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Telluride, Day
3
by
Ian Waldron-Mantgani, September 1, 2002
Turns out that I'm not the only Brit attending
southwest Colorado's Telluride Film Festival. While waiting for coffee this
afternoon I ran into a young guy from London, and behind me in the queue
for the Michael Moore book signing were one young lady from Essex and another
who just moved to the States from Kent. It is worth noting, however, that
the first bloke turned out to be Peter O'Toole's son, while the girls were
guests of a friend who owned a condo in town. Presumably my unconnected self
still takes the prize for the longest and hardest trip.
My accent seems to be charming the Yanks, although
curse Ralph Fiennes for being somewhere in town, as the coolness of that
man's voice beats mine any day. I have also learned that it is not a good
idea to willingly reveal my age; I had some good chats with the press desk's
lovely Brigitta Wagner today, but when she discovered I was nineteen, I was
clicked into a whole new light. I fear my personal style no longer seems
like unpretentiousness and more like, well, that of a kiddo. Darn. If only
I were an evil genius, able to hatch a scheme to regain my
credibility.
At least one long overdue rite of passage was
gone through today: I finally saw "Singin' in the Rain". Not having seen
the film all the way through has been one of my personal embarrassments for
quite some time, but Telluride was as good an occasion as any for my first
viewing. At 9.30am the Galaxy Theater venue screened a digitally restored
fiftieth anniversary print, with sparklingly clear sound and picture, and
no modernistic toning down of the bold colours that signal it as a piece
of great Hollywood from a certain period.
Before the show, New York Times film critic Elvis
Mitchell stood at the front of the auditorium and announced that "Singin'
in the Rain" is the best American film of all time. It is hardly conceivable
for any film to live up to such an introduction, but I enjoyed the picture
immensely nonetheless. Its characters and elements of Hollywood satire were
funny, its heavy reliance on old musical numbers allowed the cast to do justice
to the rhythm of songs while playing around with them, and that Gene Kelly
sure had some moves. Amazing, how the cast managed to flip-flop, spin around
and dance up walls while retaining perfect comic timing.
I missed this afternoon's screening of "Respiro",
as after my morning movie I went to get my copy of "Roger & Me" signed
by the film's director, Michael Moore. It was fun to meet and chat with Moore;
he told me of his plans to visit England in the next few months, and I offered
him good wishes for "Bowling for Columbine", which is playing at this year's
festival, and which I declared to be a work of tremendous
importance.
Nonetheless, I regret missing "Respiro", as it's
been getting good buzz. Other elusive titles rumoured to be wonderful include
"City of God", a heavy South American epic produced by Walter Salles; "Blind
Spot", a documentary of the woman who served as Hitler's secretary; and "Cuckoo",
a Russian film about a Finnish man serving in the German army during World
War Two.
Today hosted my first disappointment of the festival.
"Spider", directed by David Cronenberg, stars Ralph Fiennes as a schizophrenic
who wanders around a halfway house for a hundred minutes looking very confused,
rambling muffled repetitions of sentences and scribbling funny shapes into
a pocketbook. There are scenes in which he wanders ghostlike around a family,
as shots make suggestions that he could have once been its little boy, or
its father figure. One actress plays multiple roles, and switcharoos and
mysteries around, albeit within low-key shots. It's supposed to be a glimpse
into the confusion of a schizophrenic mind, I guess, but "A Beautiful Mind"
managed that with more skill and ease by using one very simple structural
device. The destination of "Spider" is more or less obvious after its first
hour, but doesn't reveal itself until the end, while the style of the picture
feels calculated and ends up a pointless and smug bag of
tricks.
Cronenberg's problem here, which formerly has
not been present even in lesser pictures, is that he's more intent on confounding
his audience than moving or amazing it. In his introduction to the screening,
the director half-quipped that he'd finally moved on from experimental genre
filmmaking to "a hardcore art flick". We can take that as a confession of
pretentiousness. Even the presence of good actors does not save "Spider":
Fiennes's role is one of such limited behaviour that his commitment to it
is admirable, but I didn't buy the specifics of his ticks, which came across
as just so much risible babbling. Gabriel Byrne, Miranda Richardson and Lynne
Redgrave nobly attempt to take dramatic command of their scenes, but the
carefulness of the story and its structure makes use of them so rigidly that
none of the performers end up being as exciting as they
should.
Showing at 8pm was Lynne Ramsay's "Morvern Callar",
a much better journey with a character of troubled mind. Samantha Morton
stars as a young Scottish woman who awakes one morning during the Christmas
season to find her boyfriend has committed suicide. She doesn't tell anyone,
doesn't get rid of the body until several days have past, doesn't really
decide how to react at all. Many events take place, including a sudden holiday
to Spain, but there's little emotional growth.
The movie is such an intimate and visual examination
of its protagonist's numbness that you'll either latch onto it greatly or
get bored out of your mind. Conversations after the screening led me to believe
that audience reaction was split. Thankfully I had the former experience:
Morton's performance is impressively self-absorbed and unaware of the camera,
while the unresolvable unpredictability of the situation makes every new
scene feel like it's occurring. We don't know what we expect to happen, or
what should happen, and so we accept whatever does. This is not a picture
requiring certain story turns; it's more about individual moments of mood
and an aimlessness that's actually sort of amazing.
Ramsay did visual wonders with a small budget
on her feature debut "Ratcatcher" (1999). Here she had more money, but seems
to have used it for luxuries such as shooting time, rather than great equipment.
"Morvern Callar" looks raw and cheap, but thought and skill has gone into
loading it with emotion and making that planning invisible. Sound effects
that would normally remain as background are loudened so evocatively that
even temperatures are palpable.
Speaking of sound, some of the Yanks have been
saying they had trouble with the Scottish accents. I don't get how, as "Morvern
Callar" features little dialogue. Regardless, perhaps I could make some money
over here as an interpreter. Cheques in advance, yes?
COPYRIGHT© 2002 Ian
Waldron-Mantgani
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