Cannes Film Festival Kicks Off with French-Bashing Robin Hood

The Cannes Film Festival officially opened today with the 10 a.m. press screening of Ridley Scott's nearly two-and-half-hour epic Robin Hood. The film, a sort of Robin Hood Begins, attempts to retell the familiar story of how Robin Hood (a chiseled Russell Crowe) and his Maid Marian (Cate Blanchett) became the archenemies of the pusillanimous and pugnacious British King John.

Screening to a packed house in the Salle Debussy, the smaller of the two mega-theaters at the Palais du Festival, the film left a majority of international critics and writers collectively shrugging their shoulders. At the heart of the $237 million film is the battle between the soul-crushing and tyrannical French empire and the noble, British do-gooders—an interesting conflict for a world-premiere screening in France.

At a press conference immediately following the film (one in which all but a couple dozen of the world's top critics were allowed entry to), a surprisingly jovial Russell Crowe -- with his two über-cute kids in tow -- addressed the irony of screening Robin Hood in France.

"If you think in terms of the history of American-financed motion pictures," he said, "to have so much French language in this movie... and to tell the one simple truth -- that this grand English hero was snuffed out by a crossbow bolt shot by a French cook... I think that is why we're opening the Cannes Film Festival."

Producer Brian Grazer added, "[The French and the British] both have equal qualities of uncomfortable nature. We were thrilled to be invited to open the Cannes Film Festival, and we were somewhat aware that there was a political nature to it. But really this is the story of Robin and Marian."

Perhaps the most pressing question on the minds of journalists at Cannes, though, was why on earth tell the story of Robin Hood again -- a story that's been told, retold, reworked, and parodied countless times in films dating back to 1913? Since director Ridley Scott is recovering from knee surgery and couldn't make the trip to Cannes, the answer fell to Crowe, who served as a producer on the film.

"There are so many Robin Hoods made," Crowe admitted, "but personally I don't feel any one is satisfactory in terms of its human element. Do I really believe in the motivations and the back story of any of the other Robin Hoods that have been done...? My answer was no. I wanted to find out what the essential elements were for this man's altruism."

If it would have been up to Blanchett, however, casting changes would have happened right at the top. When asked whom she looked upon as inspiration to play Maid Marian, Blanchett said, "To be honest, Olivia de Havilland is a great beauty, but I always wanted to play Robin Hood rather than Maid Marian, but the part was already taken." (Unlike the part of Bob Dylan, whom she played with verve in I'm Not There.) She continued, "I wasn't really interested in the 'maiden in distress.'"

So what's next for Robin Hood? Franchise? Sequels? How could there not be?

"We don't have two other scripts under Ridley's hospital bed," Crowe explained. "When we talked about what we liked and disliked in other Robin Hoods... it was a seven-and-a-half hour film. We've told the first couple of hours; obviously there's a figure in the studio head's mind. If we pass a certain figure, then they'll give us a call and say, 'Tell us the second part of the story.' But there's no grand plan in that regard."

And judging by the tepid reaction of the Cannes press corps, that's probably a good thing.