With Baz Luhrmann‘s The Great Gatsby set as the opening film, the 66th edition of the Cannes Film Festival have now unveiled their official poster ahead of the full line-up. Coming in two forms (both as a standard one-sheet and an animated version), it features Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman embracing during the production of the 1963 film A New Kind of Love. Check out a summary straight from the festival below, along with the posters, and return for our coverage straight from Cannes.
To grace the poster for its 66th edition, the Festival de Cannes has chosen a couple who embody the spirit of cinema like no other: Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman, photographed during the shooting of the aptly named A New Kind of Love, by Melville Shavelson (1963).
For the Festival it is a chance both to pay tribute to the memory of Paul Newman, who passed away in 2008, and to mark its undying admiration for Joanne Woodward, his wife and most favoured co-star.
They were honoured at the Festival de Cannes in 1958 – the year of their marriage – with the selection In Competition of Martin Ritt’s The Long Hot Summer, the first film in which they appeared together. The links between their story and that of the Festival continued with a series of films directed by Newman, who cast Woodward in unforgettable roles in The Effect of the Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (Competition – 1973) and The Glass Menagerie (Competition – 1987).
The photograph from the shoot was isolated, remastered and redesigned by the Bronx agency, who added a kinetic element, toying with the impression of movement and depth in order to enhance the cinematographic effect.
The poster evokes a luminous and tender image of the modern couple, intertwined in perfect balance at the heart of the dizzying whirlwind that is love. The vision of these two lovers caught in a vertiginous embrace, oblivious of the world around them, invites us to experience cinema with all the passion of an everlasting desire.
Cannes Film Festival 2013 kicks off on May 15th.