As we all know, or well, as I know, and maybe you know, if
you bother to pay attention to such things, but you may choose not to pay
attention to such things because they’re not that important to you and honestly
you have far better things to which to give your attention, like say your
children or political affairs or even who Tiger Woods happens to be boinking these days, you know, all important things that
might need your rapt attention rather than, well, the minute planning details
of your film schedule for a festival like Sundance.
Phew. Are you
still with me? I hope so. This takes some careful planning, you
know?
Which is to say, honestly, that my plans for Sundance began
months in advance. Long before January. As far back,
truly, as August. It is in August
when, if you’re a person like me who must have it all, you throw your hat into
the ring, the lottery, and then start all kinds of ritualistic sacrifices and
dances and prayers to film gods only you have ever even known to ensure that
you will, in fact, be given a golden ticket.
That ticket? Oh that ticket assures you nothing. Not.a.thing. Not a single film is granted to you
with that ticket. Oh no. All it does, truly, is give you a time
slot. The time slot, once granted,
then allows you to purchase, if you’re ever so lucky
and have performed all rituals to the gods' satisfaction, a pass of one sort or
another for the festival. The pass? The pass will
then, perhaps, maybe if you’re so very blessed, allow you to choose the very
special films that you so very much hope to actually see.
This is my life. This life of prayers and
rituals and incantations to film gods of movies previously never seen. I spend nearly seven months of every
year in preparation for those ten days in January that I’ll spend in dark
theatres before screens treading uncharted territory with bold companions who
are sometimes willing to risk everything they own just to get there with their film.
When my catalog arrived this year, in my mailbox, from
Sundance, the cover said, “This is your GUIDE to Cinematic Rebellion.” I’d like
to think that what follows is my own guide, my own little gift to you, my readers, of my own
rebellious journey.
I am not sure I have recovered, even now, all these weeks
later. The testament to a
successful festival, honestly, is that I am uncertain if I will ever recover. I am changed for the experience. That is what always makes the
difference.
*************
The first rule of festival is flexibility. Actually, if I’m going to be brutally
honest with you (and when am I not?), the first rule of festival is plentiful
gallons of excellent and very strong coffee.
Without that? You might as well stay home.
Coffee in the cup, the next rule is flexibility. We already have covered the first day
of the festival and what was a near impending disaster thanks to blizzard
snow. Everything, including the
films, turned out all right in the end, but I awoke Saturday morning feeling
less than happy about driving back through a snow packed canyon for more festival.
My Saturday film schedule originally looked like this:
Catfish: 9:00 a.m. at the Yarrow Hotel
Get Low 3:15 at Eccles Theatre
Cyrus: 6:15 at EcclesTheatre
All of these screenings were in Park City. Between me, at
that bleary eyed coffee sipping moment, and Park City
was a lot of snow. Snow was
falling on my head whilst I was standing outside my beloved Coffee Garden,
purveyor of the best coffee in Salt Lake City, and it is at that moment that
the whole yoga minded flexibility came into play and instead of heading to Park
City, I headed to Trolley Square and found myself in a long and snaking line at the Sundance Box Office where I eventually handed the ever so patient and kind box office folks my tickets for all those screenings in Park City and asked (I promise I did not demand),
instead, for tickets for screenings in Salt Lake City.
I’m uncertain that people realize that just because you have
a ticket for a specific screening, it doesn’t mean you have to actually go to the
screening. No, you still have a
choice in this festival world. It isn’t
quite like the airlines where you’re SOL if you change your mind. You can change your mind and choose
something else! As long as there
is a ticket available. Which in
this case, on this particular Saturday, for films showing in Salt Lake, there
just happened to be. For me. So
that’s exactly what I did.
The Animation Showcase was first. At 12:30 p.m. At the Rose Wagner theatre. Because I’m nice, or crazy, or a mixture of the two (which
is probably most likely the case) I actually got two tickets for this screening
and invited the Outlaw (the same Outlaw that continually causes my heart to break and
shatter into multiple shards over and over and over again) to go with me. He said yes. So he was my companion for that screening.
The Animation Showcase included nine short animated films
this year. If I were pushed to
choose an absolute favorite among the nine, I’d choose One Square Mile of Earth which was directed by Jeff Drew. I also loved Runaway, which was a
whimsical entry from Canada about a runaway train. And despite what everyone else said, I thought MEATWAFFLE,
by Leah Shore was brilliant, even if it was not my absolute favorite. Others really didn’t like it at
all. I really did.
There was also a lovely entry from Bastien
Dubois, called Madagascar. It was
thoughtful and visually enchanting and I forgot I was watching animation. As the Animation Showcase is not
something I would normally choose, honestly, I’m actually very glad that circumstances
and flexibility caused me to end up there. There is a marriage in those films of art and music and
storytelling that doesn’t happen with traditional film and it was lovely to
experience.
Time was whiled away, for a bit, in the company of the Outlaw at the Beehive Tea Room
sipping tea, eating sandwiches, checking out cute gay boys and hoping to score
a wait-list ticket for Restrepo. Despite being in the early numbers in
the wait-list line, it did not happen.
Too many people decided, like me, that
negotiating the canyon for films in Park City was just not worth it that
day. So they actually showed up
for the screening.
Still, there were plenty more films to be seen. I said goodbye to the Outlaw (that’s the last I’ve seen of him, my broken heart is mending) and grabbed a waitlist ticket for the Shorts
Program III showing at the Broadway at 6:45 p.m. It is this program that included a short by James
Franco. Did you know that James
Franco is also currently a film student at NYU? He is. He also,
I think, should be my boyfriend, but of course he doesn’t know that and no one
is going to actually tell him that and I’m certain that he has other far more
beautiful women to bed than me and he may just be the type that would also leave my heart broken in lots of tiny shards needing to be carefully mended and put back together, so I’ll just sit and watch his short films (and
longer films) and think about the really interesting and long and winding
conversations the two of us could have if he would ever, you know, like call
me.
His film? The short that was part of the
Shorts Program III that I sat and watched? Memorable. Herbert White actually was based upon a beat poet
poem. One that James Franco discovered while doing research for his role as Allen Ginsberg in HOWL. In fact, instead of the word
memorable I should say it was just plain disturbing. I haven’t forgotten it. It’s a month later and I’m still, well, disturbed. So, well done, Mr. Franco. Your mind and my mind really should
have a meeting. Would you call me,
please?
There were other films in that series. Besides Mr. Franco’s. He wasn’t the only one included. One, entitled Chicken Heads, was,
perhaps, my very favorite. I can’t
say enough good things about that film.
If you have a chance to see it, please do. Another, called NEW MEDIA, spoke directly to the small
person that lives inside all of us that believes that we truly understand the
Internet and how to best optimize it for our own celebrity. The truth is that we do not. We’re fooling ourselves if we think we
do. The joke is on every one of
us.
Filled to the brim, I walked out of the Shorts Program III. I had now seen, total, 16 films that day. Yes, they were all short films. Still, that’s 16 artistic attempts at
story telling in new and creative ways for me to inhale and absorb and digest
and suck on and think about and dream about and not ever let go. I’m still thankful they didn’t actually
kill the dog. If you see that particular
film, you’ll know exactly what I mean.
There was a screening of Smash His Camera that followed the
Shorts Program. I decided I really
needed to see it. Did I have a
ticket for this screening? Well,
no, I did not. Was that going to
stop me from seeing it? Well, no,
it was not.
Another rule in the rules of festival is to be willing to
ask for and to expect the impossible. I mastered this art while on tour with
those fine fellows, the Grateful Dead.
Ask for and receive and bestow enough miracle tickets and, well, you
really do begin to believe that just about anything is possible as long as you
believe.
It’s all in the believing. I’ll share that.
You have to believe with all fibers, all cells, on all cylinders. There’s no room for disbelief. None. “Believe it, if you need it, if you don’t, just pass it on…”
Those words have served me very well for most of my life. They’ll serve those of you hoping for a
ticket to a sold out screening in a very small theatre at a given festival,
too. Trust me.
It took me about seven minutes, maybe less, to secure my
miracle ticket to the screening. I
actually didn’t even ask. It just
appeared. Like magic. There it was. So there I was.
For the 9:45 p.m. screening of the documentary about the original
paparazzo, Ron Galella.
Before seeing this film, I had no idea who Ron Galella even was.
But what I realized, while watching this film, was that I absolutely
knew his photographs and that his photographs of the rich and famous and
infamous had informed most of my childhood. I also fell in love with Ron, the man. He’s delightful in the ways that a
quirky, passionate, focused artist is delightful. He truly loves what he does, makes no apologies for it. He’s my kind of guy. He’s also the exact kind of
photographer I truly wish would take a photo of Nakedjen. Because, well, I know he’d get me. As me. Even when I’m naked.
He was there. On that snowy Salt Lake
night. Answering questions
after the film until well after midnight with a smile as wide as the lens on
the camera hanging around his neck.
His charm was not lost on the audience and you just could not help but do
anything but adore him. Completely.
Smash His Camera takes us deep into the world of one man’s
quest to get the shot that defines celebrity. Ron Galella doesn’t just want a
pretty picture, he wants THE picture that tells a thousand stories and in his
adventure to get it, he has a thousand stories to share with all of us. His photographs over the years have
informed all of us of a lives of the famous and
not-so-famous moments of their lives.
His unabashed candor, his own brushes with the law and the first
amendment, and his iconic photographs combine to give us a film that can’t help
but make us smile.
Seventeen films and it was only day two of the festival. I still had eight days of festival stretching before me. Tomorrow, I was headed back to Park City. I had an early date with my boyfriend, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night would keep this festival girl from a front row seat. I just needed more coffee. Lots more coffee.