In its 83rd year, the world’s oldest film festival made a striking impression both on stage and on screen with a spectacular opening ceremony. The star of the evening was George Clooney, who was honoured with a lifetime achievement award and paid tribute to by his colleagues Laura Dern, Brad Pitt and Alexander Payne. Clooney is something of a regular at Venice; his major career began here in 1998 with Steven Soderbergh’s *Out of Sight*, and later films such as *Michael Clayton*, *Burn After Reading* and *Gravity* premiered in Venice – as did his directorial debut *Good Night and Good Luck*, for which he won the award for Best Screenplay. Most recently, he was at the Lido last year with “Jay Kelly”, in which he and Laura Dern play a Clooney-like Hollywood star being honoured at an obscure Italian festival. A sequence that was played at the actual awards ceremony.
True to his nature, he took plenty of time for the fans on the red carpet, signing autographs, posing for selfies and mingling with the photographers for a moment. George Clooney and Venice – it’s a perfect combination.
“Ink”, the opening film by Danny Boyle, based on a play by James Graham – who also wrote the screenplay – was also pretty much perfect. It is set in 1969, when Rupert Murdoch (Guy Pearce) arrives in London to turn the British newspaper landscape on its head. He transforms the reputable daily newspaper *The Sun* into a tabloid that appeals to readers’ gut instincts with sensationalist headlines featuring sex and crime stories, and enjoys enormous success as a result. Soon, its circulation surpasses that of its rival, the *Daily Mirror*, from which editor-in-chief Larry Lamb (Jack O’Connell) recruits the majority of his new editorial team from among his former colleagues.
Danny Boyle captures this process with dark humour. Indeed, the film is permeated by a kind of cynical wit that perfectly reflects the attitude of Murdoch and his journalists. “Ink” is edited at a breakneck pace, with flashbacks visualised as inner monologues, like sudden mental flashes. In 1969, they were still working with printing ink, hence the title ‘Ink’. Yet in an epilogue, we learn that in the 1980s the newspaper left the legendary Fleet Street and moved to Wapping, where, free from troublesome typesetters and left-wing trade unions, it was printed using modern offset technology and supported Margaret Thatcher.
Danny Boyle virtually overwhelms the audience with a fireworks display of ideas and a first-class ensemble cast: led by Jack O’Connell as Larry Lamb, Guy Pearce as the young Rupert Murdoch and Claire Foy as the feminist Jules. But all the other roles are perfectly cast too. ‘Ink’ tells the story of how ‘The Sun’ paved the way into the lower depths of modern journalism in the early 1970s, with sensationalist stories and the occasional piece of fake news as its hallmarks. It is a path that numerous websites – and not least a broadcaster such as Fox News, which also belongs to Rupert Murdoch’s media empire – are successfully following today.
While Venice was known in previous years as a festival that showcased future Oscar winners, this year’s programme features hardly any major American productions. The focus is more on political issues. Festival director Alberto Barbera emphasises that, unlike in Berlin, Venice is not afraid of political controversy. “We are screening four films that deal with Gaza and Palestine. We are addressing the problems in Ukraine. We’re presenting a documentary about Elon Musk. There are a number of films that may spark controversy or, at the very least, provoke very strong political reactions.”
Nevertheless, there’s no shortage of stars. John Malkovich plays an ageing CIA agent in Chile on the eve of the military coup in Martin McDonagh’s *Wild Horse Nine*, Robert Pattinson plays an unscrupulous TV reporter in Lance Oppenheim’s “Prime Time”, whilst real-life couple Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz play a cinema couple in Florian Zeller’s “Bunker”. And Rodney Hicks stars as a traumatised Vietnam veteran in Shinya Tsukamoto’s “Mr Nelson, Did You Kill People?”.