Meryl Streep will be the guest of honor at the 77th Cannes Film Festival opening ceremony, which will take place on the stage of the Grand Théâtre Lumière on Tuesday, May 14th. A celebrated figure in American cinema, the American actress will kick off the upcoming edition, which will draw to a close on Saturday, May 25th, with the awards list given by the President of the Jury, Greta Gerwig.
After Jeanne Moreau, Marco Bellocchio, Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Jane Fonda, Agnès Varda, Forest Whitaker, or Jodie Foster, Meryl Streep will receive the Festival’s Honorary Palme d’Or. Thirty-five years after winning the Best Actress award for “Evil Angels,” her only appearance in Cannes to date, Meryl Streep will make her long-awaited return to the Croisette.
“I am immeasurably honored to receive the news of this prestigious award. To win a prize at Cannes for the international community of artists has always represented the highest achievement in the art of filmmaking. To stand in the shadow of those who have previously been honored is humbling and thrilling in equal part. I so look forward to coming to France to thank everyone in person this May!” Meryl Streep stated.
“We all have something in us of Meryl Streep!” Iris Knobloch and Thierry Frémaux said. “We all have something in us of Kramer vs. Kramer, Sophie’s Choice, Out of Africa, The Bridges of Madison County, The Devil Wears Prada, and Mamma Mia! Because she has spanned almost 50 years of cinema and embodied countless masterpieces, Meryl Streep is part of our collective imagination, our shared love of cinema.”
After her drama studies and initial success on New York City stages, Meryl Streep’s career took off on the big screen in 1978 with “The Deer Hunter,” starring Robert De Niro. In Michael Cimino’s film, Meryl Streep wrote all her lines to give her character nuance and depth. This marked both her first Oscar nomination — now reaching a record 21 — and her demand to play strong, ambivalent women. For example, when she starred opposite Dustin Hoffman in “Kramer vs. Kramer,” she refused to let the film revolve around the male lead and rewrote a crucial monologue. She went on to win her first Oscar for Best Supporting Actress and quickly gained recognition from the audiences and the industry alike.
Meryl Streep’s dedication to her craft is evident in her ability to transform with every role. Even within a single film, such as Karel Reisz’s “The French Lieutenant’s Woman,” she masterfully portrayed two distinct characters. In Alan J. Pakula’s “Sophie’s Choice,” her performance grappled with a mother’s unimaginable moral dilemma. She even learned German and Polish to perfect her accent, a testament to her commitment to authenticity. This role earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Sidney Pollack’s unforgettable historical, romantic epic “Out of Africa” (1985) marked a new turning point, in which she and Robert Redford formed one of cinema’s most legendary couples. Far from confining herself to the register of passionate love, Meryl Streep also ventured into darker characters. In Fred Schepisi’s 1988 “Evil Angels” (A Cry In The Dark), she played a mother accused of infanticide. Her performance earned her the Best Actress Award at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival.
In the 1990s, she tried her hand at gritty comedy: she challenged female stereotypes in Mike Nichols’ “Postcards from the Edge” and Robert Zemeckis’ “Death Becomes Her.” In “The Bridges of Madison County,” she captured the screen alongside Clint Eastwood in a love story that was as impossible as it was timeless and went down in cinema history.
Throughout her career, Meryl Streep has never shied away from publicly denouncing the precarious position of women in the film industry. Aware of the issues surrounding the representation of women in Hollywood movies and keen to embody all their facets in all their complexity and fragility, Meryl Streep plays a wide variety of roles and genres. After Stephen Daldry’s “The Hours” and Robert Altman’s “A Prairie Home Companion,” it was in two roles as funny as unexpected that she once again made her mark: as the cantankerous editor-in-chief of a fashion magazine in “The Devil Wears Prada” and Donna, a hippie who marries off her daughter in the musical “Mamma Mia!” She went on to star in biopics (“The Iron Lady,” “Florence Foster Jenkins,” “Julie & Julia”), political satires (“Lions for Lambs,” “The Post,” “Don’t Look Up”), and family films such as “Little Women,” directed by Greta Gerwig, who serves as President of the Jury at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Two women, two generations, two aspirations, and the same passion for the Seventh Art will be brought together on the stage of the Grand Théâtre Lumière. The full lineup for the 2024 Cannes Film Festival can be seen here. The festival runs from May 14th until May 25th.
Are you excited for the 2024 Cannes Film Festival? What do you think of this announcement? Are you planning to attend the festival this year? Which films are you most looking forward to seeing? Please let us know in the comments section below or on our Twitter account.
