Great Movies
Every major film festival cultivates a privileged aura. Sundance asserts the primacy of the American independent and heralds the wonder of the breakthrough discovery. Cannes celebrates the cultural prominence of film as a fabric of French cultural life. Toronto animates a very Canadian brand of egalatarianism and social inclusiveness.
The Telluride Film festival, which kicks off its 41st iteration formally
today, is the most furtive. In movie language, Telluride is a noir
connoting something shadowy and unknowable, and governed by its own
internal logic. As a four-day boutique festival that ends on Labor Day,
the festival is a much smaller and more intricate gathering than those
of Cannes, Venice, Sundance and Toronto.
The festival unquestionably carries disproportionate power. By its very
nature, the festival is mutable, a cultural tastemaker, a showcase for
international art cinema and a launchpad for the highly-anticipated and
prestigious fall titles that shape the awards narrative.
Increasingly the festival is an insurgent with the ability to secure
high-profile premieres of major titles such as "Argo" or "12 Years a
Slave," which prompted Toronto's executives to announce a somewhat punitive
policy that any film with a previous North American premiere is going to
be denied any Toronto screenings the first four days.
Timing (and location) is everything here, and the fact that it unfolds a week
before Toronto gives it an undeniable cachet. Unless you own a private
jet, Telluride is virtually impossible to get to, increasing the sense
of this town as projecting a kind of mystique or otherworldly glow. The
festival's central motif is mystery, emphasized by the adroit way the
festival's top programmers always withhold the films playing until the
day before the festival starts.
This year's program is, on paper, a very impressive melange, a 25-film
main program culled from the major international festivals and highly
anticipated new works balanced out with a collection of tributes,
revivals and the special programs selected by this year's guest
directors, the husband and wife team of the very gifted Canadian
expressionistic filmmaker Guy Maddin ("Archangel") and the talented film
writer Kim Morgan.
Seven of the films in the main program mark the American premieres of
titles that played in the very strong Cannes competition, like Bennett
Miller's "Foxcatcher," Mike Leigh's "Mr. Turner," the Dardenne Brothers'
"Two Days, One Night," Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev's
"Leviathan," Quebecois filmmaker Xavier Dolan's "Mommy" and Tommy Lee
Jones' "The Homesman."
The most eagerly anticipated work is "Birdman," Alejandro Gonzalez
Innaritu's new film with Michael Keaton as a New York actor who's trying
to revive his career. The first film by the director of "Babel" in four
years, the reportedly audacious and visually inventive feature received
a rapturous response when it opened the Venice Film festival on Wednesday.
Right on the heels of heightened excitement is "Wild," by the talented
French-Canadian director Jean-Marc Valee coming off his celebrated "The
Dallas Buyers Club," working from an adapted script by Nick Hornsby and
Reese Witherspoon trying to find her own stride again.
The other films generating heightened response are "The Price of Fame,"
the new work by the leading French director Xavier Beauvois ("Of Gods
and Men"); Ramin Bahrani's film, "99 Homes," with Michael Shannon, set
during the financing and housing crisis; Joshua Oppenheimer's
documentary, "The Look of Silence," his follow up to his devastating
work on the Indonesian death squads, "The Act of Killing"; Nick
Broomfield's "Tales of the Grim Sleeper," about the serial killer who
haunted a Los Angeles South Central neighborhood.
Two-time Academy Award-winning actress Hilary Swank is the subject of a
career tribute. Her work is bracing and judicious as an independent
frontierswoman tasked with transporting a group of damaged women across
the Nebraska plains in Jones' feminist-tinged piece, "The Homesman." As
part of the celebration, the festival is screening the Western, which constitutes her finest work since Clint Eastwood's
"Million Dollar Baby."
If anything, Telluride is too much of a good thing, too much great stuff
packed into too narrow a framework. How many chances do you get in life
to see Joseph Losey's remake of Fritz Lang's "M," or a director's cut
of "California Split," one of Robert Altman's best films from the
greatest period? Or there's my candidate for the greatest American
filmmaker ever, Orson Welles, represented here with the 66-minute version
of his "Too Much Johnson" and the subject of a new documentary,
"Magic," by Chuck Workman.
The natural wonder and beauty of this place is a knockout, and now we're about to find out if the films stack up.
Patrick Z. McGavin is a Chicago-based writer and critic. His film writing has appeared in the British magazine Empire, Stop Smiling, Time Out Chicago, Cineaste and LA Weekly. He also maintains the film blog, http://lightsensitive.typepad.com/light-sensitive.
