A few minutes ago the official festival poster was announced with American movie icons Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman in a 1963 photo from the shooting of Melville Shavelson’s A New Kind of Love.
The following is what the festival announced about the original photo and the poster.
The original photo
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 favored co-star.
They were honored 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 2013 Festival Poster
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.
The ★ Bronx agency (Paris) was responsible for all the graphics of the 2013 Festival.
It also created an animated film for the poster, to the soundtrack of a remixed version of the Festival’s musical theme. Arrangements: Olivier Huguenard – Emmanuel Plégat / Sismic Music.
Can’t help but share that one film that never has left my memory is The Long Hot Summer, which perhaps is my favorite from the real life husband and wife couple and a film that I highly recommend to see if you haven’t seen it yet. My only suggestion is to see it as a period film from a long-gone era.
Because photos are really worth watching, suggest you check the Poster Couple article at official festival site here.
Find the poster interesting, somehow a great portrait from the sixties but believe that the graphic representation in the vertical, horizontal and square materials is very suggestive as we know this is the 66th edition but because the photo chosen seems more a 69 than a 66. Wonder if is on purpose or just my imagination.