PARK CITY, Utah — The weather was the mildest in years — not good for the resorts but plenty fine for the estimated 50,000 filmmakers, industry types and moviegoers who descended on the Wasatch Mountain ski town of Park City for the Sundance Film Festival. The 11-day event ends today.
A number of this year’s movies were gritty. But then, that can be said about any of the event’s previous 25 years. This is that kind of festival.
Even so, a handful of the films didn’t simply have the tang of truth but also delivered emotional payoffs.
“Push: Based on a Novel by Sapphire,” “Big Fan” and the documentary “The Cove” represent, in radically different ways, what the festival has done well for film culture: Offer a platform for idiosyncratic, driven storytellers.
“Push” and “The Cove” boast Colorado connections. In the former, Sarah Siegel-Magness and Gary Magness are producers for what is arguably the best film at the festival, Lee Daniels’ dismaying and affirming coming-of-age tale.
With suspense-tweaking skill, Boulder denizen Louie Psihoyos directs “The Cove,” a documentary about a group of activists led by Ric O’Barry, who trained the “Flipper” dolphins. They film a clandestine dolphin slaughter in Taiji, Japan.
Still, the mood of the gathering seemed muted. Taxi-van drivers commented on it. At the opening news conference with founder Robert Redford and longtime festival director Geoffrey Gilmore, the media were already asking whether the economic crisis would cast a pall.
But if Sundance felt more sedate than in earlier years, perhaps it was also because a more compelling story was being written in Washington, and, for once, the festival wasn’t the center of the universe.
Director Spike Lee attended the opening news conference but was already headed to Washington before his documentary “Passing Strange” had run its course.
Mariah Carey, part of the “Push” cast, also left early to sing “Hero” at the Neighborhood Inaugural Ball.
In a sense, she was a hero at Sundance, as well. Last Saturday afternoon, the pop star came into the Stanfield Gallery on Main Street for a press conference. Her castmates in director Lee Daniel’s astounding second feature had been seated and introduced.
Flashes strobed and there was a buzz. You could consider it a “give the photogs what they crave” diva entrance. But Carey’s turn in “Push” is anything but. Staid, utterly unglam, she depicts with authentic purpose the social worker for an illiterate, pregnant, and ultimately heroic teen from Harlem named Claireece “Precious” Jones.
Newcomer Gabourey “Gabby” Sidibe is a gale-force discovery as the troubled child who finds possibility in an alternative-education program. Comic Mo’Nique is jaw-dropping as Precious’ monstrous mother.
“Overnight,” said Toronto International Film Festival honcho Cameron Bailey, “Daniels became the most interesting black filmmaker in the U.S.”
“Overnight” is relative, of course. Before directing his first feature, “Shadowboxer,” Daniels produced the deep, dark dramas “Monster’s Ball” and “The Woodsman.”
Film as a storyteller
The theme of the festival was “Storytime.” And even in New Frontier, a program dedicated to the experimental, that was embraced.
Senior programmer Shari Frilot said, “The artists were pleased to be fielding questions at the press conference about how they saw themselves as storytellers.”
Candace Breitz’s “Mother + Father” was a crisp, mesmerizing video installation housed in adjacent darkened rooms. One had separate monitors featuring clips of male actors in their well-known movie characters against a black background, among them Dustin Hoffman (as the dad in “Kramer vs. Kramer”) and Steve Martin (from “Father of the Bride”).
The other room did the same with clips of Faye Dunaway, Susan Sarandon, Meryl Streep, Diane Keaton, Julia Roberts, Shirley MacLaine in character, talking at us and one another, about motherhood. There are some rightfully chilling moments as Dunaway’s Joan Crawford arches her brow and makes whetted excuses for her parenting skills.
Speaking of self-justification:
Director James Toback’s documentary, “Tyson,” on his longtime friend and the former world heavyweight boxing champ, is a gift to psychoanalysts everywhere.
One of the richest, rending moments comes as Mike Tyson, a Maori tattoo etched on his face, sits on a couch talking about the death of Constantine “Cus” D’Amato, his beloved trainer who died before the boxer ascended to the top.
Tyson chokes up recalling D’Amato’s death. And you expect that as he struggles to speak, he’s headed to a sentimental declaration. He teeters. He tears. Then he says he’ll never be bullied again because if anyone tries, he’ll kill them.
This near collapse into emotion and its brutal recovery nails one of the themes in “Tyson”: the knotty relationship of ferocity to vulnerability in the boxer’s makeup.
At a dinner in honor of the film, Toback said the scene contains “one of the most eloquent, poetic direct statements” made by the boxer. He’s right.
“Once again I’m humbled,” the former champ said before a sit-down dinner Bon Appetit sponsored. Then he admitted he was worried the documentary might garner him too much attention (it won the Regard Knockout Award at Cannes in May).
“I’m afraid of how much (unprintable) and money I’m going to get. It’s going to lead to a lot of problems.” The gathering laughed. “It sounds funny, but it’s really detrimental to me. I’m really sick and really weak.” Tyson, too, is right.
“Big Fan” also features a vexing athlete. Writer-director Robert Siegel, who penned “The Wrestler,” has made a terrifically generous (and surprising) first feature about a New York Giants lover who has a crisis of fanaticism when he experiences a deeply awkward moment with quarterback Quantrell Bishop, his idol. Comedian Patton Oswalt impresses as the 35-year-old parking-garage attendant who lives at home and makes late- night calls to the sports-fan show. Kevin Corrigan is just as “awesome,” to borrow a word, as his best buddy.
Film critic Lisa Kennedy: 303-954-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com. also on blogs.denverpostcom /madmoviegoer
