In the Cannes
By Frances Sun
June 2, 2004 9:00 p.m.
While most students were on campus studying for midterms in
mid-May, graduate film student Tim McCarthy was in Cannes, France,
enjoying a little limelight at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival
where his short film, “The Rick,” had its first public
screening.
“God, it’s hard to describe,” McCarthy said.
“It was fantastic. I had never screened any of my work
publicly, and this was a big event.”
McCarthy wrote and directed “The Rick” as a film
project for a production class last year. The film tells the story
of a disgruntled dishwasher and his inability to cope with a
mentally disabled coworker’s promotion above him.
McCarthy submitted his film to the festival’s
Cinéfondation sidebar, which recognizes the work of film
school students worldwide. Out of 900 films submitted, only 18 were
selected by the festival this year. According to McCarthy, the good
news was unexpected.
“It was my first time submitting anything to a
festival,” he said. “(The festival) accepted
in-progress work, so I had sent them an in-progress edit. I
wasn’t expecting much, but I received an e-mail saying that
they would like to see the completed project.”
The judges weren’t the only ones who enjoyed
McCarthy’s film. According to McCarthy, the audience’s
reaction met and exceeded his hopes for the screening.
“I was fairly nervous up until the screening,” he
said. “There were certain hook moments. Waiting for that
first laugh was definitely something. But then it happens and
it’s amazing. It was encouraging to have people, especially
non-English speakers, enjoy the film. At least no one walked
out.”
Before Cannes was anywhere in the picture, McCarthy’s
biggest hope was simply to make a movie interesting to someone
other than himself. He believes the strength of his film lies in
its characters.
“The personalities of the characters built the
story,” he said. “It’s about how the characters
deal with self-worth. The harder (Rick) tries, the further he
strays away from what he wants. The way he avoids the bottom
ultimately secures the fact that he ends up there.”
The cast shared McCarthy’s view, attributing the
film’s success to McCarthy’s originality.
“I was pleased with the look of the character,” said
Ian McConnel, who played Rick. “It was different, but it just
really made sense. (McCarthy) wasn’t interested in going for
cheap laughs. He had an original take on things and didn’t
want to take the easy route.”
While screening his own film, McCarthy enjoyed attending movie
premiers and meeting the other directors in his category, in
addition to simply soaking up the festival’s atmosphere.
“It was a little surreal just being there,” McCarthy
said. “There were screenings and little parties everywhere.
People come from all over just to catch what they can at Cannes.
There’s just so much happening simultaneously.”
But McCarthy didn’t let the chaos of the festival go to
his head. Despite having a film featured at Cannes so early in his
career, the young director is trying to be realistic about his
future.
“Cannes hasn’t changed my interest in film,”
McCarthy said. “You can’t say, “˜Oh, I’m
going to make a movie for the sole purpose of wanting it to go to
Cannes.’ It’s about forgetting what you’ve done,
so that you can go back to square one and do something
else.”
For now, McCarthy continues to write, without thinking too far
ahead. While he’s proud of “The Rick,” he knows
he can’t expect that kind of success in the future.
“At this point, I’m barely a filmmaker,” he
said. “I’m not interested in honing what I’m
doing or in asking why I’m doing what I’m doing.
I’m just following my instincts.”
