Volker Schlöndorff Screens Extended Cut Of The Tin Drum At Cannes

If there is one thing that I love about film festivals, it’s the fact that more often than not, the festival will not only show the latest and greatest in indie and foreign cinema, but will also bring out the classics, for another show in the big screen.

With SXSW showing a print of The Passion of Joan of Arc, it looks like Cannes is following suit, with a new print of the classic 1979 Palme d’Or winning film, The Tin Drum. Not only that, but the new print also includes 22 minutes of previously unseen footage, now added to the famous Volker Schlondorff film.

I don’t think that there is really any more reason to wish that you were in Cannes at this time, but this certainly does it. The Tin Drum is a fantastic film, and one that I would love to see on the big screen. It was the first German language film to win Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars, and even that doesn’t necessarily do this film justice. It’s a brilliant piece of cinema, that if you haven’t seen, you need to make an effort to pick up the rather extensive Criterion release, that features a massive collection of interviews, a documentary on the subsequent child pornography lawsuit that followed the film’s release, and even a reading from the novel the film is based on, by Gunter Grass.

You can find the CriterionCast podcast episode discussing The Tin Drum here.

Source: Reuters