As the saying goes Life is the most Spectacular Show on Earth and that is what happened to me the day I met Robert Pattinson at the Today Show on April 18,2011 in NYC!

My weekend started when my friends and I attended a cocktail party for Team Rosie for Water For Elephants Saturday Night at the Hilton in NYC. The party was at the hotel bar called Bridges. It was sponsored by the girls who run the H2O web site. At the party these two guys sat our table their names were Gary C. Payne and his friend Bruce who are huge circus fans and help run the Circus Fans Association of America. They had helped Sara research the book and helped on the movie as well. They told us that most of the props used on set came from various Circus museums from around America. It was also interesting talking to them about how Sara came up with the name for the book.

Gary told me it was a joke “Water For Elephants” because if you were a layperson and worked on a Circus for a day setting up the tent or feeding the animals then you could see the Circus for free. However you could not see the Circus by giving Water to the Elephants because the amount of water you needed was massive and you needed more the one person to help. So the phrase stuck with Sara and when she told Gary he laughed and told her he thought the title was great.

It was really cool talking to them. I told them how I had met Sara at a book signing that September of 2010 and how she was so nice. They said how over the course of writing the book and helping on the movie they all became good friends with her and her family. They also told me that Tai the elephant is a joy and how the moderators from the H2O web site got a chance to meet Tai in California.

Then later on that night the actor who played Kinko aka Walter Mark Povinelli showed up for a signing. It was awesome to meet him and to congratulate him on the success of the film.

Form where the Hilton hotel is we were right across the street from the Ziegfield Theater and we already saw people in line for the premiere the next day. It was pouring out by that point and they were waiting in the rain.

Later on Sara Guren showed up which was a huge surprise. She signed 125 special Water For Elephant posters as well as signed any books we had and took photos. Twice in the night she went outside in the rain to meet and greet and sign for fans waiting for the premiere. It was so sweet of her. It was a joy to meet her again and to wish her much success on the film.

Also Barbra Donna W Scott who played Barbra in the movie showed up last minute and made an appearance. It was great to see how excited she was for the film and to meet some fans.

Then after I went out to Lenny’s Diner with some of my friends who were in from out of town and caught up with them.

My friend Hope was in from Alabama and her two friends Sabrina and Jennifer were in town from New Hampshire. They work for the web site Pattinson Post and were going to be on the red carpet the next day with the press and later on had tickets to see the film. I was so thrilled for them. Their friend Greg who is a professional photographer was also with them so he could get some good shots on the red carpet.

After that we all went home and got some sleep for the next day.

A few of my friends got to the Today Show site at 9AM Sunday morning. We were the first ones in line. After that a few of us arrived around 1 or 2 and got ready for the Today Show camp out. It was great being we were so close to the Ziegfield we all took turns going to the premiere when it started around 5.

The premiere was packed and you couldn’t really see anything. We did manage to get some free water For Elephant posters they were giving out to the fans. Even thought the Ziegfield was packed if you went inside the Hilton Hotel across the street to the Bridges Bar were the cocktail party was you had a great view being they have huge glass windows. We saw most of the cast doing interviews from up above. We saw Hal Holbrook and Mark Povinelli doing some interviews. It was Amazing to see some of the premiere!

Then I saw Rob walk the red carpet and sign some autographs and take some photos with fans We had a great view of him. WOW did he look good in his gray suit with maroon tie! Even my one friend Nikki who was with me when we saw him was like “wow I knew he was good looking but I didn’t know how good looking he was in real life. I was not expecting that! I am really surprised that he just took my breath away.”

Then my friends and I walked back and got ready to camp out for the Today Show for Monday morning. It was awesome later on in the night Jennifer and Hope joined us and told us all about their red carpet adventures and how the movie was amazing and how Rob did a wonderful job! I was so excited.

The Today Show camp out was a lot of fun! We met tons of people from the camp out and ran into a few friends on line as well. People came for all over from Boston to Canada.

We also worked on making posters during the night if we had time and just hung out. It was a lot of fun. My friends and I also brought Rob a gift. The gift was a sterling silver plated lighter with his initials of RTP for Robert Thomas Pattinson engraved on it with a nice note to thank him for being him.

Here is what we wrote.

Dear Robert,
This is a little token from us to say thank you for all that you have given us in the entertainment world.
You’re a wonderful actor, amazing singer, and a truly beautiful person. You’ve brought much joy into our lives, and we wanted you to know just how special you are.

Then around 6AM Monday morning we packed up our things and got ready to go inside the courtyard at 6:30. At first we were going to head to our usual spot on the right hand side being that is where I met Taylor in June 2010 for the Eclipse Press tour. However when Security saw our posters he told us to go to the other side being the camera would see it more. So we walked over to the left hand side of the door.

At first my friend Patty and a few of use were worried we made a mistake and should have stayed on the right hand side. However my friend Hope kept on saying I have seen him come to this side before. I have a feeling he will come to this side. So then we just tried to stay positive and hope for the best.

We waited a good hour and a half while The Today Show set up and went through the news. It looked like Rob was running late and we were worried that Rob wouldn’t have enough time to get to everyone outside before they brought him inside the Today Show studio to do the interview being we knew he also had to go to Regis and Kelly right after.

Then around 8:20 we saw the revolving doors swing and Rob walked out and came right over to our side! We were so excited. He looked so good dressed in his jeans dark blue button down shirt and vintage green leather bomber jacket and black sneakers. He was also wearing tortoiseshell sunglasses.

Rob went down the line taking his time to sign autographs and take photos. My friend Patty was able to give him our gift. She showed it to him and he loved it. He smiled and put it into his jacket pocket.

Rob then signed my friend Stephanie’s Water For Elephants book and she told him she has a sister named Victoria. He laughed and thought it was cool. Stephanie had also made a poster that said “The Brotherhood of the Traveling Plaid” It had photos of Rob’s friends Sam, Marcus, Bobby, and Tom on it wear all of the same or similar plaid shirts. Rob smiled when he saw it.

Rob then was right in front of me. Wow he is even ten times more gorgeous in person! I had left my Water For Elephants book at home so I had nothing for him to sign. So I asked him if I could please have a photo with him. Rob said sure. So we took the photo. Oh and might I add he smelled so good! It was a combination of musk and leather.

Rob was very close to our section because at some points it got very crowed being The Today Show were filming the crowds on the courtyard. So we had tons of camera crews, The Today Show security and The Today Show logistics manager directing where they should go. Plus we also had Rob’s security guard Dean, and his manager Nick. It was so crowed that at one point I was so close to Rob that he actually brushed my shoulder!

It was right after I took my photo with him. I felt someone push into my shoulder and I was thinking in my head who is pushing into me thinking it was someone in our section who had bumped into me. So I turned to see who it was and yes it was non other then Robert Pattinson. I just about died knowing I had touched him or rather he had touched me!

I then asked if I could have one more photo being I was determined that my friend Hope who came all the way from Alabama get a photo with him. So Rob looked at me and his eyebrows went up giving me his signature look and was like ok sure I then grabbed my friend Hope and pulled her in to get a photo with Rob. Needless to say Rob was very confused. I then told Rob thank you. He couldn’t have been nicer.

At one point Nick his manager was walking down towards our section. He stopped and nearly feel over when he saw my friend Hope’s poster and said to her tell me that photo is not real and that it is photo shopped. Hope’s poster said Rob You Inspire Me and she had a huge photo Rob from his first movie the Ring Of The Nebelungs. Hope then went on to tell Nick that the photo was very real and was taken from Rob’s first movie The Ring Of The Nebelungs in 2004.

Hope was dying being she knows that Nick has Rob’s manager since he was 16 and was shocked he didn’t know about this movie. Nick then grabbed Rob who was busy going down the line and pulled him over to Hope’s poster and said to him “Tell me that is not real” Rob laughed and shook his head and said “yes it is.” Hope smiled at Nick and said, “See I told you.” Rob then went over and asked Hope if he wanted him to sign her poster. She said please. Rob laughed and shook his head in embarrassment and smiled at Hope as he signed her poster. He was so nice Hope was so happy.

Hope was so happy because when she was making the poster her boyfriend was telling her why are you putting that photo of him on your poster it’s so bad and she was like no I am putting that front and center. In the end she was happy it payed off.

Rob then went down the line chatting, signing, and taking photos with fans.

I was really impressed and amazed by how Rob took his time and got to almost everyone in the whole courtyard. He must have been outside for a good 20 to 30 minutes before he had to walk back to the revolving doors before he went into the studio at 8:44 for the Today Show interview. It was sweet he smiled and waved at everyone one last time before going inside.

After that my friends and I all grabbed our things and left the courtyard and went on our way. I then headed back to Hope’s hotel room at the Hilton. I swear the boy must have flew because no sooner did we get back to Hope’s hotel room that Rob was on Regis and Kelly. So we watched the interview and celebrated meeting Rob.

It was wonderful meeting Rob! It was a joy to finally meet him after being a fan of Rob’s since 2005 when he played Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire. He couldn’t have been nicer and was so sweet! What a very polite and gracious man! I wish him nothing but the best in life.

Never in a million years did I think I would meet Robert Pattinson and actor who I have admired for so many years. What a Spectacular day it was and just as an elephants never forgets I too will never forget April 18, 2011 and the day I met Robert Pattinson.

You can see her with Rob at around 22 seconds in a video here!

Thank you Erin for sharing your story with us!

Thank you to staffer @jenniferklobus for obtaining this story!

Télérama10: 25 AM – Telerama PublicEn coverage, special Cannes Robert Pattinson #

- Focus on # Cannes with David Cronenberg, Nanni Moretti, Wes Anderson, Alain Resnais, Robert Pattinson, Denis Lavant, Leos Carax, Ken Loach, Jacques Audiard …

Thanks Brit!

Update: Our sister site RPattz/Robert Pattinson has provided the following translation to the magazine article within the magazine:

An important metamorphosis

Romantic vampire in the Twilight Saga, the teen hearthrob Robert Pattinson was more used to trigger off hysteria than admiration. And then Cronenberg appeared and he gave him his golden boy role… From fangs to Cronenberg, an actor is born

(….)

This interview was made in a private club in Sunset Boulevard. In this gorgeous place, they expected to see a proud star coming but it wasn’t the case. He was wearing a baseball cap, a blond beard, a slumber shirt, a white T shirt and washed out jeans. He asked the reporter to go on the terrace in order to smoke a cigarette. He coughed and laughed nervously and he noted he didn’t feel at ease in such a luxurious place.

After Twilight’s success , he was afraid to be typecast. He would like to play in a black comedy ( like the ones made by Tom Solondz) or in drama films for men ( like the ones made by James Gray or Jacques Audiard)

“I was scared I couln’t be in art house movies even if I’m passionate about it. I was afraid no one would propose me some interesting screenplays. I was afraid my life would go on and that one day , someone would tell me “Apart from the Twilight saga, what did you do exactly?”. In this industry , we’re easily typecast. You’re easily reduced to the hearthrob status”.

“I didn’t prove myself. And I was always aware of the hysteria surrounding me. It’s just because of the character I’m playing, Edward Cullen, the romantic vampire. Besides, even before the shooting started, the girls were screaming during Stephenie Meyer’s reading sessions. ”

When he got Cosmopolis’s screenplay, his excitement is mixed with the beginner’s fears. “I was so convinced I was going to ruin everything that I spent a whole week trying to find a way ro refuse it. And then I thought I shouldn’t act like a little girl.”

This proposition was also intimidating because of the well-developped dialogues :” My agent was nervous. “Why did you accept it if you don’t understand anything?”he asked me. I confessed my perplexity to Cronenberg and it pleased him. I think that’s why he chose me. Most of the actors from my generation would have liked to act cool trying to say 2 or 3 smart things. But I was completely lost. ”

Cronenberg could see Robert Pattinson wasn’t the kind of actor who comes on set hands in his pocket. Hardworking, excessively curious, the Twilight star is a bookworm and he’s been interesting in playing a golden boy for a long time, a character similar to his character in Cosmopolis. He has Money, from Martin Amis on his bedside table. He finds in this book a lot of common points between his life and the empty space of the star system. He also wrote his own screenplay for an on screen adaptation and he hopes he’ll play it one day. ” Of course, I thought about it for Cosmopolis but these heroes are completely different. And Cronenberg prefered I knew nothing. He wanted me to free myself, he wanted me to say my line in an abstract way, as if it was poetry. It was exciting and a bit frightening. Today, I’m still nervous to talk in front of people about a film that’s still dark for me. ” But Cronenberg really wanted him to be missing something. He was talking to me about Fellini and he was telling me that when a director absolutely wants to achieve something, he’s already dead. It’s much more interesting than understanding at once where an artist wants to take us. And it’s the first time I like a film in which I play.

(They are talking about his background and his sisters)

“At first , I was disguted by the actors’ vanity. I absolutely wanted to write, but quickly I had to find what I wanted to do and acting seems to be the way to say things I couldn’t say otherwise. ”

(They are talking about his first role in Vanity Fair which was cut, in Harry Potter and his verve, his arrogance and his bad temper which didn”t help him find jobs)

“I was completely lost, I would do one tedious role after another. I was paid 30 euros a day. When they propose me Twilight, I didn’t have a choice. My agent in Hollywood had been looking for roles for 3 years and he didn’t get any. Normally, if they fail to find anything after 6 months of research, we are dead for the industry, but she kept believing in me. I was never fascinated by the role. But when I was cast, I gave myself for this role 150%”.

They refer to the end of the Twilight Saga

“I’m curious to get back to this universe one last time and see what effect it’ll have on me. And on the audience too. I think the hype is dying down. It’s now the Hunger Games era. Now, our world demands fresh meat”.

Finally, they mention his 5 upcoming projects , one of xhich will be in Irak. He perfectly knows he “can fail two or three times before people start forgetting” him, he alludes to coming back to music and writing songs inspired by Van Morrison’s Beside You and Neil Young’s Ambulance Blues. He’s also thinking about a film and a TV series. He never renounced to be his own author and he works hard on the screenplay for an ambitious project , a fantastic ( and politic) adventures trilogy , freely adaptated from a successful novel “At the moment, people are listening to me so I’m taking advantage of it. I think nowadays it’s impossible to last for an actor. And I love my job so I won’t let it go.

Summary:

There are a lot of Cosmopolis and Pattinson mentions in these article. All positive. The most interesting one is on Il Corriere della Sera (Paolo Merenghetti, the author of this article is the most famous italian movie critic) that says about Cosmopolis (saying that this sentence is from Cahier Du Cinema): “Cosmopolis is the most actual movie that can be imagined. What we wanted to see here and now to give an image of the absurdity of the beginning of this century”, says the Cahier Du Cinema on Cosmopolis “

Thank you to Fiammy with Robert Pattinson Mom’s!

“Cosmopolis deals with our need of money, sex, power and mix it all up. It’s a very dangerous game” (J.Binoche)

“I met Robert for the first time on set. I must admit, I’d never watched his movies. I discovered a big cinephile passion in him”

“R knows cinema better than me. Working with him was good and funny. He’s a very ambitious man: one day he’ll write and produce movies”

The journalist describes Rob as “a global icon, a living picture of beauty and youth. Quite a fitting choice”.

“Didi Fincher is a lost woman, as lost as Eric Packer. She’s a lonely person, her fickleness is a hideout, here she can stop her anxiety”

Google Translate:

It comes in the room next week Cosmopolis, David Cronenberg’s new film starring Robert Pattinson. Among the main performers stands out the name of Juliette Binoche, who confesses in a lengthy interview with “Woman I”. Here is the full article in preview.

Cosmopolis is the place and the moment when “a rat can become the currency.” The epigraph to the novel by Don DeLillo that David Cronenberg has made into the film among the most anticipated festival of Cannes (and out May 25) says a lot. “We are at the end of an era, the golden age of cybercapitalismo, with the booming markets and unbridled dreams of individual wealth.” On that fateful day Eric Packer (Robert Pattinson, the star of Twilight) – a young millionaire and immoral – decides to cross the city, on board of his limousine soundproofed and protected for a haircut. In this odyssey will meet the rebellion, will cross the fate of murderers, professionals, technocrats, and that of Didi Fincher, his art dealer. That proposes to acquire a work by Mark Rothko. But Eric Packer wants, and for himself, the Rothko Chapel, a place of spirituality ‘belongs to the world. ” The deal will not be made. Didi Fincher Cosmopolis is Juliette Binoche, actress indefinable object of desire of directors to the four corners of the world, “French dream” to define political creature who, in turn, lent his face and strong statements in favor of José Bové (in 2007 against Nicolas Sarkozy), the Cambodian children or Reporters sans Frontieres.

“I’m 41 years and understand what is the problem,” says his character in the film. “Life is too contemporary.”

Don DeLillo’s writing – and the film is very faithful to the novel – was for me the extraordinary discovery of a universe.

A cold world, without humanity. That forces us to face the nightmare of desire, anxiety to possess everything, the obsession to win, to climb higher up, looking for a “more” is not there.

Although his character is very contemporary, mixing sex and business, and perhaps no longer believe in anything, not even art. What effect did it?

Didi Fincher is a lost woman, as well as Eric Packer is lost. It’s just one person, its apparent weight is actually a hiding place where allay anxiety. Cosmopolis speaks of our need to procure money, sex, power and mix everything. A very dangerous game.

She looked at Hollywood’s eyes, took the best of what they offered and rejected his praises. He never had the temptation of “more”?

I do not know where I go sometimes, I make my choices every day, going instinctively to the most beautiful, most exciting. And I never considered the language barriers or boundaries. After working in America knew I had to return to Europe to take care of my children (he has two children, Raphael and Hannah, Ed.) The money was never a goal for me. And fame has always been only a consequence of what I was doing. a young I had a great need for recognition as a child because I had not felt fairly considered, but the recognition I was looking for was what is love, the magic of life. As an adult I tried to prove that I could accommodate that spell, I could transform the way I wanted. And being an actress is the best way to do it!

Do not cry because she is an actress who in public. The last time was just on stage at the Cannes Film Festival for Jafar Panahi, Iranian director arrested for showing his films in a reality that the regime in Tehran does not approve. What is she crying for?

It is the expression of the heart, I am not ashamed of crying in official situations. The heart must be able to! Crying is the most complete experience of empathy. Sometimes we’re just hypersensitive because we are tired or too bare. But with the maturity we better understand our emotions, we are more aware of our reactions. When we speak of maturity, old age, we always refer only to changes in the skin, but never enough to liberation and lightness that gives us the experience.

In an English newspaper not long ago said, “It is normal for a French woman be considered an initiator, a goddess of love.” Be labeled, even if the label is prestigious, not the annoying?

No one should ever be put in a box. Life is not geometry. But I forget the interviews I do, forgetting is the most fertile ground for cultivating new ideas and initiate new experiences! And being in front of a camera is a challenge constantly renewed, is a story of love, respect you with emptiness, with responsibility, fear, joy, you ask questions, there’s the surprise, there God and there is also the only person in flesh and blood who said the fatal word “Action.” If the challenge is a jump in the ocean of being there I am!

He spoke of growing old. His first plans were intense in 1991 Lovers of the Pont-Neuf, and still are today, in 2012 in Cosmopolis.

When I work I can only trust in the director of photography, editor, director, their looks and their love. If you are filmed with love and intelligence behind that movie and if there is no vision, no matter how old you are, you’ll always be beautiful. This is my philosophy and I hope to be believed as long as possible. And then what I play is more important than me, when I work there is no room for narcissistic anxieties. Of course, later when I get home, I can ask myself my little questions, like: “I shall have in place? ‘. Suddenly I come back to reality.

Robert Pattinson, who is the protagonist of Cosmopolis, is a global icon, a living image of beauty and youth. A perfect choice.

I met Robert for the first time on set. I must admit that I had not seen his films. And I found in him a fierce passion for cinema, the cinema knows much better than me. It was lovely and fun to work with him, a man is very ambitious: to produce and direct his films a day.

Thanks to @catrux for the tip and quotes!

In competition at Cannes, Cosmopolis traces, from inside his limo high-tech, the path of a young financial tycoon who has made up his mind to cross New York when the city is paralyzed by traffic jams in the joint effects of the visit of President of the United States, riots organized by an anarcho-situationist and a global stock market crash. Produced by Paulo Branco Portuguese (producer Raul Ruiz, Chantal Akerman …), directed by Canadian David Cronenberg (eXistenZ, A History of Violence …), the film is adapted from the novel Cosmopolis, American writer Don DeLillo (Libra, Background Noise, Underworld …), with striking fidelity.

Why does he choose a director to adapt a novel?

David Cronenberg: First of laziness. Write an original script can take years. Cosmopolis that took me six days. A record for me. It was very strange. The first day, I transcribed the dialogues, in a format directly scenario. The following day, I added the details of the action. And that’s all. I read, wondering if this was a movie. It was. With the structure of dialogues. Don DeLillo’s dialogues are unique. They have a specific rhythm. They are totally realistic, but at the same time stylish.

The dialogues are determinants?

David Cronenberg: They are a key element of the scenario, the only really found on the screen. Everything else changes once in production. The dialogues give you an idea of ​​the quality of the film. The characters are interesting? How do they interact?

This approach to the scenario may seem surprising from an author well versed in the genre film?

David Cronenberg: We often think that cinema is a visual art. I personally think that this is a very complex alloy. For me, the essence of cinema is a talking head. That’s what we film the most. I heard that the last twenty-two minutes of the film, where there is none other than Paul Giamatti and Robert Pattinson in a room, this is theater. I do not think so. In theater, you would not have big plans, no camera movement, no changes in light. This is the cinema. Without close-ups there is no cinema.

Feels that his side the writer to this adaptation?

Don DeLillo: The film is close enough to the book. David Cronenberg has adapted a very bold, uncompromising. We find many of the language of the book, which is often a little esoteric, especially when applied to financial markets. Eric Packer, the character, sometimes speaks almost like a Chinese sage of two thousand years ago, and found it in the film. But it’s the film.

That is to say?

Don DeLillo: Between the words written on paper and transcribing them on the screen, there is a chasm. The novel has its own language: you follow the words, you perceive the effect of some of them, certain combinations of … You look at events through the language that describes them … In the film, it is denser and more complicated. The imagery overwhelms almost everything else. The time gained in depth, it casts a shadow. If two films are made thirty years apart from one book, they will have nothing to do. And then the screen we see real people who talk. Fake volcanoes exploding. A novel, they are words on paper. A writer works alone, sitting in a room. A director is surrounded by actors, a technical team, a producer of tons of equipment, he shot his film in four countries, with hundreds of extras. There is a relationship between the two forms, but they are so remote that it is difficult to put them on the same plane.

How does one pass from novel to film?

David Cronenberg: A novel, and this one particularly, is a living organic entity. The question is how you turn it into a film. We must accept the fact that we are creating something new. The film is a fusion between you and this writer … I think that to be faithful to the novel, one must betray him. I saw films that sought to be incredibly faithful to the novels, and it was not a good movie to end. For my part, I feel very free to be brutal with the book. If I feel that some scenes are not good on the screen, I abandon them. That’s what I did with all the extracts from the diary of Benno, the character played by Paul Giamatti. A monologue is typically a novel form. In film, nothing can make, unless you do read in voiceover. But for me it’s an admission of weakness. You did not find how to make a real movie from the book, then you do read by an actor.

However, there is a sense that the bulk of the book has been preserved.

David Cronenberg: The structure is the same: a man crosses his limousine in New York, to go to her hairdresser. The dialogue comes directly from the book, pretty much. But there are all sorts of philosophical ramblings of Eric Packer that I have left out. I did not see how to stage. You can not shoot a concept. We can shoot as concrete. I do not give back to the texture of the novel. I shall return with cinematic means: the choice of lens, light, music, design of the limousine. It is a barter. There is no longer the newspaper of Benno, but it was Paul Giamatti, his face, his voice, his way of expressing things …

And Robert Pattinson?

Don DeLillo: The character he made is very close to that of the novel. I have not seen the Twilight series, in which he plays, but I impressed my two nieces of 13 years, saying that Britain’s Robert Pattinson would play in a film adapted from one of my books. They show me respect now!

David Cronenberg: The cast is an occult art. It is a matter of intuition. There are objective factors, though. The character is 28 years old, he is American. So you need someone who is that age, and that can have a perfect American accent. The film is a coproduction between France and Canada. Also, I could use only one actor, and for me it was Paul Giamatti. I could take a Briton, however.

Then of course there is the presence of the actor. Which is able to embody this character particularly complex, cruel, brutal, vulgar, in a sense, and very sophisticated and vulnerable at the same time, naive and childish? Would that to believe that such a young person may have achieved so much, it takes strength and charisma. It is in every scene to boot. This does not mean it must be beautiful, but do not make it unpleasant to look for an hour and a half. Finally, it must have a certain notoriety. Since the film costs a certain budget, we need you to drive a little your financial partners. With all these constraints, the list of players is relatively short. And I started thinking about Rob soon enough.

The novel, in a sense, is very cinematic. The film, it is very theoretical, and ultimately quite literary …

Don DeLillo: The film impressed me. The generic splendid, this way of making actors enter and leave the car in a flash. And that sense of accelerated time. It is an idea of ​​the book. Money is time; money determines even our perception of time. Another filmmaker might have wanted some scenes out of the limo. Cronenberg himself, does the opposite. It transposes inside the limo one scene that fell just outside.

The limousine is at the origin of the novel?

Don DeLillo: Eleven years ago, when I wrote the book, there were in New York a lot more white limousines today. I decided to really look at this object, to think. Who is inside? Why are these vehicles? What does this mean? The novel describes a vast global empire of banks, multinational corporations, emerging markets, huge market failures … And all compressed into a single limousine through the streets of New York. This is what interested me, which made me want to start the novel: the idea of ​​the man inside the limo, Eric Packer, who, since the confined space, had access to all information from around the world.

Much of what the novel describes is happening today …

David Cronenberg: The prophetic dimension of the book is chilling. DeLillo wrote in 2001. The Wall Street Occupy movement began during the filming.

Don DeLillo: The Time Square protests have finally taken shape! Other aspects of the book were already present in the culture at the time. But they were not then subject of much attention. There was a serious risk of collapse of the market, then it dissipated thereafter. As often happens. And when events recur, we do not necessarily remember they have already taken place, there are seven, eight or nine years. It is very strange.

Do you feel close to the world of Cronenberg?

Don DeLillo: I do not think there is a lot of crosses between our works. I was surprised, suddenly, he wanted to learn to adapt one of my novels. There may be exceptions, but I really do not see sensitivity common viewpoint shared between his films and novels.

There are still, in “Cosmopolis”, the pattern of spread (information, financial crisis, anxiety and violence that flow from …) that can be compared with that virus, often associated with obsessions Cronenberg …

Don DeLillo: It is true that there is to it. Not only the information is disseminated simultaneously to all parts of the world but, in the book, Eric Packer sees things on the screen before they happen. At the very end of the novel, he looks at his watch and sees himself dead. It was not used in the film. But it returned to me the idea of ​​acceleration of time.

David Cronenberg: Living in a cocoon, it will protect against disease. Eric Packer is obsessed with the disease. This panic is in the book. She finds herself in the film. While in the cocoon, the crisis is spreading the yuan. In the book, the yen, but the power of Japan has since declined, while that of China has exploded. The yuan is not yet convertible, but we read that in 2015 he may be full. Does that mean it will supplant the dollar and become the strongest currency in the world? The U.S. decline, China is getting stronger, nobody knows where this will lead. This causes great fear, all kinds of levels of anxiety, which are reflected in the economy.

Projections are that Eric Packer and his collaborator from an assumption that the rats could become the new currency exchange testify to the folly of their system …

David Cronenberg: Yes. Because they are absurd, but no more than the situation in which we live. After all, it was us who created money, the financial markets. And we can not control them. How what we created for our well-being can produce so much damage? It’s like a monster, a sort of Frankenstein we can not control.

Cannes 2012 features many of the world’s most beloved directors, both established and emerging. From Americans Wes Anderson, Andrew Dominik and Jeff Nichols, French directors Jacques Audiard, Michael Haneke, Alain Resnais and Claude Miller to Iran’s Abbas Kiarostami, Mexico’s Carlos Reygadas and Italy’s Bernardo Bertolucci and Matteo Garrone – and that’s just the start. The latest works from these directors and more feature established movie stars like Brad Pitt, Audrey Tatou, Nicole Kidman and Matthew McConaughey, last year’s festival darling Jessica Chastain, and a new class of fresh talent that will be introduced to the world.

To make things easy for readers, Indiewire is offering up this handy guide to all the films in the various sections of the festival. Below is a day by day guide to the official selection, as well as links to individual film pages for each festival selection, including photos, trailers, clips, and film critic grades as part of our criticWIRE survey of fest films.

CANNES OFFICIAL SELECTION

COMPETITION; OPENING & CLOSING NIGHT FILMS:

Day Ten: Friday, May 25

“Cosmopolis,” David Cronenberg

criticWIRE average: TBD