George Lucas Received Honorary Palme d’Or From Francis Ford Coppola: “I’m Just a Kid That Grew Up In a Vineyard”
After delighting us with a mouthful of interesting statements on Friday, George Lucas received the Honorary Palme d’Or on Saturday, May 25, on the 47th anniversary of Star Wars. The award, which he once again said meant a great deal to him, was given on stage by his lifelong friend Francis Ford Coppola.
Coppola and Lucas shared a huge hug (see the video here) when the former showed up on stage. The Godfather filmmaker, visibly emotional, later proceeded to give an impassionate speech about his earliest memories of the two of them together:
“How exceptional it is to be here, to celebrate the imagination, the persistence, and the success of your own kid brother. Well, the first one I ever had.
I met George Lucas when he was a student of the University of Southern California, which was the competing film school of mine, UCLA. And he was there watch me direct my first studio film [1968’s Finian’s Rainbow], with a crew much older than me and all wearing suits and ties. When I asked this informally-dressed, 19-year-old in a sweater, what he was watching, he said ‘Nothing much’.
Pleased to have someone in my own generation, I suggested he continued to come every day, but only on one condition: That he come up with a brilliant suggestion every day, which he consistently did. And with that began an association that has lasted a lifetime. I continued to watch him with his brilliant ideas throughout his entire career, including the first music track of the hit songs of his era, the first film to have a brief explanation of what happened to each character at the end, and the fisrt film with the titles in the middle. And he went on and on, making film history, story history, business history, and now history in France.
I also remember, George, when he returned so sad and rejected having gone to the owners of Flash Gordon, the protagonist of a space comic book in 1934. They said he wasn’t important enough to trust with their family’s character, the star of the serial movies he used to watch as a kid.
He looked at me and he said, ‘Well, I’ll make my own movie, I’ll call it Star Battles or Star Wars or something.’ And so he did, and in the process risked everything he had to make it. Congratulations George, not only am I and your many friends proud of you, but the world is here, proud to honor you.”
George Lucas then said on stage:
“What an honor it is for Francis to appear out of nowhere. I didn’t expect this. He’s a great friend, and a big brother, and a mentor, and I thank him for everything he’s ever done for me. I’d like to thank the Cannes Film Festival, which [Walter Murch,] my co-writer, sound editor, great pal, who came to the Cannes Film Festival… My first professional movie [THX 1138] was shown here 52 years ago, in the first director series. It was pouring rain, and it was one of the greatest moments of our life. We had to sneak into the movie because Warner Bros. wouldn’t have much to do with us. This is a great circle moment.
I can’t thank all of you enough. I’m just a kid who grew up in a vineyard in Modesto, California, who makes movies in San Francisco with my friend Francis. So we spent our entire careers in parallel, and in San Francisco in particular. In fact, I’ve never made a Hollywood film as a director. So it’s a real honor to be here. I can tell you that. Thank you so much.”
See the (unofficial) video below:
It’s now two years in a row that the Honorary Palme d’Or has gone to a Star Wars personality, after last year it was given to Harrison Ford after the premiere of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
