I am supposed to meet a friend at the Abel Gance outdoor park but since I've spent the morning hiking I know that I have to make a screening soon or the day will be lost. I look around and notice that a good number of people have gathered in front of the Opera House. It turns out that most of the festival's tributees and celebrities are there - so I snap a few photos. I keep an eye on the park and don't see my friend and since time is ticking I have to get going.
I ride up the gondola with a woman who taught a seminar of the mythology of women in films. Her thesis focuses on three feminist films that follow the arc of the heroine. Starting with Thelma & Louise (the breakaway) to The Piano (the decent into darkness) to Silence of the Lambs (the rise of the heroine from the ashes). It's an interesting premise. I tell her that she should do a comparison between the way the heroine is portrayed in the realist fatality of Fat Girl versus the predestined hope of Amelie.
My father and I get in line - something that's very common in Telluride. He tells me the two films he's enjoyed so far are The Cat's Meow and No Man's Land. No Man's Land by Danis Tanovic is an anti-war film made in the former Yugoslavia about a Bosnian Muslim and a Serb who are forced to set aside their differences to disarm a landmine attached to a wounded soldier. Like any good war (or anti-war) film the plot is harrowing and comes with an underlying theme about forgivness and understanding. The film was a hit and everyone I talked to, who saw the film, regarded it as one of the best they have seen this year.
The other film my dad highly regarded was Peter Bogdanovich's latest film The Cat's Meow. Taking a page from Orson Welles (literally, it seems, since Welles wanted to include this incident in Citizen Kane) the film is about William Randolph Hearst and a murder that may or may not have happened on his private yacht in 1924. Bogdanovich has had a long dry spell and although this doesn't seem to be a return to form it sounds more competent than his past few films.
We easily get into The Chuck Jones' to see Amelie a film that is truly a guilty pleasure for the art-house crowd. Light on its feet and described by one programmer as a fairy tale for adults the film is nothing if not an emotional and technical marvel. Using stylish angles, saturated colors and dizzing edits the film tells the story of Amelie a young woman who goes way out of her way to device schemes to help people in need. But, of course, she doesn't know how to help herself. The film asks the question, "when will Amelie wake up and pursue her desires rather than aid others in theirs?" The film only falters in the final scenes when it ends just exactly like you would expect it too. Nonetheless, it was a favorite among the crowds.
I decide next to see Speedy a silent Harold Lloyd film that has a score by the Alloy Orchestra. Each year Telluride teams up with The Pordenone Silent Film festival for one program and over the years it has become one of the hits of the festival. Speedy is playing in the Galaxy a new state of the art theater located in an Elementary school gymnasium. I figure with 500 seats available it might not sell out - but this is where I have to gamble. I have the ACME pass, which allows me to get into every movie in The Chuck Jone's Cinema and (except for The Opera House) two films in town. My strategy is not to waste one of these on a film that won't sell out. I'd rather spend $15 for a movie now and get into a hot selling TBA later. I get in line with the paying crowd. I know this line well having spent nine festivals in lines just like it.There's a different attitude in this line because no matter how long you wait there is no guarantee that you'll get in and for this reason the non passholders talk a lot about the films they couldn't get into. This one however seems easy to get into because with 20 minutes before the start of the program there are only 270 queues that have been handed out to the pass holders. However, a light drizzle has begun and the non passholders - lined up without cover - know there could be an impending wet rejection.
And sure enough! Here come the patrons.
In five minutes the place fills up and sells out. I can still attempt to run in but instead I decide to make a run for the Nugget Theater where they are showing The Fast Runner a 172 minute Inuit film. It starts at 7:00. I get there at 7:01 and there are plenty of seats.
The film is introduced by Peter Sellers a compassionate (if not occassionally long winded) cinefile and man of the theater.
It is that one image that stands out in the film. Besides being a great chase scene the scene is one of the most effective cinematic images of any film I've ever seen.
The film takes a while to sort out who is who but that's the beauty of the whole thing. These are not characters who can be pegged from the beginning. They need time to develop their characteristics. Best of all is that the film breaks away from the anthropological ethnic film that had been made famous by Robert Flaherty's Nanook of The North - a landmark film that is a sham.
Okay, so the film is long but so what? One thing that rankles me is that when I tell people how great a film that happens to be longer than two hours is they answer me by saying how uneasy they are about seeing a three hour film. I feel like asking them why they are at a film festival if they are worried about too much time spent in a movie theatre. It's one of those strange ironies that I don't feel like arguing about.
Now it's late and the only film that interests me is Alphaville a great Sci-Fi noir by Jean Luc Godard from 1965. I figure I've seen the film three times so I don't need to see it again. Good thing too I hear because the next day I'm told that the print was in bad shape. Nothing worse than a bad print of a great film.
We all head down to an ice cream place and buy a late dinner before heading off to the camp.
Day 3 click here