Arts     

Hollywood star Tommy Lee Jones shines at Cannes

Xinhua, May 19, 2014

• Hollywood filmmaker Tommy Lee Jones on Sunday presented his film "The Homesman" in Competition at the 67th Cannes Film Festival.

  The film, inspired by the novel of the same name by Glendon Swarthout, is the fifth feature film directed by Jones, a veteran Hollywood actor who has been active in the screen since 1970s.

  In the movie, Mary Bee Cuddy, 31, lives a solitary existence in a mid-western frontier town of the United States in the 19th century.

  According to the official synopsis, she is designated to take back three mad women to the east. On the way from Nebraska to Iowa, those women find refuge at last, and Cuddy saves the life of Briggs, a claim-jumper and outlaw.

  He agrees to help in her mission through snowstorms and perilous encounters with settlers, Indians and the harshness of the Frontier territory.

  Actress Hilary Swank plays Cuddy, and Jones plays Briggs by himself.

  Commenting on playing characters such as Cuddy, Swank said: "Some of the characters I've played are deep, solid people. That's certainly true of Mary Bee Cuddy."

  "Today, the idea of virtue is far less understood. It's important to portray such solid characters," Swank told a press conference on Sunday.

  Luc Besson, one of the four producers presented at the press conference, said "The Homesman" is a highly instructive film on U.S. history.

  "This film portrays a vision of the United States which is little known in Europe. It's a very exotic vision for us. We didn't know that times were as hard as this," Besson told reporters.

  "We all know about the American dream but it's good to know what went on before the dream," added Besson.

  In the fourth day of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, two of the 18 films selected to compete for the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm), the top prize of the film gala, as well as other prizes, were presented.

  A total of eight movies in Competition have been screened since the opening of the film festival on Wednesday evening.

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