Fans cheer 'Lawless' stars
19/05/2012 - 20:05:09Hundreds of film fans flooded the streets of Cannes tonight to cheer the cast of new prohibition era film 'Lawless' as they arrived for its premiere.
Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf, Guy Pearce and Jason Clarke were just four of the big names to tread the red carpet at the film festival in the French Riviera resort.
Film-lovers lined the streets and whooped and cheered as the stars, including Jessica Chastain, Mia Wasikowska and director John Hillcoat, made their way into the Palais des Festivals for the screening.
Earlier in the day Hillcoat told a press conference that the film, set in Depression-ra Virginia, was relevant to today because of the similarities with modern living.
“I think we’re in a time of a lot of instability and insecurity,” he said.
“There’s a lot of parallels to today with the economic crisis, the political war on drugs.”
He said that at one point the film, written and composed by Nick Cave, had a montage that started with what was happening with the Mexican cartels and rewound through the 80s, through heroin and cocaine, and landed on prohibition, where it all started.
Hillcoat added: “That was the start of serious organised crime and it’s been going ever since.
“I think this sort of feeds into all the things that are going on today.”
The film is based on the true story of the Bondurant Brothers, three bootlegging siblings who made a run for the American Dream in Virginia.
It was inspired by true-life stories from author Matt Bondurant’s family in his novel 'The Wettest County in the World'.
Hardy, LaBeouf and Clarke play the three Bondurant brothers in the violence-riddled film.
Nick Cave, former frontman of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, took pictures of the crowds on his mobile phone as he made his way inside for the premiere screening.
Earlier, he said he was a fan of Hillcoat’s because of the way he deals with brutality in his films.
“It’s very brutal, very quick. It’s all over very fast and it leaves a huge mess behind,” he said.
“That was always really kind of exciting to me about the way John deals with violence.”
'Lawless' is due for general release in August.