about his "artistic and human relationship" with onetime partner Dean Martin, Lewis gazed at him levelly and quipped: "He died, you know." It brought the house down. |
| Lewis turned serious when another journalist asked him why he had he had never allowed anyone to see his legendarily disastrous concentration camp comedy The Day the Clown Cried, which he had written and directed in 1972 but promptly suppressed. "I thought the work was bad. I lost the magic, and that's all I can tell you. No one will ever see it, because I'm embarrassed… I believed in the work and the way it should have been, and it wasn't." | Lewis turned serious when another journalist asked him why he had he had never allowed anyone to see his legendarily disastrous concentration camp comedy The Day the Clown Cried, which he had written and directed in 1972 but promptly suppressed. "I thought the work was bad. I lost the magic, and that's all I can tell you. No one will ever see it, because I'm embarrassed… I believed in the work and the way it should have been, and it wasn't." |
| The only sour note came when Lewis was challenged on his low estimation of women doing broad comedy. "It bothers me," Lewis said. On being asked who his favourite female comedians were, he cracked up his audience by naming Cary Grant and Burt Reynolds, before saying "I don't have any," as the laughter billowed around him. | The only sour note came when Lewis was challenged on his low estimation of women doing broad comedy. "It bothers me," Lewis said. On being asked who his favourite female comedians were, he cracked up his audience by naming Cary Grant and Burt Reynolds, before saying "I don't have any," as the laughter billowed around him. |
| But France appears to forgive Lewis anything. After a fulsome tribute from fellow comic Pierre Étaix, who worked with Lewis on The Day the Clown Cried, the entire press room erupted in applause; and shortly thereafter, as Lewis exited, shouts of "Jerry! Jerry!" resounded around the Palais. The man's still got it. | But France appears to forgive Lewis anything. After a fulsome tribute from fellow comic Pierre Étaix, who worked with Lewis on The Day the Clown Cried, the entire press room erupted in applause; and shortly thereafter, as Lewis exited, shouts of "Jerry! Jerry!" resounded around the Palais. The man's still got it. |
| Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. |