The Cannes Matrix.

FILM festivals; INDEPENDENT filmmakers; MOTION picture industry; ARTS; RYAN, Meg, 1961-; SCHWARZENEGGER, Arnold, 1947-; POPULAR culture

CANNES (France); FRANCEReport Available; HOLLYWOOD (Los Angeles, Calif.); CALIFORNIAReport Available; UNITED StatesReport Available; LOS Angeles (Calif.)

This year I come to Cannes early. A few days before the festival's opening night, this pretty resort town--where female cops direct traffic in skirts and high heels--is awaiting the onslaught. Cannes may be the world's annual summit of independent cinema, but with 4,000 journalists in attendance, the Hollywood machine likes to make its presence felt. The beauty of a pop culture that lives in an eternal present, with no sense of history, is that it's quick to forgive and forget. As various Hollywood luminaries faced the media in Cannes, they were inevitably asked about the strained relations between France and America. Jury member Meg Ryan, with tired eyes and remarkably plush lips, reminisced about first coming to Cannes as a young backpacker and sleeping on the beach. "I'm here as a student," she said, "and I'm looking forward to seeing movies that I wouldn't see in the States." But Cannes is a grand contrivance. It creates its own matrix, a buoyantly artificial world where everyone pretends that art matters as much as commerce, and where anything seems possible. Now in its 56th year, Cannes clings to the romance of a phantom cinema, the dolce vita of a golden age.