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Japan Today
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Japan Today
Bono: 'The world has never been closer to a world war in my lifetime'
This image released by Apple TV+ shows Bono, lead singer of the Irish rock band U2, in a scene from the documentary 'Bono: Stories of Surrender." (Apple TV+ via AP) By JAKE COYLE Cannes is a short trip from Bono's seaside villa in Eze-sur-Mer. He bought it with The Edge in 1993, and considers himself grateful to a coastline that, he says, gave him a 'delayed adolescence.' 'I can tell you I've slept on beaches close to here,' Bono says with a grin. 'I've woken up in the sun.' But that doesn't mean the Cannes Film Festival is a particularly familiar experience for the U2 frontman. He's here to premiere the Apple TV+ documentary 'Bono: Stories of Surrender,' which captures his one-man stage show. Before coming, Bono's daughter, the actor Eve Hewson, gave him some advice. 'She said: 'Just get over yourself and bring it,'" Bono said in an interview on a hotel off the Croisette. "What do I have to bring? Bring yourself and your gratitude that you're a musician and they're allowing you into a festival that celebrates actors and storytellers of a different kind. I said, 'OK, I'll try to bring it.'' Besides, Cannes, he notes, was founded amid World War II as an alternative to then-Mussolini controlled Venice Film Festival. It was, he says, 'designed to find fascists.' Shifts in geopolitical tectonics was much on Bono's mind. He has spent much of his activist life fighting for aid to Africa and combating HIV-AIDS. U.S. President Donald Trump's dismantling of USAID has reversed much of that. 'What's irrational is taking pleasure in the defacement of these institutions of mercy,' Bono said. 'Bono: Stories of Surrender,' an Andrew Dominik-directed black-and-white film that begins streaming May 30, adapts the one-man stage show that, in turn, came from Bono's 2022 book, 'Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story.' In the film, Bono is self-effacing and reflective, sifting through the formative influence of his father, U2's skyrocketing to fame and considering how ego and social work might be related. He calls it 'the tall tales of a short rock star.' And as was the case on a recent sunny afternoon in Cannes, Bono makes a captivating raconteur. Remarks have been lightly edited for clarity. AP: You've long maintained that globalization lifts developing nations out of poverty. What do you make of the shift away from globalization by many countries recently? BONO: Well, that's right. Globalization did very well for the world's poor. That and increased aid levels brought a billion people out of extreme poverty and halved childhood morality — remarkable jumps for quality of life for human beings. But it's also fair to say certain communities really paid the price for that — here in Europe, in the United States. And I'm not sure those communities were credited enough for weathering storms that globalization brought. So I understand how we got to this place, but it doesn't mean that it's the right place to be in. Nationalism is not what we need. We grew up in a very charged atmosphere in Ireland. It makes you suspicious of nationalism and those animal spirits that can be drummed up. This is me speaking about surrender, 'Stories of Surrender,' at a time when the world has never been closer to a world war in my lifetime. At first I think it looks absurd, a bit ridiculous — now that has never stopped me in the past — but I think it's OK to look ridiculous for these ideas. Like surrender, nonviolence, peace. AP: Do you have any sense yet of Pope Leo XIV? BONO: The new pope, he does look like a pope. That's a good start. I just saw the other day his first piece and he was talking about stopping shouting, God might prefer whispers. I thought, 'Oh, this could be interesting.' I'm more of a shouter myself. I come from punk rock. But I'm learning to turn that shout into a whisper in this film to get to an intimacy. AP: The most moving parts of 'Stories of Surrender' are when you talk about your dad, who died in 2001. How have you feelings about him evolved with time? BONO: Well, the accuracy of the put-down — 'You are a baritone who thinks he's a tenor' — is so all encompassing. I was going to call the play 'The Baritone Who Thinks He's a Tenor.' He's on my mind because he's the reason I sing. It's a wound that will never close because after playing him on stage for all those nights — just by turning left or right — I always loved him but I started to really like him. He started to make me laugh. There was a gift, as well as the voice, that he left me. Would he forgive me for impersonating him in the Teatro di San Carlo, a sacred place for tenors, probably not. But here I am impersonating an actor, so. AP: You've spent the last five years in some state of self analysis. First the book, then the stage show, now the film. Why? BONO: Mission creep. I knew I had to write the book. The play was so I didn't have to tour the book in normal promotional activity, that I could actually have fun with it and play all the different characters in my life. I thought it was really good fun. Then I realized: Oh, there's parts of you that people don't know about. We don't go to U2 shows for belly laughs. But that's a part of who I am, which is the mischief as well as the melancholy. Then you end up doing a play with a lot of cameras in the way. Enter Andrew Dominik and he taught me something that I didn't really understand but my daughter does: The camera really knows when you're lying. So if want to tell this story, you better get ready to take your armor off. You're going to feel naked in front of the whole school, but that's what it takes. AP: Coming out the other side, did you gain any new perspective on yourself? BONO: Based on my behavior just in the past week, the answer to that question is probably: Must try harder. The pilgrim's lack of progress. I would say that I understand a little better where I came from and that where I end up depends on how I deal with that. I've been calling it the hall of mirrors, when you try to figure out who you are and who's behind the face. Then you just see all these faces staring back at you, and they're all true. The real star of this movie is my dad. I sort of like him better than I like myself because humor has become so important to me. It's not like everything needs to be a belly laugh, but there's a freedom. People like me, we can sing about freedom. It's much better to be it. AP: You earlier spoke about the rising threat of world war. As someone who's often sang for and worked for peace, do you still have hope? BONO: There's a minister from Albania who said something that really stuck with me. She said: If you have a chance to hope, it's a moral duty because most people don't. So, yes, I feel we'll figure our way out of this. This is a scary moment. I think acknowledging that we can lose all we've gained is sobering but it may be course-changing. I just believe in people enough. I believe in Americans enough. I'm an Irish person, I can't tell people how to vote. I can tell you that a million children dying because their life support systems were pulled out of the wall, with glee, that's not the America that I recognize or understand. You're on the front lines of Europe here. America came in and saved the day. Ironically, so did Russia. More people died from Russia fighting the Nazis than everybody else. Now they tread on their own sacred memories by treading on the Ukrainians who also died on the front lines. I think part of that is that history didn't acknowledge it. I believe there is integrity in the Russian people. They need to change their leader, in my view. I believe there is integrity in the Americans. They will figure it out. Who was it who said: If you give Americans the facts, they will eventually make the right choice. Right now, they're not getting the facts. Think of it: a 70% decline in HIV-AIDS, Republican-led, Democratically followed though. The greatest health intervention in the history of medicine to fight HIV-AIDS has been thrown away. It was nearly there. To a space traveler, it's like getting to Mars and going, 'Nah, we'll go back.' It's bewildering to me. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Japan Today
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Japan Today
Cannes, the global Colosseum of film, readies for 78th edition with new challenges on horizon
By JAKE COYLE Nowhere is the border-crossing nature of cinema more evident than the Cannes Film Festival, which kicks off Tuesday in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump's vow to enact tariffs on international films. Cannes, where filmmakers, sales agents and journalists gather from around the world, is the Olympics of the big screen, with its own golden prize, the Palme d'Or, to give out at the end. Filmmakers come from nearly every corner of the globe to showcase their films while dealmakers work through the night to sell finished films or packaged productions to various territories. 'You release a film into that Colosseum-like situation,' says Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho, who's returning to Cannes with 'The Secret Agent,' a thriller set during Brazil's dictatorship. 'You've got to really prepare for the whole experience because it's quite intense — not very far from the feeling of approaching a roller coaster as you go up the steps at the Palais.' Perhaps as much as ever, all eyes in the movie world will be on the 78th Cannes Film Festival when it gets underway this week. That's not just because of the long list of anticipated films set to premiere at the Cote d'Azur festival (including films from Spike Lee, Wes Anderson, Lynne Ramsay, Richard Linklater and Ari Aster) and the extensive coterie of stars set to walk the fabled red carpet (Jennifer Lawrence, Denzel Washington, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart among them). As the movies, and the Oscar race, have grown more international, the global launchpad of Cannes has become only more central to the larger film ecosystem — even with the ongoing absence of Netflix. Recent editions of Cannes have produced a string of Academy Awards contenders, including this year's best-picture winner, 'Anora.' At the same time, geopolitics course through Cannes unlike any other festival. The Cannes red carpet can be as much a platform for political protest as it is for glamour. This year's festival will include a dissident Iranian filmmaker (Jafar Panahi), a Ukrainian filmmaker (Sergei Loznitsa) and the first Nigerian production in the official selection (Akinola Davies Jr.'s 'My Father's Shadow'). In the run-up to the festival, three filmmakers from different corners of the world spoke about their roads to the Cannes competition lineup. For many directors, reaching the Cannes competition — this year, that's 22 movies vying for the Palme d'Or — is career milestone. 'It's meaningful for me. It's meaningful for the country,' says Oliver Hermanus, speaking from outside Cape Town. Hermanus, the South African filmmaker of 'Moffie' and 'Living,' is in competition for the first time with 'The History of Sound,' a period love story starring Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor. 'I was born here and made movies here for most of my career, so I still see myself as a South African filmmaker who's interested in the South African perspective on things and South African representation,' adds Hermanus. 'The competition is something I've always wanted to be part of.' Chie Hayakawa, the Japanese filmmaker of 2022's 'Plan 75,' is also in competition for the first time. She first came to Cannes with a student film that she never expected to make it into the festival's shorts program. This week, she'll debut 'Renoir,' a semiautobiographical tale about an 11-year-old girl with a father who has terminal cancer. 'It gives me a huge encouragement and keeps me motivated to making films,' Hayakawa said from Tokyo. 'I don't feel like I'm going to compete with other films. But it meaningful. I know how prestigious and meaningful it is to be in competition.' 'Film is global and easily crosses the borders of any country or culture,' she adds. 'That's what special about Cannes.' Cannes' global approach is part of what makes this year more complicated than usual. Trump sent shock waves through Hollywood and the international film community when he announced on May 4 that all movies 'produced in Foreign Lands' will face 100% tariffs. The White House has said no final decisions have been made. Options being explored include federal incentives for U.S.-based productions, rather than tariffs. But the announcement was a reminder of how international tensions can destabilize even the oldest cultural institutions. Filho first attended Cannes as a critic. Once he began making movies, the allure of the festival remained. To him, participating in Cannes means joining a timeline of cinema history. 'The Secret Agent' marks his third time in competition. 'I have always felt that there was a seriousness that I appreciated,' Filho says. 'For example, I will be attending a 2 a.m. test for sound and picture. This is done with scientist types who will take care of the projection and how everything will go.' As to the threat of tariffs? He shrugs. 'I have been trained by Brazil, because we had a very strange and weird historic moment under (former president Jair) Bolsonaro,' Filho said. 'I used my training to say: This is probably some bad idea or misunderstanding that will be corrected in the coming days or weeks. Even for leaders like them, Bolsonaro and Trump, it makes no sense whatsoever.' The Cannes Film Festival originally emerged in the World War II years, when the rise of fascism in Italy led to the founding of an alternative to the then-government controlled Venice Film Festival. In the time since, Cannes' resolute commitment to cinema has made it a beacon to filmmakers. Countless directors have come to make their name. This year is no different, though some of the first-time filmmakers at Cannes are already particularly well-known. Stewart ('The Chronology of Water'), Scarlett Johansson ('Eleanor the Great') and Harris Dickinson ('Urchin') will all be unveiling their feature directorial debuts in Cannes' Un Certain Regard sidebar section. Many Cannes veterans will be back, too, including Tom Cruise ('Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning'), Robert De Niro (who's to receive an honorary Palme d'Or 49 years after 'Taxi Driver' premiered in Cannes) and Quentin Tarantino (to pay tribute to low-budget Western director George Sherman). Hermanus first came to Cannes with his 2011 film 'Beauty.' He went naively optimistic before realizing, he laughs, that a Cannes selection is 'a potential invitation to a beheading. 'Even going now with 'The History of Sound,' I'm trying to be realistic about the fact that it's a gladiatorial arena. It's everything to lose and everything to gain,' says Hermanus. 'When Cannes selected us, it came down to me and Paul going, 'Oh God, here comes the real stress. Will we survive the intensity of Cannes?' — which we both agreed is the reason to go.' © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Japan Today
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Japan Today
10 movies that defined the Vietnam War on the big screen
By JAKE COYLE The Vietnam War cast a long shadow across one of the most fertile periods of American filmmaking, and has led filmmakers for the half-century since to reckon with its complicated legacy. These 10 films, assembled to mark the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, range from indelible anti-war classics to Vietnamese portraits of resistance, capturing the vastness of the war's still-reverberating traumas. 'The Big Shave' (1967) The war was more than a decade in and some eight years from its conclusion when a 25-year-old Martin Scorsese made this six-minute short. In it, a man simply shaves himself before a sink and a mirror. After a few knicks and cuts, he doesn't stop, continuing until his face is a bloody mess — a neat but gruesome metaphor to Vietnam. 'The Little Girl of Hanoi' (1974) A young girl (Lan Hương) searches for her family in the bombed-out ruins of Hanoi in Hải Ninh's landmark of Vietnamese cinema. It's a work of wartime propaganda (it begins with the intro: 'honoring the heroes of Hanoi who defeated the American imperialist B-52 bombing raid') but also of aching humanity. Set against the December 1972 bombing raids on Hanoi, 'The Little Girl of Hanoi' is cinema made in the very midst of war. 'Hearts and Minds' (1974) Controversy greeted Peter Davis' landmark documentary around its release, but time has only proved how soberly clear-eyed it was. Newsreel clips and homefront interviews are contrasted with the horrors on the ground in Vietnam in this penetrating examination of the gulf between American policy and Vietnamese reality. Its title comes from President Lyndon B. Johnson's line, said when escalating the war, that 'the ultimate victory will depend on the hearts and minds of the people who actually live out there.' 'The Deer Hunter' (1979) It's arguably the preeminent American film about the Vietnam War. No other movie more grandly or tragically charts the American evolution from innocence to disillusionment than Michael Cimino's devastating epic about working-class friends (Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Savage) from a Pennsylvania steel town drafted into war. The final sing-along scene to 'God Bless America,' after their lives have irrevocably changed, remains a powerfully poignant gut punch. 'Apocalypse Now' (1979) Francis Ford Coppola wagered everything he had on his masterpiece — and nearly lost it. 'Apocalypse Now,' which transposes Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' to the Vietnam War, is an epic of madness that teeters on the brink of hallucination. Shot in the Philippines and more faithful to Conrad than to Vietnam, 'Apocalypse Now' doesn't so much illuminate the chaos and moral confusion of the war as elevate it to grandiose nightmare. 'Platoon' (1986) The 1980s saw a wave of Hollywood films about Vietnam, including 'First Blood,' 'Hamburger Hill,' 'Good Morning Vietnam,' 'Casualties of War' and 'Born on the Fourth of July.' Foremost among them is the Oscar best picture-winning 'Platoon,' which Oliver Stone wrote based on his own experiences as an infantryman in Vietnam. Widely acclaimed for its realism, Stone's film remains among the most intensely vivid and visceral dramatizations of the war. 'Full Metal Jacket' (1987) Stanley Kubrick should be more often thought of as the supreme anti-war moviemaker. His devastating World War I film 'Paths of Glory' and the subversive satire 'Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb' are classics in their own right. 'Full Metal Jacket' carries those films' themes of dehumanization into an even more brutal place. Split between the harrowing boot-camp tyranny of R. Lee Ermey's drill instructor and the urban violence of the 1968 Tet Offensive, 'Full Metal Jacket' fuses both ends of the war machine. 'Little Dieter Needs to Fly' (1997) How former soldiers lived with their experience in Vietnam has been a subject of many fine films, from Hal Ashby's 'Coming Home' (1978) to Spike Lee's 'Da 5 Bloods' (2020). In Werner Herzog's nonfiction gem, he profiles the astonishing story of German-American pilot Dieter Dengler. In the film, which Herzog later remade as 2007's 'Rescue Dawn' with Christian Bale, Dengler recounts — and sometimes reenacts — his experience being shot down over Laos, being captured and tortured and then escaping into the jungle. 'The Fog of War' (2003) Not long after the turn of the century, former U.S. defense secretary and Vietnam War architect Robert S. McNamara sat for interviews with documentarian Errol Morris. The result is a chilling reflection on the thinking that led to one of American's greatest follies. It's not a mea culpa but a thornier and more disquieting rumination on how rationalized ideology can lead to the deaths of millions — and still not yield an apology. Of McNamara's lessons, No. 1 is 'empathize with the enemy.' 'The Post' (2017) Steven Spielberg's stirring film dramatizes the Washington Post's 1971 publishing of the Pentagon Papers, a collection of classified documents that chronicled America's 20-year involvement in Southeast Asia. While government analyst Daniel Ellsberg (a moving participant in 'Hearts and Minds') could be considered the hero of this story, 'The Post' turns its focus to Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep) and the wartime role of the Fourth Estate. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
