ITS grimy glamour and dazzling light have captivated directors from Alfred Hitchcock to Steven Spielberg, and now Marseille is the setting for no less than three films at the Cannes film festival, including Matt Damon’s latest drama.
France’s raffish Mediterranean second city has iconic status in Hollywood as the setting for “The French Connection” thrillers of the 1970s.
Lately, the narrow alleys leading down to its Old Port have been thick with film crews.
As well as the Netflix series “Marseille”, which played up the city’s reputation for corruption and criminality with Gerard Depardieu as its crooked but charismatic mayor, a crop of gritty films by young French directors have also thrown it back into the spotlight.
“Stillwater”, which premieres at Cannes on Thursday, has Damon as a fish-out-of-water American oil-rig worker trying to get his daughter out of jail for a murder she claims she did not commit.
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