You could almost predict that someone would bring up Donald Trump at the official Cannes Film Festival press conference for Jodie Foster’s “Money Monster” (read our review). Not only does the film deal with the anger of a young man (Jack O’Connell) who believes the financial system and Wall Street are corrupt, but it stars George Clooney, an actor and filmmaker who has never shied away from sharing his political beliefs.
“There is not going to be a President Donald Trump,” Clooney said as the global press corps broke out in applause. “It’s not going to happen because fear is not gonna be something that drives our country. We’re not gonna be scared [of] Muslims or immigrants or women. We are not actually afraid of anything. We’re not going to use fear. So, that’s not going to be an issue.”
Clooney was asked about whether Trump was a harbinger of the anger seen in ‘Monster’ by no less than Chaz Ebert. He told her that he thinks it “sort of landed” that way.
READ MORE: The Playlist’s 2016 Cannes Film Festival Coverage
“[Trump’s candidacy] is actually a result, in many ways, that much of the news programs didn’t follow up and ask the truth,” Clooney said. “It’s really easy because your numbers go up. All these cable news networks. 24 hours news doesn’t mean you get more news it just means you get the sane news more. The more and more and more you hear these guys the ratings go up because they can show an empty podium because Donald Trump is about to speak. As opposed to taking those 30 seconds and saying, ‘Let’s talk about refugees crisis that’s going on in the world.’ Really, would all the corporations fall on their knees if we actually informed a little bit. I think this movie is pointed in talking about what is a great disaster in how we inform ourselves. We have lost the ability to get to and tell the truth and get the facts.”
Foster stayed on studio talking points for most of the conference, but responded when asked whether she thought “Money Monster” was a film that took a pro-Bernie Standers, anti-Wall Street stance.
“Jack’s character Kyle does represent a kind of rage that a lot of people feel about the abuses of technology and the abuses of the financial system and how they were left behind,” she explained. “I’m not sure that’s a Bernie issue as much as it’s a Trump issue. They are all serving the movie. [Dominic Cooper‘s character] Walt Camby says sort of the smartest thing in the movie when he says, ‘You weren’t complaining when I was making you money. People noticed when I started losing them money.’ That’s the irony in all this. Our complicity and our responsibility for having created a system that isn’t fair.”
What was most clear to Clooney, however, is his belief that “Money Monster” is an example of the evolution of news and entertainment. It’s a subject that was first tackled in 1976’s “Network,” a fact not lost on the two-time Oscar winner.
“We screened it for a bunch of young kids two years ago and I told them it was one of the great black comedies of all time,” Clooney recalled. “Then they saw it and said it wasn’t a comedy because everything Paddy Chayefsky wrote in 1975 came true. We couldn’t imagine the idea of reality shows with black panthers and Sybil: The Soothsayer and all the things in that film.”
He continued, “We’ve gotten so used to the idea that some schmuck can get up on television and tell you where to put your money and they do it as entertainment and people listen to them and do it and lose things in their real life. The rest of the world goes unhurt by all these things. I think this film just reflects were we have actually gotten to. The dangerous moment where news became a loss leader and [was] just about informing people and then making hard programming to make money.”
“Money Monster” opens nationwide tomorrow.
Check out the rest of our coverage from the 2016 Cannes Film Festival by clicking here.
