2000
Sundance Film Festival: Opening Weekend
Jan.
20-23
This year's
festival includes 113 feature films and half a dozen short
programs.
Sundance numbers: 1,200 volunteers, 190 filmmakers and 750
members of the media--350 more journalists than in 1999.
Thursday, Jan. 20
BEFORE THE DELUGE
Two years ago, I swore I'd never come back to the Sundance
Film Festival. I'd volunteered and covered the festival
from 1995 to '98, and the chaos finally made me bitter.
Now it's Thursday morning and I'm in the air, on my way
back to Sundance. It's 11 am, the plane hasn't even landed
in Utah, and I'm already conducting an interview--not to
mention I've started drinking. A local producer, Rod Pittman,
called me days before, and since we were taking the same
flight, we decided to use the time to talk about his reason
for attending and Portland's role in this year's festival.
The second half of that conversation was short: For the
first time in years, Portland filmmakers haven't as much
as a short showing at Sundance. Nothing. Pittman's already
knocked a couple back and candidly says that Portland is
"full of people who act like artists, and essentially, artists
keep other artists down." In his view, there are too many
people in the local film scene who want to direct, so nobody
ends up working together. Asked how Hollywood views Portland's
film scene, Pittman said that when he pitched a project
in Tinseltown, the studios said yes because "if you're calling
from Portland, you're either considered fresh or insane."
Though our city has no cinematic representatives this year,
numerous local filmmakers will be visiting Sundance to "work"
(i.e., schmooze, have meetings, make deals, etc.). Pittman,
for example, is heading up to Park City for a series of
meetings with indie icon Steve Buscemi. The producer has
inked a deal for Buscemi to direct and star in an authorized
biography of beat poet William S. Burroughs, titled Queer.
Pittman doesn't really view Sundance as a film festival.
"Most people don't go to Sundance to look at movies," he
said. "They go because they have to go and because that's
where the most business is done all year long."
Friday, Jan. 21-Saturday, Jan. 22
COFFEE AND ASS
The initial warm weather didn't hold up, and I'm standing
on a street corner at 6 am, in a snow storm, waiting for
a public bus to take me to my first screening. Suddenly,
the strangest image I've seen at the festival comes walking
down the road. It's a guy with a vat of hot coffee and plastic
cups strapped to his back, and he's being followed by a
woman wearing a jackass suit. He pours me a cup of joe.
The ass throws her arm outward and wiggles herself in front
of me. Things are looking up.
"Why don't you just come see the films, forget the buzz..."
--Robert Redford
It's 8 am, the opening screening has just started and the
first words I hear are these: "I lost my virginity in second
grade when I fucked my cousin"--immediately followed by
"My father put BenGay on his penis and stuck it inside of
me." Good morning, and welcome to Sundance! Specifically,
welcome to Just, Melvin, documentarian James Ronald
Whitney's uncomfortably personal and graphic portrait of
his child-abusing grandfather, Melvin Just. Whitney interviews
his entire family--rarely has an incest documentary possessed
such a candid tone. The entire film is essentially a series
of endless confessionals (crowned by the most twisted funeral
sequence I've ever seen, fictional or otherwise) that develop
into a nasty revenge drama in which the filmmaker sets out
to destroy his grandfather. Doubtlessly, this was a cathartic
experience for Whitney, and unforgettable for the few who
managed to make it through the film.
Tom Gilroy's cleverly written, beautifully acted character
study Spring Forward was also memorable. The film
stars Ned Beatty and Liev Schreiber as city workers who
form an intense emotional bond while they clean up city
parks over the course of a year. Basically, this is My
Dinner with Andre for the working class; the two men
just talk for close to two hours. It's a gripping and poignant
examination of generation gaps, language and uncommon friendship.
Films like this are why I come here.
By the look of the lines wrapped around the gigantic Eccles
Theater on Friday night, the reason everyone else came to
Sundance was the premiere of Mary Harron's adaptation of
Bret Easton Ellis' controversial novel American Psycho.
(Harron directed 1996's I Shot Andy Warhol.) That
the film was just slapped with an NC-17 probably boosted
the crowds, though the post-buzz had many calling it a failure.
I caught it the following day and found it much more interesting
than the novel, but hardly a great film. It's like a cross
between a slasher film (homages to Texas Chainsaw Massacre
throughout) and In the Company of Men, with a slyly
witty, detached, David Cronenberg tone. Its social satire
of Reagan's materialistic '80s is fairly easy, its mocking
of '80s pop rock is hilarious, and it features a remarkably
unsettling performance by Christian Bale, but ultimately
its blend of humor and horror feels strained. Of course,
it didn't help that a reporter behind me had a seizure during
the last reel, forcing a brief intermission in the film.
I only wish I had felt the same.
Sunday, Jan. 23
Nazis and Tammy Faye
Two of the better documentaries playing in the competition
couldn't be farther apart in subject, tone or style, although
they will undoubtedly be playing gay film festivals very
soon. Paragraph 175, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman's
follow-up to The Celluloid Closet, consists of interviews
with the handful of remaining homosexuals who survived the
Nazi regime. Holocaust docs seem a dime a dozen these days,
but this haunting examination offers a different perspective
that makes you ask what took so long. The Eyes of Tammy
Faye is easily the biggest shock of the festival so
far. Directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato (Party
Monster) caught up with the exiled queen of televangelism,
and they present a different side of her. Though they use
a very campy style, the filmmakers never hide their adoration
of Tammy Faye, and, skewed or not, the film makes a strong
case that she was unfairly maligned by the media and the
American public. What really comes across is a strength
and determination that, personally, I never knew she had.
I certainly didn't expect to be moved, but there I was,
tearing up at a Tammy Faye documentary.
THE DARK SIDE
Movies aside, Sundance always induces a mishmash of emotions
and impressions. Yeah, there's the thrill of discovery,
but Sundance isn't just about movies any longer. Next to
the terrific films, there's also the industry attitude,
the snobbish behavior, the aloof arrogance of so many staff,
patrons and reporters, the schmoozing and networking, the
crowded parties, the professional jealousy, the endless
ticket lines...well, just imagine being stuck in The
Player (minus the murder) for 10 days and you've got
it. The Committed press screening on Sunday night
symbolized so much of what's now wrong with Sundance. First,
there was the audience itself. The screening was packed,
and I saw a number of former colleagues in attendance (why?
It was a Miramax movie starring Heather Graham...funny,
I didn't see them at the Zhang Yimou screening). One started
by bragging he'd seen five movies the day before and asked
me what I'd seen and liked. But here's the problem: People
who ask you that at Sundance--particularly other journalists--don't
really care about your opinion; it's just a way to start
a pissing contest. So, I bite. I tell this guy that I enjoyed
Spring Forward, to which he responds, "Oh, I just
interviewed the director, Tom Gilroy." He said nothing about
the film's content, or the beautiful acting, or anything
about the interview, actually. It was an excuse to name-drop.
Then there was Committed itself. Annoyingly optimistic,
shallow and featuring a gaudy production design that's now
considered hip and "indie" by Hollywood, the film, directed
by Lisa Krueger (Manny and Lo), is the kind of mainstream
schlock that an independent festival would have mocked several
years back. But the audience loved it. It's now got a "buzz."
As I sit here in a bar, looking around at the Beautiful
People discussing deals, blurry-eyed from 13 movies in three
days, the scariest thought I have is that there's still
a week left to go. So far, the films have, for the most
part, exceeded expectation. I only hope the quality of cinematic
fantasy remains high, because this reality is, well, too
unreal.
To be continued next week...
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Willamette Week | originally
published January 26,
2000
|
