Telluride Film Festival 2014

Telluride Film Festival 2014

This was my 13th straight year at the Telluride Film Festival and I was more excited than ever. The story leading up to the festival was the “land grab” by the Toronto Film Festival. The Toronto fest immediately follows Telluride each year. And while Telluride can best be thought of as the Labor Day barbeque for Hollywood and film lovers, Toronto is an 11-day get-down-to-business affair where many if not most mainstream movies are purchased by distributors. Apparently the business has been threatened by whether or not Toronto could rightly claim “World Premier” or “North American Premier” for certain of the films it shows. Their solution? Tell filmmakers that if the first showing of their movie was at Telluride, they could not show in the first weekend of the Toronto fest. Well, I’m not a director of an international film festival, nor am I the director of major Hollywood films but, I have watched a lot of movies and my answer is: “Really?” Does anyone care that much? Someone in Toronto is thinking. “This movie, ‘The King’s Speech,’ looks kind of interesting but it already debuted in Telluride last week so why bother?” ?? Telluride co-directors Julie Huntsinger and Tom Luddy responded to the Toronto issue saying: “We love, LOVE, filmmakers,” and “Filmmakers continue to bring us their films, we’re sorry they’re being punished for that.” There are plenty of movies out there so the Telluride festival lineup did not seem to suffer in the least but it’s likely that Toronto’s new rules prompted Telluride regulars, Jason Reitman with his film “Men, Women, & Children” and Noah Baumbach with “While We’re Young” to skip showing at Telluride. “The Imitation Game” did play at both Telluride and Toronto (second half) and went on to win Toronto’s People’s Choice Award.

All film-deal-making business aside, the Telluride festival still had an amazing line-up of films this year. So much so that people were doing a particularly bad job of choosing to go to the smaller, off-beat films and were instead flocking to the blockbusters, which are destined to play in theaters anyway. In defense of the flocking cinephiles, waiting to see a movie in theaters doesn’t get you the Q&A with the director and stars. But, festival passes are expensive and it is quite possible to get completely shut out of film after film if you keep trying to get into the biggies. Telluride doesn’t really afford you a “passing period” so if you are dead-set on going to the one with Johnny Depp, Scarlett Johansson, etc, you should probably skip seeing a movie beforehand and instead go queue up. Even with that you still might get shut out occasionally. One poor soul experienced this one too many times it seems at this year’s fest. He was observed throwing his $750 festival pass into the sewer after being turned away from “Birdman”. The Hollywood/Telluride ending to the story though is that other festival attendees fished it out by reaching around the grate and gave it to festival volunteers so that they could do something for this guy. Good people at Telluride.

Sometimes people go earlier than they have to. This was discussed at the Q&A for the tribute to Hilary Swank (along with a showing of “The Homesman”). Hilary had heard that people were lining up early for the 8:30 am tribute so she asked the audience who was first and what time did they get there. The answer was 6:05 am. Arriving that early was completely unnecessary but, the man got a hug from Hilary for his dedication.

Telluride Film Festival 2014

On to the films! As always, it’s not possible to get to everything we wanted to. Those who saw “The Imitation Game” said it was their favorite. Another biopic, this one starring Benedict Cumberbatch as WWII codebreaker, Alan Turing. Also, those who saw “Leviathan” universally prasied it. An unflattering portrait of modern-day Russia. Similarly, the documentary “The Red Army” about Viacheslav “Slava” Fetisov, youngest ever captain of the Soviet national hockey team and now a politician was highly recommended by all who saw it – saying that it transcended sports and has meaning for all of us.

Secrets photographer Ray Keller contributed excellent photos and insight for this article.

 

Birdman

Telluride Film Festival 2014

This movie had the most incredible cast of all the films we saw. Michael Keaton is Riggan Thomson – aka Birdman. An actor who had major Hollywood success many years in the past, now trying to reinvent himself on Broadway. His supporting cast consists of Edward Norton, Naomi Watts and Andrea Riseborough (“Oblivion”). Riggan’s manager is played by Zach Galifianakis and his daughter by Emma Stone. Each of these folks knocks it out of the park but especially Keaton. The camera is on him for 90% of the film, often following him on hurried trips into and out of his dressing room, down long theater hallways to backstage and then onstage. Each of these journeys is accompanied by one of the coolest and best movie scores we’ll ever see and hear. The jazz drumming of Antonio Sanchez. There’s not a way to put into words how well this works. As an audio reviewer I should be able to describe how good the sound was in the Herzog theater in Telluride though…. um, it was good. Let me put it this way, we should all get the Blu-ray for this film when we can in order to judge our own system. This theater was built just last year with a sound system by Meyer sound. I overheard many festival-goers mention the quality of the sound whenever they talk about “the Zog”.

Telluride Film Festival 2014

Birdman is attempting to launch a Broadway career with an original play based on Raymond Carver’s short story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” (Robert Altman’s “Short Cuts” is the most famous film based on his writing). As mentioned in the movie itself and the Q&A afterward, this is an ambitious step for theater. The deep need to reinvent himself and break away from the Hollywood role that has made him rich but too narrowly defined his life drives him to do it anyway. It also drives the film and serves as a metaphor for the struggle against ego that we all face. This is reinforced by some surreal happenings that occur only when Riggan is by himself. The movie is incredibly fast-paced and will leave some in the audience behind unfortunately, but the disc will be worth its weight in gold so just re-watch it.

Telluride Film Festival 2014

Director Alejandro González Iñárritu previously directed “Babel” (2006), “21 Grams” (2003), and “Amores Perros” (2000). Expect this film to receive several Oscar nominations.

Telluride Film Festival 2014

 

71

Telluride Film Festival 2014

Named for the year it is set in, it might have also been named “Belfast” for the place it is set in. And if you’re old enough to put those two together you know that any movie set in Belfast in 1971 could also be called “The Troubles,” the term the British still use to describe this incredible period of low-grade civil war in the UK. This movie is simply brilliant on many levels, so much so that I don’t know where to start. It brings to mind Steve McQueen’s film “Hunger” in two ways. First by the subject matter and second by the performances. In “Hunger” Michael Fassbender brilliantly played IRA member Bobby Sands who died in prison in 1981. In “71” Jack O’Connell brilliantly plays newly recruited British soldier Gary Hook, sent to police unrest in Northern Ireland. O’Connell seems destined to be the next Fassbender. Aiding the association between these two actors, “Hunger” was Fassbender’s major movie debut. O’Connell’s major movie debut was another prison movie, “Starred Up,” which played at Telluride last year. The performance was breathtaking but that role was so physical you couldn’t tell for sure how versatile this actor would be. Now we can.

The film plays as a potent thriller as British soldier Gary Hook is left behind by his unit when a riot gets out of hand. He is running, fighting and hiding for the next 24 hours. The complicated interplay of the British military, the Protestant police who are really in charge and the IRA is not spoon fed to the audience. You just have to know that many people were playing both sides, perhaps with their own ideas about how to best manage the situation or perhaps for other reasons which aren’t stated in the film.

In order to capture the look of the times the daytime scenes were shot in 16mm. This is a popular choice it seems these days and in this film it looks great. Aiding in the look of this film are the clothes and the sets. Gary Hook hides himself in various apartments and each one has wallpaper that made my jaw drop. If you’ve noticed the beautiful colors and sets in Pedro Almodovar films, this is along those lines. In the Q&A director Yann Demange (who had previously done only British television) said that he was fetishizing over these details and it shows.

This movie serves as a potent reminder that the torture/terrorism/oppression cycle that we are so tired of watching in the Middle East has happened closer to home. Bobby Sands died in 1981, a full 10 years after the time depicted in this film.

Interestingly, Fassbender and O’Connell played together in a 2008 horror movie, “Eden Lake.” Worth checking out.

Telluride Film Festival 2014

More Film Coverage for the following Telluride Festival Films in the CAVE

The Homesman (Directed by Tommy Lee Jones: Stars include Jones and Hilary Swank)

Foxcatcher (Director Bennett Miller: Stars include Vanessa Redgrave,Steve Carell)

Rosewater (Director Jon Stewart: Stars include Stewart and Maziar Bahari)

Wild (Director Jean-Marc Vallée: Stars include Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern)

Mommy (Director Xavier Dolan: Stars include Antoine-Olivier Pilon and Diane (Die) Després)

Two Days, One Night (Directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne: Stars include Marion Cotillard)

Wild Tales – Comedy from Argentina (Stars a who’s-who for the cinema in Argentina)

Madame Bovary (Director Sophie Barthes: Stars include Mia Wasikowska)

Dancing Arabs

Merchants of Doubt (Director Robert Kenner)

The 50 Year Argument