Chopard 'In Love With Cinema' Exhibition

In Love With Cinema

Chopard pays tribute to the legendary kisses of the Silver Screen

Since the aptly named film The Kiss (1896), which showed the very first kiss between two actors, the Silver Screen has constantly made audiences dream with its love scenes. The very fact that all of us can recount our favourite fiction kiss is due to the fact that certain embraces on the big screen have left an indelible imprint on hearts and minds. True to its passion for the cinema, Chopard, in partnership with Canal +, is giving these legendary sequences a new lease of life through a photography exhibition entitled In Love With Cinema . Cult images to view again and again at the Chopard Lounge, located on the top floor of the Hotel Martinez and at the Canal + Patio, close to the Palais des Festivals, throughout the 66^th Cannes Festival.

Who has never been effected watching a cinema kiss? From the fiery embraces shared by Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind to the steamy French kiss exchanged by Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas in Basic Instinct, big screen embraces take many different forms, consistently stirring audiences' deepest emotions. Be it stolen, greedy, chaste, violent, gentle, furtive or passionate, the kiss often constitutes the key point in the story, that magical, pivotal moment, and can even influence the success of the film. Keenly aware of its importance, producers devote the full force of their imaginative powers to making the scene unforgettable, with elements such as muted lighting, suitable music or even torrential rain. The décor options tend to be as varied as the kisses, and only a select few are vividly remembered as famous backdrops to these unforgettable film moments. 

Before becoming legendary, the first kiss on the big screen once sowed the seeds of scandal. The Kiss by William Heis, during which John C. Rice and May Irwin shared a four-second kiss, gave rise to the first demand for cinema censorship. In 1927, the Hays Code, aimed at preserving good morals on the big screen, set a certain number of boundaries. Nudity and sensual kissing were thus forbidden in movies – a ban that Alfred Hitchcock neatly circumvents in his film Notorious (1946). Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant enjoy a long embrace while separating their lips every three seconds – the prescribed length of a cinema kiss at this time!

Since then, things have evolved and today, the cinema no longer hesitates to push the boundaries of sensuality. Anita Eckberg and Marcello Mastroinani's embrace in Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1961) was the pinnacle of eroticism. The context – the grandiose Trevi Fountain – and the actress' wet hair and plunging neckline contribute a great deal to this effect. In Mulholland Drive (2001), David Lynch films the most disturbing lesbian kiss in the history of the cinema. In a blistering rapprochement, brunette Laura Harring and blonde Naomi Watts discover a mutual attraction. And Jude Law's stolen kiss from Norah Jones in My Blueberry Nights by Wong Kar-wai (2007) is a brief, albeit intense moment between the two characters. Highly choreographed and filmed from 20 different angles, the scene required several days of work.

After paying photographic tribute to the beauty and talent of Marilyn Monroe in the anniversary of her death, this year, in collaboration with Canal + and Getty Images, Chopard continues to explore the legends of the big screen with In Love With Cinema . This collection of iconic cinematographic love moments can be discovered or re-discovered at the Chopard Lounge and the Canal + Patio during the 66^th Cannes Festival.

Press Release