Michael Douglas was honored for his career and took the opportunity to remember moments about his career.
By modern standards, Bass Instinct, a 1992 film directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone, may not seem all that outrageous. But the story was very different when the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
"Seeing a lot of those scenes on the big screen in the Grand Palais was a bit overwhelming for a lot of people. We had a very quiet dinner afterward, everyone was digesting it," recalled the actor. The explicit scenes were unique, even in France."
The plot of Low Instinct follows a weary homicide detective (Douglas) who investigates a successful whodunit writer (Stone). The film was initially given an NC-17 rating but was lowered to an R after pressure from the studios.
One of the most memorable scenes in contemporary cinema, still referenced and parodied, is the scene in which Stone parades himself to detectives during a police questioning.
He also jokingly said that, since he had become an "expert in scenes", he could assure that "the secret is to rehearse". “It's like rehearsing a combat scene, you have to prepare a choreography. You start off very slowly and then move to a faster pace,” he said.
His tour of Cannes
Douglas was on hand to collect the festival's Honorary Palme d'Or, which was announced in March to honor his "brilliant career and commitment to film."
Aside from Stone's already iconic scene, Douglas recalled a few other Cannes controversies that have surfaced in his years at the festival. Behind the Candelabra, starring Douglas and Matt Damon and directed by Steven Soderbergh, was accepted into the official competition in 2013. That project was originally from HBO, but it was released in French theaters to gain entry.
"There was a bit of controversy because it was made for cable TV and released as a feature film in France," he recalled. In a nod to the festival's notorious aversion to emerging technology, he said: "The reality is that movies are being made on streaming now. If you're lucky enough, you can get a contract to require the movie to be shown in a movie theater for a week. You can't underestimate streaming."
In addition to Bass Instincts, the actor has brought several memorable films to Cannes throughout his career, including The China Syndrome, co-starring Jane Fonda, and Joel Schumacher's One Day of Fury, among others.
Douglas, son of Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas, has won two Oscars. The first was for Best Picture in 1976, where he was accepted as a producer for Jack Nicholson's Caught No Way Out. The second was Best Actor for Wall Street, in what may be Douglas's definitive role.
