Caine returns to Cannes after 50 years

Published May 21, 2015

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Cannes, France - Veteran British actor Michael Caine joked on Wednesday that he had wept when he saw his new movie’s poster, which shows two elderly men in a swimming pool gazing at a young naked woman.

 

Caine, 82, and US actor Harvey Keitel, 76, play two old retired friends facing up to the indignities of old age in Oscar-winning Italian director Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth.

 

“We are just looking at what we lost and what we will never get back again,” Caine told a press conference marking the film’s launch at the Cannes Film Festival. “The poster – it made me cry,” he said.

 

Caine was making his return to the world’s leading film festival for the first time in 50 years after starring in Alfie, the 1966 romantic comedy that won Cannes’ jury prize that year.

 

“The only alternative to playing elderly people is playing dead people,” Caine said noting his advancing years.

 

“I was pretty smart. I chose elderly people,” said Caine, whose character in the film is a retired composer and conductor.

 

Youth marks Sorrentino’s sixth entry in Cannes’ prestigious main competition and is one of 19 movies competing this year for the

festival’s coveted prizes, including the Palme d’Or for best picture.

 

“The passing of time is the only subject that interests people,” said Sorrentino. The question is, “How much longer do we have left?”

 

Naples-born Sorrentino joins Matteo Garrone and Nanni Moretti as one of three Italian directors selected for Cannes main competition this year.

 

Sorrentino’s last film in Cannes, The Great Beauty (La grande bellezza) in 2013 went on to win an Oscar for best foreign language

film at last year’s Academy Awards.

 

Hollywood legend Jane Fonda, who also stars as an aging actress in Youth, was more upbeat about facing to the later years of a person’s life.

 

“Age is a question of attitude,” the 77-year-old Fonda said. “Even my character knows what she wants. You remain young when you have passion in your life. I do and the film does.”

 

 

DPA

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