Introducing “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” the curtain-raiser at this year’s Lumière Film Festival in Lyon where he is guest of honor, Sean Penn gave an emotional speech about his friend, the film’s lead actor Jack Nicholson.
“I heard my name a lot tonight,” he said. “But I’ve been very comfortable with it in the sense that knowing “Cuckoo’s Nest” was going to play, there was no question I was going to be able to find great humility under the circumstances. One of the great, magic moments in my life in cinema was the first time I saw Jack Nicholson in Miloš Forman’s ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.’”
“I was very privileged in so much as being able to have worked with Jack twice,” he continued. With both ‘The Pledge’ and ‘Crossing Guard,’ he was an angel on my shoulder and I still can’t quite get over, I still can’t quite imagine that McMurphy [Nicholson’s character in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”] has worked with me,” he smiled.
The film has more than stood the test of time, Penn told the crowd, recalling the first time he saw it as a teenager in Los Angeles when it was released in 1975.
“There was a little cinema out by the beach in Los Angeles where I would go. At the time, in the late ‘70s, it seemed that each film that came out was sort of an event. But still, today, I wouldn’t think twice about sharing this movie with a 16 or 17 year-old because it would hold up – even with those that get bored very quickly,” he quipped, drawing chuckles from the crowd gathered in Lyon’s 5,000-seat Tony Garnier show hall, one of the festival’s key venues.
Asked by Lumière director Thierry Frémaux, who also heads the Cannes festival, whether it is still possible to make films like that today, Penn replied: “I have been part of the culture of complaint about where cinema has been going for a long time. But then things happen: there are two films that I am sharing here at the festival – ‘Manas’ and ‘Sentimental Value’ – and [when] you see what an independently minded director still does, ignoring all the complaints, you see it’s all still possible.”
Earlier in the day, Penn attended the Lyon premiere of this year’s Cannes Grand Prix winner “Sentimental Value” together with director Joachim Trier. He will also present Marianna Brennand’s debut feature, “Manas,” which he executive produced.
Penn has a packed schedule while in Lyon, where he will present a new subtitled copy of his 2007 hit “Into the Wild” and sit down for a masterclass with a Lumière audience. Taking the stage to introduce the opening film, the actor-director seemed momentarily lost for words in the vast, sold-out concert hall: “I didn’t expect… [Thierry] didn’t explain to me how big this situation is, I didn’t realise it was like this….”
The remark echoed the feeling of many first-timers at Lumiere, which draws several hundreds of thousands to see classics and contemporary films on big screens across some 30 venues.
Walking the red carpet ahead of the opening ceremony, director Scott Cooper – who will premiere his new film “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” at Lumière – said: “It’s wonderful, I wish we had more [festivals like this] everywhere,” prompting a cry of: “Lyon, the birthplace of cinema!” from Jeremy Allen White, the two-time Emmy winner who stars as The Boss in Cooper’s film.
Faithful to tradition, the festival’s 800 volunteers were feted with a walk-around the concert hall to the sound of a brass band, before guests were invited to the stage to officially open the festival by reading a sentence in unison – a joyous cacophony that drew complicit laughter from the crowd.
Among the celebrities crowding the stage alongside Penn, Cooper and White were Taiwanese actor and filmmaker Shu Qi, Travis Knight, the head of Laika Studios, Costa-Gavras, Valeria Golino, three-time César-winner Dominique Blanc, and one enfant terrible of French cinema Bertrand Bonello (“Saint Laurent,” “The Beast”).
The Lumière Film Festival runs in and around Lyon until Oct. 19.