#cannes

From the early 1900s to about 1950, the Kennedy and Fitzgerald families documented their lives on nitrate photographic film. They were part of a new generation of amateur photographers utilizing a new medium that enabled them to produce numerous snapshots of everyday life – of friends and relatives, trips, holidays, and other celebratory occasions. When nitrate film became commercially available in the late 1880s, it made possible technical advancements in amateur roll film for smaller, more mobile cameras, ushering in the practice of family photography.  

More than a century later, the surviving nitrate negatives from the Kennedy Family Collection have been digitized due in part to the inherently fragile and unstable nature of the medium but also to provide greater access and ensure future use while the physical objects remain safely preserved in their original format and condition.

The JFK Library is pleased to announce the completion of an 18-month grant project to catalog and provide online access to these newly digitized materials. Archivists created robust descriptions and metadata records for all of the nitrate negatives in the collection so that users can browse, search, and discover these historic photographs. Over 1,700 photographs are now available on the Library’s website. The nitrates represent a subset of photographic materials in a collection that provides access to the more personal, private moments of this prominent family not found in other historical sources.

These photos – the fourth and final in a series of posts to highlight images from this cataloging project - feature the Kennedy family enjoying outdoor leisure time together, whether at the beach in Hyannis Port, in the pool in Palm Beach, or on vacation with family and friends. These images highlight the Kennedy family’s affinity for the water – both ocean and pool, stateside and abroad.

To browse all of the Kennedy Family Collection photos that show the family (and others) swimming and participating in other sports and recreational activities, visit the Digital Archives.

Photographs © John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.

KFC31N. Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., Swims with His Children at the Beach in Hyannis Port, ca. 1925

KFC621N. John F. Kennedy Swims at the Beach in Hyannis Port, ca. 1925-1926

KFC117N. Rosemary Kennedy, Eunice Kennedy, and Betsey Cushing Roosevelt Sit Poolside in Palm Beach, Florida, 1934

KFC1017N. Rosemary Kennedy and Kathleen Kennedy Swim at The Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida, March 1934

KFC1013N. Kennedy Family Children with Nanny Katherine Conboy at Breakers Beach in Palm Beach, Florida, March 1934

KFC304N. Patricia Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Jean Kennedy Play in the Pool in Palm Beach, Florida, March 1934

KFC109N. Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., with Edward M. Kennedy at the Pool in Palm Beach, Florida, March 1935

KFC209N. Edward M. Kennedy with Edward E. Moore and Mary Moore at the Pool in Palm Beach, Florida, ca. March 1936

KFC583N. Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., and His Family Go Swimming in Palm Beach, Florida, April 1936

KFC1403N. Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., at a Beach Near Cannes, France, 1939: July-August

KFC1635N. Kathleen Kennedy Swims in Pool at Schweppe Family Estate in Lake Forest, Illinois, July 1941

KFC1722N. Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, Edward M. Kennedy, and a Friend Go Swimming in Palm Beach, Florida, December 1941-January 1942

KFC1863N. Kathleen Kennedy and Unidentified Woman Swim at Country Estate in England, ca. 1943-1944

KFC2759N. Kathleen Kennedy Cavendish and Edward M. Kennedy Play in the Pool in Palm Beach, Florida, ca. 1946-1948

KFC2776N. John F. Kennedy, Jean Kennedy, and Ethel Skakel Go Swimming in Palm Beach, Florida, ca. 1946-1948

Read more about this project on the Library’s Blog.

The worst is when your attention revolves only in a person the whole time that when he’s gone for a long time and you meet again, the first sentence you’ll gonna say is, “Come back to me.”

Ash Is Purest White (2018)

The best films from the 2021 Cannes Film Festival.

Titanebegins not with a whimper but a cacophony: a deafening engine rev; the crash as car meets concrete; then the image of a girl in a horrific head-brace, like something from a Saw film, as she gets fitted with a titanium plate. Next a temporal leap to a car show, erotic dancers, pulsating synth music, chrome, and neon. The girl from the crash appears from the milieu, now a serial killer and sex worker. After the show, a stalker follows her to her car and gets a needle the size of a chopstick lodged in his eardrum. His mouth sputters like a piece of faulty machinery. Scarcely 10 minutes have passed.

Julia Ducournau, a Parisian whose debut Raw became the breakout success of the Critics’ Week sidebar at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, returns to the South of France last week in Competition—a sharp ascendency—and it has been nothing short of sensational. An experience as invigorating as a pair of jumper cables, it premiered halfway through the second week as late-fest fatigue was descending on the Croissette and seemed to almost singlehandedly wake the festival back up—enough at least to capture the eyes and imagination of Spike Lee’s Jury who have awarded it the Palme d’Or; a truly shocking, punky choice that made Ducournau only the second woman in history to collect that award.

Continue reading our Cannes review of Titane.

Many of the best qualities of early and late Verhoeven combine in Benedetta, a tale of sex, blood, and sacrilege in 17th-century Italy. Based on the American historian Judith C. Brown’s 1986 non-fiction book Immoral Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy (quite the title), its story focuses on the life of Benedetta Carlini, a nun in Precia who entered a sexual relationship with another woman in her convent. Paul Verhoeven originally adapted the book with his longtime collaborator Gerard Soeteman (Black Book,Turkish Delight), but the screenwriter stepped down when it became too “sexualized.” In the opening act there are not one, but two fart jokes. We are also, in many instances, offered evidence of the director’s well-founded appreciation for mommy’s milkies.

Originally titled Blessed Virgin and pegged for release way back in 2019, it marks an ever-welcome return for the great director, his first outing since 2016 when Elletook Isabelle Huppert all the way to the Oscars.Elle co-star Virginie Efira reteams with the director as the precariously self-assured Sister Benedetta. Verhoeven introduces the character as a child who, on the way to take “the veil,” saves her well-to-do family from being robbed by praying to the Virgin Mary. The mother of Jesus seems to respond by having a bird shit in one of the assailant’s eyes. (Much of the film’s drama is drawn from that fine line between divinity and pure chance.) This formative experience speaks to Benedetta’s belief that she is a chosen vessel for the Lord’s work. (It would be a stretch to say this is Verhoeven’s answer to Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, but there are some knowing similarities—as there are with Ordet.)

Continue reading our Cannes review of Benedetta.

InAnnette, a provocative comedian (Adam Driver) and renowned opera singer (Marion Cotillard) fall in love and have a gifted child. Written and composed by Ron and Russell Mael of Sparks, the singular rock band that formed in the early 1970s, the musical is directed by Leos Carax, making his long-awaited return with his first feature since Holy Motors in 2012. (The Maels reached out after Carax used one of their songs in that film.) And though a dyed-in-the-wool collaboration, it remains an unmistakably Caraxian film—not long after Sparks’ overture (“This is the start!” goes the refrain) does the director dip into his own back catalog: a motorbike, shot from low, tearing down an illuminated tunnel at night; glistening limousines; nods to Jean Vigo and Melville; eroticism; lots of cigarettes. It really has been too long.

Held over from last year, Annette was chosen to reopen Cannes as the first big premiere to grace the festival after suffering its longest hiatus since the Second World War. That kind of billing and hype almost demanded a sugar rush, yet Carax has delivered something gloriously gnarled and uncomfortable: a bludgeoning rock opera that takes aim at the entertainment industry and the dregs of toxic masculinity; that flourishes just as it drips with self-loathing; and that gestures toward such far-flung places as Dadaism, A Star is Born,Pinocchio,and even the director’s own life.

Continue reading our Cannes review of Annette.

Our 20 most-anticipated Cannes 2021 premieres.

So pretty

She looks amazing

anne hathaway at cannes is truly a vision

stop what you’re doing and look at anne hathaway attending cannes 2022