but anyway, back to movies

[jfb]

Early in the morning (well, 10), a members-only screening of Bitter Jester, preceded by a few minutes of stand-up from its director/subject. A documentary about a comedian who repeatedly sabotages her own career, and starts trying to figure out why. Intense and good.

This morning I felt that first twinge of premature sadness as the festival draws to a close.

Hukkle, a nearly dialogueless film about everyday life and death among the people and animals of a Hungarian village. There are hints of a murder mystery, but it's not given any more or less significance than the mole that gets snatched into the jaws of a waiting dog, or the insects killed or spared by their human neighbors. Very Malick-like in parts. I liked it, but not everyone would.

Reeseville was a step up from the director's previous film, Lady in the Box. The editing was better, and the acting had bright spots as well as dim. But the script was constructed mostly from B-movie cliches. Mark Hamill was quite good.

At 5:00 was the Maverick Award presentation for Ralph Bakshi, the controversial and sometimes brilliant animator. His appearance was preceded by a screening of Coonskin, which was grossly offensive and... interesting. Bakshi had a lot to say about how artists should behave, which I found irritating.

I went to 7 Songs mostly because it starred Chris Eigeman, Whit Stillman's film alter ego. Eigeman plays a middle-aged rock star (or ex-star) on a critical day. Unfortunately it seemed kind of uninspired. The songs were pretty trite, too. I liked Eigeman's performance--mostly the way he stayed in character while "singing".

Finally I cheered up with Burning Annie, an incoherent but quite likable college relationship comedy about a guy who's learned everything he knows about love from Annie Hall. A lot of the dialogue looked dubbed--sometimes horribly, like, people talking with their mouths closed--which the producer said was a technical problem but I have my doubts. And the screenplay--evidently worked over in the editing room--could use a few more drafts. Too many places where people refer to previous conversations that they've never had. But it gets by on a good heart, a cute cast, quite a few funny gags, and residual goodwill from Annie Hall.

One day left.

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Art

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Erik and I had a bit of that "how artists should behave" conversation after Bakshi's chat with the audience, and before we went our different ways. Largely, he talked about how you should make art for your own sake, not for the sake of any audience. [I'm always tempted to write "Art" and "Artist" when it's in a context like this. That's the way Bakshi seemed to say it.]

And then I went to see The Movie Hero, a really likable movie for people who see movies made by someone who really loves movies. And you know what? He spent "only" $400k making it, he's off to make the rounds of the festivals, and can't even get distributors to look at it. Maybe that will change. But all around Cinequest are maybe 50 directors who more or less took Bakshi's advice -- they're making personal movies that don't have a pat audience, they didn't get production notes from any studio, and they care about what they're doing. And I'd be willing to bet that in five years half of them will be out of the movie business. Not because they're not good, not because they're not passionate, but because they didn't make movies that sold, and they're broke and tired. Is that what artists really should be doing?