The schedule is also heavy on movies from edgy filmmakers, among them Pedro Almodovar's "Bad Education" (which opens the festival tonight), Jean-Luc Godard's "Notre Musique" ("Our Music"), Wong Kar-Wai's "2046," and Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," the director's assault on President Bush's handling of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Hollywood movies already out in the United States are at Cannes as a springboard for overseas release, including the zombie fest "Dawn of the Dead," the Coen brothers' crime comedy "The
Ladykillers," and Billy Bob Thornton's foul-mouthed "Bad Santa." Cannes also is presenting "Kill Bill -- Vol. 2" from festival feature film jury head Quentin Tarantino, who won the top honor at Cannes in 1994 for "Pulp Fiction."
Gilles Jacob, festival president, said organizers this year renewed their efforts to select "popular auteur films -- or, if you prefer, intelligent popular films."
That populist approach can create fresh headaches for Cannes planners, with snooty critics complaining that Hollywood and commercial movies sometimes overrun more artistic choices.
"As always, the difficulty comes in respecting the balance, and that's what we're trying to do," Jacob said. "The idea is to appeal to the tastes of as many media as possible, as many professionals, as many moviegoers, though it's a given that you never know in advance what movie will have the most success with the representatives of a given country or a particular profession. . . . That's why the idea of maximum diversity is so difficult to reach, but we attained it, I hope."
