When the 32nd Telluride Film Festival opens today, it will strut the stuff that garnered it a healthy grant from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences late last fall.
“It stands as an artistic beacon,” said Academy program coordinator Greg Beal at the time Hollywood’s premier organization gave a three-year grant of $150,000 to what remains one of the nation’s premier festivals. “It’s all about movies.”
True. But the festival (running through Tuesday) remains about movies in a way that’s wholly original, bridging the old and the new, the foreign and the domestic. This year’s mix – with its internationally lauded directors, special tributes and silent- movie program – is no different. Thank goodness.
So what shines from a lineup that remains famously hushed until the morning the festival opens?
Much that is literary, for starters. “We recognized early on it’s quite a literate festival,” said festival co-director Bill Pence by phone. Think Telluride’s Book (into movies) Club.
Begin with “Edmond,” which teams horror director Stuart Gordon (“Re-Animator”) and writer David Mamet, who adapted his dark comedy.
“Apparently David Mamet has had a lot of involvement with this new film,” Pence said, “more than any other even though he didn’t direct it.” William H. Macy stars as the flummoxed everyman.
Another work making its movie debut is “Brokeback Mountain,” starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, directed by Ang Lee. Larry McMurtry adapted Annie Proulx’s short story about a romance between two young cowboys.
Best sellers “Bee Season” (starring Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche) and “Everything Is Illuminated” also get their close-ups. Actor Liev Schreiber adapted and directed “Illuminated” from Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel. Neil Jordan takes on Patrick McCabe’s “Breakfast on Pluto.”
In “Capote,” Philip Seymour Hoffman portrays the famous author during the time he was reporting and writing “In Cold Blood,” his groundbreaking “non-fiction novel” about the murder of a Kansas family.
“One of the problems of movies today is the writing,” Pence said. “Of course, we all know that. There’s some good storytelling in store.”
Author Don DeLillo contributes to the festival’s salon feel when he steps in as this year’s guest director. As part of its well-timed tribute to Jean-
Pierre and Luc Dardenne the festival will show “The Child,” winner of this year’s Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. The Belgian brothers – who have referred to themselves as “one person, four eyes” – have over the course of four films snagged Cannes’ top prize for two (the other was 1999’s “Rosetta”).
Other films making their way from Cannes’ red carpet to Telluride’s Main Street: Michael Haneke’s “Hidden,” Hou Hsiao-
hsien’s “Three Times” and Radu Mihaileanu’s “Live and Become.”
Some might think it strange, Hollywood bestowing its blessing and much needed largesse on a festival that seems so un-
Hollywood. After all, Telluride is even more cinephiliac (no, it’s not a disease) than Cannes. It’s not a market. There are no competitions and prizes.
But Pence balked at the notion that Telluride is somehow anti-Hollywood. “I love Hollywood,” he said with obvious pleasure.
Perhaps the most audacious example of this mad love is that the fest is paying tribute to Mickey Rooney. (Charlotte Rampling also will be feted.)
Last year, Fred Roos, the producer famed for his eye for talent (Tom Cruise and Harrison Ford) came to Pence and co-director Tom Luddy.
“You guys should honor America’s best living actor,” he told them.
“Oh yeah, who’s that?” they asked.
Mickey Rooney, Roos said.
Mickey Rooney?
“Nobody could be more Hollywood,” said Pence. “He’s such a survivor, such a representation of what Hollywood was and is and how it changed. We have in one package someone who is almost the entire history (of the studio system.)
It isn’t just Rooney’s longevity that earned him honors.”We did the homework, we saw the movies,” Pence promised. “Mickey Rooney is going to be a big revelation.”
Film critic Lisa Kennedy can be reached at 303-820-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com.
32nd Telluride Film Festival
FILM|Various venues in Telluride, begins today and runs through Monday|Only patron passes at $3,500 are still available (includes a $1,500 tax-deductible contribution)|For information on tickets for individual screenings and how to do the festival on a budget, go to telluridefilmfestival.org/pdfs/budget_31st.pdf.|For schedule information and more, go to telluridefilmfestival.org.
