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"It's like the last scene of The Day of the Locust," Ken Burns said. "They're going to tear us apart." Dressed in tuxedos under the blazing Mediterranean sun, we were perspiring in a cramped minivan that was slowly circling through the throng of celebrity–gawkers gathered around the base of the red–carpeted steps leading into the Palais des Festivals in Cannes. Flushed, eager faces pressed against the side windows and then withdrew, presumably satisfied by a brief, glamour–drenched encounter with American public television's biggest star. The vehicle was one of two that had been provided to whisk Burns and his entourage—including his wife, Julie; their two–year–old daughter, Olivia; and his grown–up daughters, Sarah and Lilly—from a yacht in the marina, about 50 yards from the Palais, to the gala screening of his 14–and–a–half–hour film about America's involvement in World War II.

The mass ascent of stars and cineastes up the red carpet—les marches, in local parlance—is a typical Cannes undertaking, a swirl of chaos administered with unbending bureaucratic punctilio. The festival organizers, wishing to maintain even spacing between the luminaries mounting the stairs, had issued precise, to–the–minute instructions. Under no circumstances were we to exit the car prematurely, lest Burns's group mingle inadvertently with Bollywood bombshell Aishwarya Rai's in a paparazzo shot.

The usual Cannes drill for a visiting auteur, but in Burns's case the incongruity seemed especially pronounced. He is as worldly as any director I've ever met—and far more knowledgeable than most—and no more prone to false modesty. But he also maintains a small–town, artisanal sensibility. For nearly 30 years, he has lived and worked in the hamlet of Walpole, New Hampshire. He is the village filmmaker, a role he also takes on for the PBS–watching public. And yet a Cannes debut can be grueling, disorienting, and perhaps also a bit of a letdown. The War, shown out of competition in a special program celebrating the festival's sixtieth anniversary, was widely believed, at nearly 900 minutes, to be the longest film ever shown in Cannes. This length posed a challenge to festivalgoers whose schedules were already crowded with screenings (to say nothing of parties, press lunches, and the hours of e–mailing and telephoning often required to get into them), and the turnout was sparse.