Cannes becomes, in Emmanuel Carrère’s account, less a glamorous destination than a sharply tiered workplace where a novice critic discovers how little access and recognition his credentials provide. At the festival, a book signing for his study of Werner Herzog and an interview with the director turn the city into the scene of successive humiliations—and of a decisive encounter with the man Carrère had idealized.

Festival Access and Its Hierarchy

After Carrère’s book on Herzog was published, Télérama sent him to Cannes to interview its subject, who was presenting Fitzcarraldo. Friends considered the assignment fortunate; Carrère experienced the festival as a place of recurring humiliation. He later returned in more satisfying capacities—as a screenwriter whose film was in the official competition, as a director, and as a jury member—but at this early visit he was an inexperienced freelancer without contacts.

The festival’s status system was visible in the access his badge allowed. Carrère placed himself near its bottom: he could attend only the most inconveniently scheduled screenings, while above him stood the stars and the people seeking a glimpse of them. His position was especially uncomfortable because he was neither among the stars nor able to take the uncomplicated pleasure of a spectator at the barriers. Cannes thus registers both a physical arrangement of restricted access and Carrère’s acute awareness of his own place within it.

The Book-Signing Ordeal

On the day Fitzcarraldo was screened in competition, Carrère’s publisher arranged a signing after the screening in the Palais des Festivals. Carrère sat behind a small table piled with copies of his book, waiting for buyers. The festival audience, already deluged with press kits, photo books, résumés, and brochures, had little reason to welcome another item. Most people passing the table ignored him; some took a copy and walked away as if it were a free handout.

Carrère ran after them to explain, apologetically, that the book was for sale. The episode transforms the ordinary awkwardness of an author waiting for customers into a particularly exposed trial: the setting that had brought him close to the celebrated filmmaker also made his own book seem like unwanted festival litter. The gap between proximity and recognition is central to his experience of Cannes.

The Interview at the Carlton

The book signing was, Carrère says, nothing compared with his interview with Herzog. The day before the appointment, he had arranged for his book to be delivered to the director by Herzog’s press secretary. Knowing that Herzog could not read French, Carrère did not expect him to comment on the book; nevertheless, he hoped for more warmth than the director had shown the journalists he had seen in forty-five-minute slots that day.

Herzog opened the door of his suite at the Carlton Hotel dressed in a loose T-shirt, work pants, and heavy walking shoes. Carrère, by contrast, was smiling too much and worried that Herzog had not been told who he was. Seeing the book on the coffee table, he began to acknowledge it, then faltered. Herzog looked at him in silence and answered, “I’d rather we not talk about that. I know it’s bullshit. Let’s work.” The exchange ends the anticipated recognition before it begins: in Cannes, Carrère has reached the celebrated filmmaker, but the interview proceeds only after Herzog rejects the subject Carrère had brought into the room.