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Xan Brooks reviews Nebraska, Alexander Payne's entry to the 2013 Cannes film festivalXan BrooksElliot Smith

Shot in black and white, Alexander Payne's new movie is a melancholic, gentle road movieThis year at Cannes, film after film has delved into the world of the wealthy. The Great Gatsby's lavish parties have been rivalled by only the madly superficial Roman fiesta that begins Paolo Sorrentino's The Great Beauty. Meanwhile their glittering possessions are filched in Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring.But now Cannes has come back to earth, and the hyper-real colours have drained away. Shot in black and white, Alexander Payne's Nebraska is a "depression-era movie", the director said. A melancholic, gentle road movie of the post-sub-prime, recession-hit mid west, a landscape of dirt-poor farms, overweight and unemployed young men and with a chief character, like the companions in The Wizard of Oz, in search of a dream that turns out to be an illusion. Its visual style, said Payne, is "as austere as the lives of the people who inhabit the story".Two years ago The Artist premiered at Cannes – another film in black and white, which payed joyful homage to the silent era. Nebraska is a different prospect. "I've always wanted to make a film in black and white, and really it left our cinema because of commercial not artistic reasons," said Payne. "It never left fine-art photography. And this modest, austere story seemed to lend itself to being made in black and white." Paramount, the studio behind the film, had agreed to a black-and-white shoot after "some discussion", said Payne. "We did settle on a budget less than it would have been had it been in colour.""A film is made in the time it is made, and the winds of society blow through it," said Payne of the film's texture of economic decline, with the one-horse town that provides much of the setting punctuated by "for lease" signs and battered advertisements for home loans.However, the story predated the financial crisis: Payne, who also directed The Descendants and Election, had had the script in his possession for nine years. Superficially similar to Sideways, in that it describes a road trip taken by a pair of male companions, it was a film that he decided to delay because "I was so sick and tired of shooting in cars by the time Sideways was finished I didn't want to make this right away". The resulting movie was entirely different from its 2004 predecessor: "I wanted to shoot this one with a rather plain, direct visual style. Sideways was a bit more rich, lush, romantic."Payne prepared for the shoot by watching his favourite black and white films – including Peter Bogdanovich's depression-era Paper Moon (1973), and The Last Picture Show (1971). "The Last Picture Show presents lives in a small town, with a perfume of decay: there's perhaps some similarity there," he said. The film tells the story of Woody Grant (Bruce Dern), an old man who is convinced that a junk mail telling him he has won a million dollars is genuine. Davey (Will Forte), his long-suffering son, who humours his conviction and sets out with him to claim the prize, played by Will Forte, is is along for the ride.Cannes 2013Cannes film festivalFestivalsAlexander PayneCharlotte Higginsguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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