Charles Finch Talks Film, Celebrates the Latest Issue of ‘A Rabbit’s Foot’ in Cannes
Film and fashion industry veteran Charles Finch celebrated the latest issue of his film and culture magazine “A Rabbit’s Foot” during the Cannes Film Festival.
The festival itself “is a form of storytelling” spanning two weeks of highs and lows, from films to red carpets full of influencers. His celebration was a low-key, chic event full of actors and producers off the beaten Croisette path, on the peninsula end of town.
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The guest list included actors Alicia Vikander, Carla Gugino, Chiara Mastroianni, Mads Mikkelson, and Harrison Ford; directors Audrey Diwan, Gaspar Noe, Gurinder Chadha and Karim Aïnouz; producer Lawrence Bender, and awards strategist Lisa Taback, among others.
“What undervalues the whole process, if we’re talking about celebrity for a second, is celebrity for the sake of celebrity. Fame, that has no real merit to it, just famous for something you’ve done of impermanence rather than have great talent,” he said.
Finch reflected on a conversation he had with fashion photographer Gilles Bensimon on how the industry has changed since the invention of the iPhone. “There’s an image, and then there’s a photograph — and they are two different things. One is an image, and one is telling a story,” he said. “There’s a divide between everything that is out there and a really purposeful, artistic point of view.”
Still, the prevalence of phones in our hands has created opportunity for new art and talent to be discovered, he noted, but the disruption has left a public confused about what to watch and read. “We have such destructive disruption,” he said of the current media climate. Finch noted that book sales are up, even as people’s attention span shrinks with constant digital input.
A self-described “project person,” Finch ventured into the publishing world one year ago.
He launched “A Rabbit’s Foot” — named after the talisman one can carry with them — to create a space between review websites and art books. Interviews dive into the art world as well, including sculptor Antony Gormley, photographer Dominic Cullen, and contemporary artists Ai Weiwei and Francesco Clemente.
“The world around cinema is about our culture,” he said of the magazine’s tone, which addresses larger questions and doesn’t just promote projects. “There is room for something creatively aspirational.”
Students, particularly, are looking for something deeper on the topics. The push from the public relations sector to control a narrative around an actor or an artist, and to promote only commercially, has left a larger hole in the culture, he said.
“That means the experience for the consumer is not really interesting, because you’re getting the same people covered by every single magazine, and every single television show,” he said. It’s also important that art films and cinema do not exclude the average person with aspirational content. “Not like, ‘Here’s the fish tank. These people have made it, you haven’t yet and there’s a big divide between you.’ We can bring those people in who want to learn about people doing interesting films or making interesting artistic statements or writing interesting books.
“It’s a confusion as to where people get information, how to make them pause,” he said.
Finch predicted that information overload, particularly with older consumers, may reopen a space for cultural discussion. “They will turn their back away from the noise more and find more time to sit and read or watch a movie. So I’m actually positive in the long term. But I think we have to really protect culture at this point from massive commercialism and vulgarity.”
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