The 2002 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival, a nine-day event in Austin, Texas, US, promoted itself as a showcase for filmmakers to "work out complex issues" of their own definition through "independent and visionary films" as the world enters "an uncertain but hopeful future." While a welcome but not unexpected sentiment as the specter of terrorism and war continues to linger in America like a dank fog, the festival's programming did not rise to the bold challenge of its mission statement and served up a generally tepid and excessively music-heavy line-up of narrative and documentary films.
The festival's continued sponsorship by Miller Lite and Jim Beam alcohol brands, and a festival closing party sponsored by Natural American Spirit cigarettes didn't exactly facilitate this desired mood of hope or contemplation, either, but I suppose in all fairness said sponsors were probably targeting SXSW Music attendees, to whom whiskey, beer and cigarettes are as much of a dietary staple as cheeseburgers and fries. Still, it didn't feel right, and it raised the thought of the fundamental importance of SXSW Film not piggybacking on SXSW Music - not just in sponsorship, but in content as well - if it's to grow in reputation and continue to draw a distinctly separate fellowship of not necessarily music-minded cineastes. The music focus at SXSW Film was so heavy this year that it was difficult to avoid music-related films if the genre isn't favored. Towards the end of the festival I was walking out of films like Rising Low, a film by Phish bassist Mike Gordon documenting the recording of a tribute album to Gov't Mule's dead bass player Allen Woody, because I was on the verge of going mad if I watched another second of film footage of someone noodling on an electric guitar.
The Cat's Meow, Peter Bogdanovich's first feature film in eight years, opened the 2002 SXSW Film Festival on March 9 at Austin's grand centerpiece venue The Paramount Theater. Bogdanovich was on hand, Orson Welles impressions and all, to introduce the film. Favoring television acting and directing work during his recent extended hiatus, Bogdanovich returns to the big screen without a critical or commercial feature film hit since 1985's The Mask. He's taken a distinctly non-Hollywood route this time around, financing The Cat's Meow through British and German sources, and filming it outside North America by means of studio work in Berlin and on-location shooting off the coast of Greece, which served as the California coastline. An adaptation of screenwriter Steven Peros' stage production of the same name, The Cat's Meow is a speculative fictional glimpse at a November 1924 weekend party aboard the yacht of William Randolph Hearst attended by a handful of the era's notable entertainment celebrities, including Charlie Chaplin and Marion Davies. Filmed with a heart-felt old school Hollywood tone and pleasantly instilled with disarming wit to sooth its underlying emotional volatility, the film is a gentle success in most facets - especially photography and acting, and Kirsten Dunst's complex and mature performance in particular.
Bogdanovich participated in an open conversational Q&A panel about his life and career the following afternoon. He opened by saying any subject was fair game for audience questioning, a rather surprising declaration given the extreme peaks and valleys of his personal and professional life. But Bogdanovich, nattily attired in a tweed sport coat with a blue bandana knotted around his bare neck, was good to his word, answering all questions with good humor and candidness, although no one had the heart to inquire about his recent split with his 32-year-old wife of 12 years Louise Hoogstraten, the younger sister of his late ex-girlfriend Dorothy Stratten (and who shares a cameo with Bogdanovich in Henry Jaglom's latest, Festival in Cannes), although it obviously crossed my tactless mind. Bogdanovich revealed his screwball romance They All Laughed as his personal favorite from his filmography, and said he doesn't watch much contemporary cinema, sharing the Orson Welles anecdote of being unable to look right through "the ghost of the clapper boy." Bogdanovich feels studio altering compromised many of his films, including Nickelodeon, Mask, and Texasville, and is so deeply distressed by bad critical reviews of his films that he unfailingly avoids them. He shared fond remembrances of Welles, John Ford, the late River Phoenix, and Kirsten Dunst, among others, and closed with a very poignant memory of working with an aged - but still extremely capable and professional - Boris Karloff on Targets.
Acclaimed documentarian Albert Maysles, Troma shlockmeister Lloyd Kaufman, veteran independent film director and screenwriter John Sayles, and subversive Mexican director Jaime Humberto Hermosillo - now there's a dinner party for you! - were this year's selections for SXSW Film director retrospectives, and all four men attended screenings of their selected films at the festival, with Mayles, Kaufman, and Sayles also participating in Q&A conference panels. Maysles preached of documentary filmmaking's ability to allow us as people to connect with one another, and brought along his classic documentaries Gimme Shelter, Grey Gardens, and Salesman, as well as a series of rarely screened short films (Showman, Meet Marlon Brando, and Orson Welles--Spain) to drive home his point. Salesman is a particularly remarkable documentary, not only as a time capsule for an anachronistic American blue-collar profession, but as a mesmerizing character analysis of four flawed and socially alienated men who thanklessly pour their blood into selling the Holy Bible door-to-door with varying degrees of success. The film eventually favors one disenchanted salesman and brilliantly captures a number of intensely personal moments - quiet, reflective moments, sans dialogue or narration - that are textbook examples of the power of cinema to convey emotion with moving pictures.
Jaime Humberto Hermosilla's intensely structured films, long-time favorites on the international film festival circuit, are known for their biting social criticism and themes of sexuality, mostly through the eyes of women - a perspective all the more interesting given Hermosilla's openly acknowledged homosexuality. After decades of spurning by the Mexican establishment, in 1997 the Academia Mexicana de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas finally lauded Hermosilla's controversial cinema by awarding De Noche Vienes, Esmeralda (aka Esmeralda Comes by Night), a stimulating romantic comedy about a woman who liberates her emotions and sexuality through serial matrimony, five Silver Arieles (Academy Awards). Hermosilla attended a screening of Esmeralda at SXSW Film, but it was unfortunately scheduled against the world premiere of the horror actioner Blade 2 with director Guillermo del Toro and actor Ron Perlman in attendance. Against my better judgment I attended the latter; Blade 2 was certainly an excellent, stylized, blood-spattered rollick, but in retrospect I can't help but feel that I missed something special.
Troma Entertainment's Lloyd Kaufman has built a 25-year career and an independent studio on a foundation of blood, girls, and politically incorrect irreverence. His hilarious and entertaining public persona barely masks an obsessive hatred of what he calls "giant devil-worshiping conglomerates" like AOL Time Warner and the Hollywood establishment, which he compared to Communist PRC Chairman Mao Tse-tsung in an amusing but quite serious wisecrack. With Troma's Toxic Avenger and Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD characters firmly entrenched in pop culture "lexicon," as the Yale-educated Kaufman calls it, and with the Troma brand intimately familiar to his fanatically loyal fan base of cult movie aficionados (and begrudgingly well known to more serious-minded genre fans that shun Troma's lowbrow chic) - all fruitfully and efficiently accomplished without the sizeable resources of major American media corporations - it's hard to understand Kaufman's heartburn. I'm sure Kaufman's travails are thornier than my breezy assessment, but while recognizing Troma's importance as an independent alternative to the Hollywood system and wishing him Godspeed, I'll confess to having no desire to learn more.
As a filmmaker John Sayles pioneered a more mainstream but still fiercely independent career path, financing his films on a production-by-production basis with shoestring budgets of a half- to two-million dollars. His novel-like screenwriting form, with a sharp and sincere attention to social consciousness that probes deeper than Hollywood's lightweight liberalism, and a careful and wise observation of the relationship between history and community, brings integrity and a one-of-a-kind aesthetic to his filmography whether one agrees with his politics or not. The rights to four of Sayles' earliest pictures, Brother from Another Planet, Lianna, Matewan, and The Return of the Secaucus 7, recently reverted back to his production company and provided him an excuse to gather the best available film elements and initiate film festival retrospectives and brief theatrical marketing runs that will lead to the films' eventual release on DVD. It's good to have these classic independent films back in circulation.
A feature film originally intended for direct distribution on DVD before Miramax unexpectedly picked it up is Russell Crowe's Texas, a documentary about his Sydney, Australia-based rock band Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts (aka TOFOG). The brief 78-minute film covers TOFOG's August, 2000 road trip to Austin, Texas (via a rehearsal side stop in London where Crowe was finishing up Proof of Life) to record an album and play a couple of quickly sold-out club dates. Mildly interesting during the film's non-concert footage as a study of an unfamiliar side of Crowe with his guard down amongst buddies, it's best enjoyed by hardcore Crowe fanatics (TOFOG's music is serviceable, bordering on bland roots-rock). Crowe attended the once-only screening of Texas and graciously answered questions afterwards, popping open a can of cold beer and making himself comfortable by sitting down on the edge of the Paramount Theater's stage. His considerable charisma delighted the crowd, especially a very sizeable contingent of eye-catching young women who conveyed the rather unnerving vibe of a pack of hungry wolves eyeballing a piece of tasty raw meat.
While trying my damnedest to dodge music films, I discovered two quality narrative features in competition categories, which was a pleasant surprise given last year's ho-hum offerings. Narrative Feature Jury Award winner Manito portrays an explosive, life altering 48 hours in the lives of two Latino brothers in the urban New York City community of Washington Heights. Shot entirely on handheld digital video with natural lighting, in-camera sound, and other cinematic techniques in close (but not exact) accordance with the Dogme 95 manifesto, the film conveyed a cinéma vérité realism that did well to exploit a heightened air of strain and urgency. While writer/director Eric Eason's script is solid, it's squarely within the realm of genre predecessors like Mean Streets and Laws of Gravity. But what really push the film towards excellence are its invigorating tone, and the outstanding performances Eason pulls from his cast, most of who make their feature film debut. Narrative Feature First Film Audience Award co-winner Charlotte Sometimes is a compelling character drama in the loose mode of Five Easy Pieces and Carnal Knowledge with its hook being its Asian American cast and point of view. Surprisingly polished for its modest budget and DV roots, and professionally acted by a convincing and attractive ensemble cast that hums with chemistry, writer/director Eric Byler is content to show restraint in both directing style and scripted dialogue to let mood and understated character interactions tell his story in a contemplative manner. Charlotte Sometimes' shifting triangular relationships and their added context of Asian American cultural bipolarity, and Byler's treatment of sex as a very hot, urgent, but ultimately selfish and manipulative act are especially intriguing aspects of the film.
The documentary competition film categories were strong as usual from a quality standpoint but relatively free of spirited subject matters. Documentary Feature Jury Award winner Spellbound, by Jeff Blizt, follows eight young teen Americans from their hometowns to the annual US National Spelling Bee competition in Washington, D.C. It follows the effective but familiar structure best exemplified by the 1998 documentary Hands on a Hardbody where interesting and often endearingly unconventional participants are profiled and followed through a formal, elimination-style competition that culminates with agonizing suspense at the end of the film. Spellbound's ambitious and skilled contestants, representing a diverse assortment of ethnic and cultural backgrounds from all corners of America, handle the stress and pressure for success with surprising maturity and focus. While the kids are quite interesting, the film's observation of their parents and family dynamic is perhaps the most fascinating aspect. Family dynamic is also a key theme of Documentary Feature Audience Award winner Mai's America, which tracks a captivating, strong-willed Vietnamese high school exchange student through the cultural morass of America by way of the rural boondocks of Mississippi. Her surrogate "family" comprises a loose collective of rednecks, a teenage drag queen, a young African-American couple, and a clique of Vietnamese-Americans. Culling footage from events over a couple of years, director Marlo Poras has assembled a satisfyingly thorough, compassionate, and candid look at Mai and her one-of-a-kind American experience.
