From
The Huffington Post:
Cannes Thursday: Madonna, Sharon Stone, Michelle Williams, Natalie Portman, Star Jones And More http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/22/cannes-thursday-madonna-s_n_103175.html"--Also stepping out on the red carpet at a premiere was
Michelle Williams, at her first red carpet appearance since the death of ex-fiance
Heath Ledger, the father of her daughter Matilda. She reportedly decided to attend the premiere of "
Wendy and Lucy" at the last minute, and Wednesday night hopped on a plane and then dazzled in Chanel. Fellow WB alum (from "Felicity") Scott Speedman was also in Cannes for a film, "
Adoration." UPDATE: Friday Williams attended the photo call for her
Charlie Kaufman directed film "
Synecdoche, New York."
Michelle Williams Dazzles at Cannes Film Festivalhttp://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20202091,00.htmlOriginally posted Thursday May 22, 2008 08:45 PM 
By Brenda Rodriguez
Michelle Williams made a dramatic, last-minute appearance at the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday, walking her first red carpet since
Heath Ledger's death to promote her film
Wendy and Lucy.
"It was decided on Monday night that she could come to Cannes, and she got on the next plane to arrive just in time to get dressed and come to our premiere," said a rep for
Wendy and Lucy. "She came in and had a long nap and then came to the screening."
Williams, 27, was radiant in a vintage Chanel Haute Couture dress. She will remain in Cannes at least through Friday night to promote another festival movie in which she appears,
Synecdoche, New York, before flying back to the United States to resume filming a Martin Scorsese movie in Boston.
Williams has kept a low profile since Ledger died last January at age 28 of an accidental overdose. After attending his memorial service in Australia, she has spent time with their 2-year-old daughter Matilda in New York and on the set of her new film.
At Cannes, Williams's work in
Wendy and Lucy was well-received, the rep says.
"Some people said tonight it was a transcendent performance," he says. "It's about things going on around her and she's just she's trying to go forward and things are not working out for her. You see her taking care of herself first [in the film], which is exactly what we must do."
From
The Huffington Post:
"Being John Malkovich" Writer Kaufman Makes Directing Debuthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/23/being-john-malkovich-writ_n_103248.html
From left, British actress Samantha Morton, American actors Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tom Noonan, American director Charlie Kaufman, American actresses Catherine Keener and Michelle Williams pose for the photo call for "Synecdoche, New York" during the 61st International film festival in Cannes, southern France, on Friday, May 23, 2008.DAVID GERMAIN | May 23, 2008 10:05 AM EST |
CANNES, France — It seems fitting that Charlie Kaufman's directing debut, which offers enough enigmatic ideas to fry viewers' brains, should also come with a title that will twist their tongues.
Kaufman, screenwriter of "
Being John Malkovich," "
Adaptation" and "
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," presented his directing debut Friday at the Cannes Film Festival with "
Synecdoche, New York," the tale of a theater director who literally tries to re-create the world in all of its messy, mundane glory.
Meeting reporters after a press screening, Kaufman and his cast were flooded with questions about the film's far-flung themes _ and of course, the title.
Star Philip Seymour Hoffman helped out on the pronunciation.
"`Sin-NEK-doh-kee,'" Hoffman said. "Once you know it, it's hard to forget it, actually."
"The key is also that it sounds like Schenectady, which is the city that it's a play on. So if you know how to pronounce Schenectady, then you just take out the `kuh,'" Kaufman said.
A "synecdoche" is a figure of speech in which a part of something stands for the whole, or vice versa, such as "society" for "high society."
Hoffman plays Caden Cotard, a theater director in Schenectady, N.Y., with a failing marriage, a wandering romantic eye, constant creative doubts and a multitude of unspecified ailments. The film spans decades as Caden ambles through a life of ceaseless regret, loss, longing and fleeting joy.
Caden's wife (Catherine Keener) leaves him and takes their daughter to Germany. His second marriage to his leading lady on stage (
Michelle Williams) crumbles amid the emotional baggage left by his first family. He has a lifelong flirtation with his potential soul mate (Samantha Morton), a woman who buys a house that's perpetually on fire despite her fear of dying in the flames.
The cast also includes Jennifer Jason Leigh, Emily Watson, Dianne Wiest, Hope Davis and Tom Noonan.
As Caden struggles to make sense of life, death, love, art and seemingly every other big question facing humanity, he tries to find answers with the most mammoth theater project ever _ a re-creation of New York City that grows over the decades to include an infinite cast in sets spanning warehouse after warehouse.
As with Kaufman's earlier scripts, the film raises troubling questions of identity as real people interact with those playing them in Caden's production and the line between his creation and reality blur.
Spike Jonze, who directed "
Being John Malkovich" and "
Adaptation" and was a producer on "
Synecdoche," said Kaufman grows bolder and delves deeper with each story he tells.
"Every script he writes I feel is that much more raw and honest and audacious and brave," Jonze said. "He's by far my favorite writer."
Kaufman sidestepped reporters' efforts to interpret the story, saying "I don't really have a message about anything. Just what happens in the movie."
"The way I write is very much without kind of a goal," Kaufman said. "I have something I'm interested in and then I decide I'm going to explore it. I don't know where the characters are going to go, I don't know what the movie is going to do or what the screenplay is going to do. For me, that's the way to keep it alive."
"I tried to approach the directing in the same way. We have the script, we have the actors, and we're trying to figure out what this is, and you don't know what it is," he said. "You have to be open to what it's going to become rather than have this thing that you're trying to get to, which is boring."
"
Synecdoche" was competing for the Palme d'Or, the top prize at Cannes, which will be presented as the festival closes Sunday. At Cannes, Kaufman and his collaborators also were meeting with potential distributors to release the movie in theaters.
Kaufman resisted reporters' suggestions that the title would be off-putting to commercial audiences.
"I like titles that are a little difficult, because it's kind of counterintuitive," Kaufman said, adding that he chose "
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" "because it was really hard to remember that title. I couldn't remember it for the longest time."
When people asked him the name, Kaufman had to pause and think, `Well, which word comes where in that title? Then pretty soon, I remembered it, and then everyone seems to know it now," Kaufman said of the movie that won him an Academy Award for original screenplay.
With "
Synecdoche," Kaufman said, "People will learn to pronounce another word, and that's always good, right?"
