Cannes through the decades. – From Hollywood stars to European legends, the Cannes Film Festival has seen the greatest icons of cinema parade. A look back at those who walked the most famous red carpets in the 1970s.
The 1970s opened a new stage in the history of the Cannes Film Festival. After the break in 1968, the festival sought a new balance between international prestige, artistic commitment and modernity. The Croisette remains a theater of glamor and celebrities, but it also becomes the reflection of a more daring cinema, marked by the social and cultural upheavals of the time.
During these years, we met Alain Delon, Romy Schneider and Catherine Deneuve on the Croisette, but also many new faces, who gradually established themselves on the markets. In 1976, Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese embodied this generation of directors and actors who profoundly transformed Hollywood, with the film Taxi Driver which has the effect of a bomb. It also won the Palme d’Or and made a lasting impression with its violence and its dark outlook on contemporary America. At the same time, the festival invites more and more personalities from the world of music, such as Sheila, Jacques Brel and Jacques Dutronc.
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The Croisette nevertheless remains inseparable from its media aura. Jane Fonda, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Claudia Cardinale and Romy Schneider participate in this worldly and international image which fascinates photographers. The private parties, the stair climbs and the press conferences contribute as much to the legend of the festival as the screenings themselves. But the 70s also remain associated with an almost excessive freedom on the Croisette. At this time, the dress codemuch more flexible than today, allows transparent dresses or outfits with completely bare breasts. Which contributes greatly to the sulphurous image of the festival. Some celebrities voluntarily play on this media provocation. At the end of the decade, American actress Edy Williams notably created a scandal by appearing naked in front of photographers in a compact crowd where several men publicly touched her under the camera lens. This episode illustrates the decadent and sometimes chaotic atmosphere of this period, still far from the important security measures and strict protocol which today govern the climbs of the stairs.
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