I have been doing this Cannes thing for 15 years and, until now, have avoided having to pull on a dinner jacket. It seems appropriate that my first evening red-carpet screening – for which such garb is required – was in honour of the sometime Paul Hewson of Dublin’s northside.
Bono (for it is he) has been on the famous Cannes steps before. Back in 2007 he and U2 played a live gig there before a screening of the documentary U2 3D.
This time round he was out for the premiere of Andrew Dominik’s film version of – in the singer’s own words – his “quarter-man” stage show Bono: Stories of Surrender (itself a variation on his memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story).
Everyone gets a standing ovation here, but the seven minutes handed out on Friday night seemed sincere.
Domhnall Gleeson on nepo babies: ‘I’ve been so lucky. It’s important you can acknowledge it. Otherwise you’re lying to yourself’
Four new films to see this week
Bono at Cannes: ‘You wrote this story. The Edge wrote this story. Adam and Larry wrote this story. McGuinness wrote this story’
Trauma of the Troubles: ‘I threw my first petrol bomb when I was nine. I felt like a man after that’
“I’m not a Frenchman. I’m an Irishman. I’m not even a self-made man,” he said, before praising the rest of the band and their manager Paul McGuinness. “You wrote this story. The Edge wrote this story. Adam and Larry wrote this story. McGuinness wrote this story.”
As for the film itself? Well, there is no point pretending Bono’s heroic logorrhoea is for everyone. Few already allergic are likely to be won over.
But, on the evidence of Dominik’s film, this was a tautly staged show, at its best when Bono was allowed to blend his recollections with songs sung in a still-robust voice.
It occurred to me that as – accompanied by the Jackknife Lee Ensemble – he warbled through a slowed down version of debut single Out of Control, it was the first time in 40 years I’d been able to understand all the words.
The great man begins with recollections of heart problems he suffered a decade ago. “I was born with an eccentric heart,” he says. “In one of the chambers of my heart, where most people have three doors, I have two. Two swinging doors, which at Christmas 2016 were coming off their hinges.”
There is, of course, a deal about the formation of U2. Their devotion to the Ramones. Early days practising in a cottage near where Bono’s mum was buried. A bizarre effort – spurred by theological worries of all things – to disband early that McGuinness quashed in maritime language.
But the core of the show is Bono’s relationship with his late father. It is, at times, awkward seeing such raw emotion revealed in such theatrical fashion. He mimes lying by the older man’s bed as he was dying. The furrows in Bono’s face add to the slight whisper of Samuel Beckett about the situation.
Shooting in luminous monochrome (to clarify the piece’s “significance”, one assumes), Dominik plays it straight until a closing flourish whose epic sentimentality chimes with the band’s own.
Ultimately, for good or ill, one has to accept that Bono’s compunction to spill his emotional innards is, for fans, more of a feature than a bug.
There is plenty here to confirm that he has a sure sense of his own occasional ridiculousness and of the privilege he has acquired. He wonders if he may be trying to allay his “guilt for living a lavish lifestyle”. On reflection Bono: Stories of Surrender, which premieres on Apple TV+ at the end of the month, may do some work in winning over those violently unconvinced.
Why should he care? He got a lavish Cannes opening among friends. His old mate The Edge boogied up the carpet to the Bee Gees. His wife Ali – much celebrated in the show – was there with their grown children Jordan and Elijah. Sean Penn joined Bono in posing with members of Ukraine’s armed forces.
“If I was in the trenches, like real trenches, as opposed to ones on a movie set, I’d want to be with Sean Penn in those trenches,” the man of the hour said.
Very big. Very Bono. Worth dressing up for.
