From left: US singer Lana del Rey, British singer Florence Welch, US producer Douglas Wick and his wife US producer Lucy Fisher, British actress Isla Fisher, Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan, US actor Leonardo DiCaprio, British actress Carey Mulligan, and US actor Tobey Maguire pose before the screening of the film The Great Gatsby, ahead of the opening of the 66th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes.

DPA/Reuters/Cannes

The 66th Cannes Film Festival got off to a glitzy start yesterday on the French Riviera, with Leonardo DiCaprio suiting up and slicking back his hair to play a 1920s New York socialite in the opening film, The Great Gatsby.
Australian director Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of the F Scott Fitzgerald classic tells the story of a man grasping for the American dream amidst the loosening morals of the Jazz Age.
The film, which stars British actress Carey Mulligan as the blue-blooded woman of Gatsby’s dreams and Tobey Maguire as his friend, premiered last week in the US, where it received mixed reviews.
The cast was out in force on the red carpet for yesterday’s gala screening.
Luhrmann, who was nominated for an Oscar for Moulin Rouge in 2001, told a press conference earlier in the day that he got the idea to adapt The Great Gatsby while listening to the audiobook on a train across Siberia in 2004.
“I realised I didn’t know it all. And my big recollection was that it was us, it was where we are now, this great mirror that reflects back.”
Django Unchained star DiCaprio said that the book also “took on a new meaning for him” when he reread it.
“I was fascinated by Gatsby as a character, I was moved by him, it no longer became a love story to me, it became a tragedy of this new American, this man in a new world where everything was possible ... and somewhere along the way had lost the sense of who he was.”
DiCaprio, remaining calm despite the crush of reporters and photographers following his every move, said:
One of the most powerful things about this novel is that it is still discussed nearly 90 years later.”
Critics of the film have accused Luhrmann of drowning the melancholy of the book in dazzle and thumping hip-hop tracks from Jay-Z and Beyonce.
Luhrmann shrugged off the criticism, pointing to the fact that Scott Fitzgerald had also been “horrendously criticised” in his day.
“I never get one of those big, high critics scores,” Luhrmann told a news conference, flanked by cast members including Maguire and Amitabh Bachchan. “I just care people are going out and seeing it.”
The movie, estimated to have cost $105mn to make, received mixed reviews, but opened in North America last weekend with a larger-than-expected $51mn for distributor Warner Bros, a unit of Time Warner Incorporated.
The film is not among the 20 films in the running for the Palme d’Or – the festival’s main prize, which will be awarded by a jury headed by Steven Spielberg on May 26.
Convincing Spielberg to preside over the jury was a coup for festival president Gilles Jacob, who began chasing the blockbuster director of Lincoln (2012) and Schindler’s List (1993) after he showed ET in Cannes 31 years ago.
The veteran director said Cannes was like a “breath of fresh air” after the Oscars.
“There’s always campaigning for the Oscar election, and there’s no campaigning here,” he told a press conference with his fellow jurors, who include Moulin Rouge actress Nicole Kidman and the Taiwanese director of Life of Pi, Ang Lee.
Spielberg has given few indications of what he is looking for in a Palme d’Or winner, but did reveal a preference for films that “have the goal of changing the way you look at yourself, the way you look at others, the way you look at life ...”
Lee said he was “afraid” to judge other directors’ films. “Hopefully something will grab our hearts and we won’t have to fight that much or argue that fiercely.”
The competition features several big-name directors, such as Joel and Ethan Coen, Steven Soderbergh and Roman Polanski – all previous Palme d’Or winners – alongside up-and-coming filmmakers from around the world, from China to Chad.
Stars are present in abundance.
Only God Forgives, featuring Canadian pin-up Ryan Gosling, will premiere at Cannes. The film is his latest with Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn.
Michael Douglas and Matt Damon are also set to make an appearance, as flamboyant pianist Liberace and his lover respectively in the Coen brothers’ Behind the Candelabra.
Other hotly anticipated films include Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring about a group of teens who rob celebrities’ homes, which opens the Un Certain Regard sidebar today.
The festival runs through May 26. The Marche du Film, the world’s biggest film market, runs parallel to the festival, through May 24.