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Doing the Sundance
For the past 10 days here in Park City, Utah, our box canyon was
busting at
the seams as it transformed into a cultural circus of Hollywood
producers,
writers, actors, and film junkies here to witness the Sundance Film
Festival.
Streets were packed with lines of black-leather-clad folks waiting to
score
tickets to the hottest screen premieres (Glenn Close’s "Cookie’s
Fortune" and
"SLC Punk") in the midst of unfamiliar temperatures and oxygen levels.
But
with all the ugliness of crowds under this Big Top, came sparkle and
magic,
and more important, the man in the cannon. Robert Redford, the
godfather of
independent cinema, greeted his circus with a touch of irony. Walking
down
the street (on camera, of course), he greeted folks on his way to the
movies.
As he shook hands, posed for pictures, and explained what Sundance
meant to
him, he also acknowledged the oxymoron of this festival, "The fact that
it’s
in the winter is my fault—I love to ski." He knows that it is he we
praise or
blame for the success of his independent film exhibition. And he knows
it is
here where dreams are created and crushed as fast as a New York minute.
Call it serendipity, but according Redford, the Sundance Institute
was
originally intended to develop the art of theatre, craft, character,
without
the restraints of Big Studio breathing down one's neck. But as the Play
became The Thing, so too, did this Festival become The Place. Without
his
realizing it, the Sundance Film Festival became a monolith in the
architecture of film culture, despite its indie roots—which Redford
clearly
expresses mixed feelings about.
Personally, these past 10 days amidst the Patagonia-glad throngs of the
Outdoor Retailer show in Salt Lake City and U.S. Freeskiing National
hardcores at Snowbird, I also set out to dissect the irony of just how
this
festival spawned it's own channel and theatre chain in my town. For to
understand how Sundance became the largest indie film festival this
side of
Mars, is to understand perhaps, the very irony of Americana film
culture.
What does it mean when one has to have a fairly large "indie
budget"—surely
an oxymoron—to make it among the more than 1,731 films reviewed each
year?
And are 1,731 films (for no more than 113 spots) considered indie? If
one's
film does get showcased, what does it mean when the circus leaves town
and
the film is suddenly considered unmarketable (" ") and swiftly sent off
to
the Island of Misfit Toys? Then again, this is the Sundance Film
Festival—one
just may get a pick-up deal for $10 million from a $25,000 film funded
from
personal credit cards ("sex, lies, and videotape").
During this year's festival starting on my birthday, I saw about as
many
world premieres, documentaries, dramatic features, and short films my
sore
butt could take. Although I wanted to track the Man himself, along with
a
handful of the most interesting actors, I realized that not only was it
nearly impossible to get access to such stars (other than my chance
encounter
with Redford on Main Street), but more importantly, it was the underdog
filmmakers who told the real story. And the real story, from not just
my
point of view but audiences and Sundance judges, came in the
documentary film
called "American Movie" by Chris Smith and Sarah Price. It’s a movie
about
Mark Borchardt from Menominee Falls, Wisconsin, and the making of his
independent movie, "Coven." "American Movie" traces just how difficult
it is
to persevere when all you have to fund the project is $3,000 from
80-year-old
Uncle Bill, the executive producer, and the actors consist mostly of
family,
friends, and yourself. Tracing Mark and his struggles to make his first
feature film was like catching a glimpse of just what it means to be an
independent filmmaker. But more than that, it shows the heart of
America—and
a man who wants to make something of himself before he runs out of
energy and
resigns his life to his part time jobs as a cemetery caretaker and
newspaper
delivery guy. "American Movie" is the guts of what it means to live in
the
Midwest, have no money, three kids out of wedlock, and yet somehow have
dreams larger than one’s own pathetic life. If you can’t tell, I loved
this
movie. It received standing ovations at every screening and, as
Sundance
co-director Geoffrey Gilmore noted, "portrayed the very essence of what
Sundance means." You may not see this movie for another year—if and
when a
distributor picks it up. And then, it’s one of those movies that will
probably play in one of those theatres that screen a bunch of foreign
films
with subtitles. But look for it and go see it. It represents the good
side of
the entrants of '99, not those other so-called independent films with
huge
budgets that have turned this festival’s suddenly fat-ass into
Hollywood's
own so-called box canyon of independent film culture. "American Movie"
on the
other hand, is the real McCoy.
—Kathleen Gasperini
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