Cannes: Xavier Dolan Threatened Jurors to Not Give the Palme d’Or to ‘Carol’

I had written a bit about this a while ago, but some interesting tidbits have emerged concerning the Carol/Dolan/Cannes story.

The famously bratty — and ultra annoying— Xavier Dolan was, shall we say, not the most well-liked juror in Cannes history. If you remember, he was part of the 2015 jury that bewilderingly gave the Palme to Jacques Audiard’s “Dheepan.”

Dolan became this very annoying presence to his fellow jurors and subsequently vetoed what was going to be a near-unanimous Palme d’Or win for Todd Haynes’ masterful “Carol.” He blocked what would have surely been one of the most deserving Palme winners in recent years.

At the jury press conference, Dolan said, “I somehow feel like a better person.” Sitting nearby, jury co-president, with brother Joel, Ethan Coen mumbled, “You’re not.”

An in-the-know writer-director emailed me this morning, after having read my George Miller at Cannes write-up. He added some missing pieces to the puzzle, and this is absolutely concrete and solid intel from very good authority. The thick of the drama also fits incredibly well with Dolan’s persona:

“You should tell the real story of Dolan cockblocking CAROL which was that he threatened to say that the rest of the jury was homophobic if they picked Haynes’ film as the Palme d’Or. Dolan seemed to believe he was the only gay person on the panel. The result is that they wound up Palme-ing the totally forgettable DHEEPAN. Dolan is a little prick. I hope he winds up in Nowheresville.“

What the Cannes jury, led by the Coens as co-Presidents, should have done was just ignore Dolan and give the Palme to the best movie in competition that year. Looking back at what was in competition that year, there were five noteworthy films that were much better than “Dheepan”: Laszlo Nemes’ “Son of Saul,” Hou Hsiao-hsien’s “The Assassin,” Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Lobster,” Jia Zhangke’s “Mountains May Depart” and, of course, Todd Haynes’ “Carol.”