CANNES, May 21 — American film director James Gray, debuting his movieat the Cannes Film Festival, lambasted the Ronald Reagan-era racism that the film deals with, saying yesterday it set the stage for current social tensions.
Gray’s coming-of-age film explores issues of race and privilege in American society, with a star-studded cast including Anne Hathaway, Anthony Hopkins and Jeremy Strong. It debuted at the world’s biggest film festival on Thursday. The film is one of 21 entries vying for the French festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or.
Reagan had kicked off his 1980 presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where in 1964 three prominent civil rights workers had been murdered by the Ku Klux Klan — a deliberate message, according to Gray. Gray’s film, loosely based on his life, is told through the character of young Paul Graff, who is white and played by Banks Repeta. It traces his friendship with Johnny, who is Black and played by Jaylin Webb.“Trying to deal with this psychologically I tried to understand, I tried to get in his mindset and really understand what he went through. And my parents helped me out, because they’re really familiar with that feeling,” said Webb.
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