Now the festival is really rolling and I have to decide which direction I will go. Yesterday was a good mix even though I didn't see much. I figure since I live in Los Angeles I will try today to see the rarest films offered.
I get into the gondola to go up and see The Orphan of Anyang a contemporary Chinese film that I have heard nothing about.Stepping into the gondola right after me is Edward Herrmann star of The Cat's Meow (and seen often in the Dodge Durango commercials.
I ride to the other side but then make a quick decision to also go down to the Galaxy and see the rare animated shorts. I figure too this may be the only time I will get to see the Galaxy since I missed it yesterday. I make it in good time and since there is no sell out there are a plenty of seats. Unfortunately, I burn one of my pass punches - but I'm tired of spending money and this should be worth it.
The Galaxy is a theatre named in honor of the stars in the universe and the whole motif of the place is that of the work of Copernicus, Gallilao and all the other famous astonomers and other 15th century dreamers. It also has stadium seating which is very cool considering two weeks before the fest it's merely a gymnasium.
The Forgotten Walt Disney is a program made up of short Silly Symphonies from the Disney vaults. Colorful, palyful, sometimes cheeky and always humorous. Some of the toons are good, others are pretty standard. In between every second or third toon somebody gets up to give us a background history about Disney and the studio in the 1930's before it became big with the release of Snow White in 1939.
The best thing about a program like this is that you can learn a little while you watch. For instance, according to Russell Merritt the anarchic spirit and editing structure of early Disney cartoons were an influence on the great Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein. To think the combination of something seemingly disparate like Russian cinema and Hollywood cartoons is, frankly, mindboggling. But from a purely aesthetic viewpoint the connection makes sense.
Also on interest in the program was the Three Little Pigs cartoon, which if you remember has three pigs each building a different kind of house that the big bad wolf comes to blows down. Originally the wolf was meant to represent the threat during the 1930's Depression and he was slightly portrayed as a Jewish characature. But during World War two the Canadian government and Disney remade the cartoon so that the wolf represented Nazi Germany and the third Pig's house was made not of bricks but of Canadian bonds.
Satisfied and a little hungry I leave the program a little early so I can get some lunch and head to the next screening.
Next I head up to the Chuck Jones' cinema to see Speedy the film I missed yesterday. Speedy is a silent comedy made in 1928 and is replete with slapstick humor, sight gags, impeccably timed stunts and plenty of the kind of charm that make silent comedies so great. It's also well...just like almost every silent comedy you've ever seen. There is a girl, there is a goal that the hero must reach and there are cops who chase the hero.
The film is presented as part of the collaboration that Telluride has with The Pordenone Silent Festival in Italy. Each year this festival screens upwards of 400 silent films. A phenominal figure when you consider that most people have rarely seen more than two silent films in their life. Pordenone, like Telluride, is a festival that appreciates the cinema in all it's glorious history as a medium not only for the masses but for people who love film as an art form and an entertainment rather than as an exploitable commodity.
I'm on roll now so I might as well go to another rare movie. I decide to go see The Golden Fortress since it's a rare film from India by the great Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray. It's playing at the Opera House and a line has already begun forming at every conceivable corner. This might be tough to get into, but I'll give it a shot.
Standing in lines is a good way to meet people and make short term friends. Everybody is talking film so kicking off a conversation is easy, just say, "So, what have you liked so far?" In LA or any other city -- since cinema-goers are often isolated and to themselves -- this would be awkward. Here it's expected..
La Cienaga is directed with a distance to it, a quite dead pan humor and a bunch of scenes that semmingly have no connetion. The film is about two families dealing with the boredom of life and the ever present sense of the danger in nature along with the inherent erotic possibilities within close knit families. But despite all this the film is virtually plotless. Director Lucretia Martel shows a sure hand at framing scenes and setting a suspenseful pace but she isn't about to tell us how to think about the characters. For this reason the film is difficult to appreciate. But, of course, that makes it the perfect festival film.
The great Indian filmmaker Satyiajit Ray made The Golden Fortress in 1974 about a six-year-old boy who has vivid memories of a past life in a Golden Fortress many hundred years earlier. His parents hire a para-psychological and a private investigator -- who has perceptive ESP-like powers -- to follow the boy to the fortress. A couple of bumbling crooks kidnap the boy and fool him into leading them to the fortress where they believe a treasure of jewels is hidden. The film is part comedy, part mystery suspense with some enigmatic subtext thrown in for good measure and proved, if anything, that Ray was a filmmaker with a wider range than those neo-realist like films for which he is most famous.
Unlike any film I've seen so far at the festival with The Golden Fortress I feel that I am in the hands of a real master filmmaker. Granted the film is light and fun but the audience loved it. It's the only film I saw that received an ovation during the middle of the screening.
Day 3 continued and into Day 4