| | Words in the News |
INTRO | | The Cannes film festival's most important prize, the Palme d'Or, for best film has been given to The Italian film "The Son's Room" by the director Nanni Moretti. From Cannes, BBC Correspondent, Jo Episcopo reports. |
IN FULL | |  | Listen to the report in full |
 |  | 21st May 2001 Cannes Film Festival - Palme d'Or Winner |
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NEWS 1 | | | Listen to the first part of the report |
| | | A clearly delighted Nanni Moretti beamed as the jury’s president, the Norwegian actress Liv Ullman, announced his film had proved the critics right and won the festival’s top prize. (LIV ULMAN: The Palme d’Or goes to the Nanni Moretti...) "The Son’s Room" is a powerful exploration of how a family falls apart after the death of a teenage son. When it showed earlier this week it had audiences, male and female alike, visibly affected by its emotional depth. While the Italians celebrated, it was a good year all round forEuropean art house movies. An Austrian film about sexual repression, "The Piano Teacher" by Michael Heneke, won three awards. And the first ever Bosnian film in competition at Cannes won best screenplay. But the American didn’t go away empty-handed. Two strong films from the United States shared the award for best director, Joel Coen for his film noir about murder and blackmail in small-town California in "The Man Who Wasn't There" and David Lynch for his film "Mulholland Drive", about how Hollywood can crush dreams and lives. |
| | | | Listen to the words |
WORDS | | delighted: If you are delighted, you are extremely happy and excited about something
beamed: If you beam, you smile because you are happy
top prize: the highest, most important prize
falls apart: If something falls apart, it breaks into pieces - so if a family falls apart it stops being complete and all the people in it stop being close.
art house movies: classic and new films which appeal to limited audiences.
(The term ‘Art House’ is of American origin used to describe cinemas showing classic films and new films which have limited audiences. Art house movies or films are therefore films which get shown in such cinemas.)
empty-handed: If you come back from somewhere empty-handed, you have failed to get what you intended to get.
film noir: dark, suspenseful thriller
(originally, a term used by French film critics - dark, wet city streets, the play of shadows and complex plots are important elements of film noir.) |
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| NEWS 2 | | | Listen to the second part of the report |
| | | Opinion is divided over whether Cannes has achieved its goal of rewarding films on the grounds of artistic merit. Some argued the absence of some of the bigger American studios, worried about the impact of a possible actors’ strike next month, meant there was more interest this year in foreign language films. Cannes may be regarded as the world’s most important film festival but winning here is no guarantee of a film’s commercial success. The real test will be at the box office when the films go on general release around the world later this year. |
| | | | Listen to the words |
| WORDS | | divided: split
on the grounds of: Here means because of.
merit: If something has merit, it is good or worthwhile.
no guarantee: no certainty that something will happen.
box office: a place where tickets for film, theatre and concerts are sold.
general release: When films go on general release they get shown at local cinemas throughout a country as opposed to selected cinemas in city centres. |
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| | | Read about the background in BBC News Online |
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