September 11, 2002

It’s here…

I get to see the new Patrice Leconte film today!!!

Ironically, it was Tuesday the 10^th that ended up being my down day, not the 11^th.  Wyclef insured that.  And I needed the break.  After deciding not to take a front row seat for Lion’s Gate’s newest acquisition, Gaspar Noe’s rape drama Irreversible – I was already prepared to be made uncomfortable by the rape scene, but I am not a gynecologist – I managed to miss movie start time after movie start time.

I don’t know if you’ve been following the stories, but Roger Ebert and Variety’s Todd McCarthy both went public with their concerns about missing movie start times as well.  And of course, the whole thing was blown grossly out of proportion. 

Here’s the deal… there are 2500 press/industry passes for screenings that have a maximum available number of seats of about 600.  So, when the must-see films come along, there is a problem.  The truth is, films that have distribution are here for press.  There is good reason to prioritize press access over industry access for those films.  If you ask me, that priority should end 15 minutes before the films begin.  On the other hand, films without distribution are here for potential industry purchase and the press that can help make those purchases happen.  There should be open seating for those films.

Roger’s only real complaint about Industry passes is that he worries that the festival does not check for industry affiliation very carefully and that the $850 (Canadian) pass is a bargain for heavy-duty moviegoers.  He cites bigger crowds for weekend press/industry screenings. 

I don’t know if the festival screens industry people carefully or not.  I haven’t spoken to Gabrielle Free about it.  And I haven’t spoken to Todd McCarthy about his story, which seems to have gone far further over the deep end than Roger’s.  The idea that critics are going to stop coming to Toronto is nothing but silly posturing.  We all still go to Sundance, which is more expensive and less accommodating by far.  Don ‘t even get me started on being a new press person in Cannes.

But here’s the good part… all this silliness is not about any dramatic anniversaries.  Tomorrow, we get to sleep in a little and screenings start again at 11 am.  I expect to see five or six movies tomorrow. 

I love what I do.  I love writing too much each day.  I love the industry, with all its insanity.  I love the hottie publicists whose smile turn to stone as they walk away and the executives who know just what asses they need to kiss and the press members who can’t wait to hear which one of their “friends” got fired most recently and the celebrities who know that we press people are all such fools.  And I love the people who do it differently… honestly and humanly and kindly.

But most of all, I love the movies.  I love the art.  And I love all the people who do it beautifully.  I am blessed to have an addiction that I can embrace proudly. 

I thought about addiction a lot today.  It was another distraction that kept me out of the dark.  It’s not really anybody’s business, but it seems to me that my fear of other things that I feel the same passion about as movies has limited those parts of my life. I think it’s time to change some of that.  And some of the addictions that I still indulge in the name of being right or being kind have to go. For someone who is as self-indulgent as I am… and as fortunate… I still need to remember to live every day as though it is my last. 

Katrin Cartlidge was 41 when she died this week.  I was sitting at a table with Bingham Ray when he told the story days before it hit the press.  I don’t think I am talking out of turn to say that he was devastated.  She was a great actress and a family friend of his.  I didn’t write about it earlier because it was his story and his friend and I thought that printing it was too invasive.  But it reminded me that as well known and well loved as she was, the pain was personal.  Life is personal.    (The story is reported in these three places – here, here, and here.

Bingham also said a few other things that night that made me appreciate his unique passion for his work.  He has so much more than me right now, including control of a mini-major.  But it was wonderful to know that I could share a similar perspective with someone in his position… he owns his life and his work reflects him, not the other way around.  (The same can be said of other art-film operators like The Weinsteins and Bernard & Barker, really.  But I’ve never had the chance to see their hearts as clearly.  I knew a lot about this about this man in just minutes.)  How quickly people forget how important being the leader of your own life can be.  It can make you crazy, but so does everything else.  At least you own your soul when the tab comes.

As we all spend 9/11 thinking about so many things, I will use the day as my own personal Yom Kippur (aka The Jewish Day of Atonement).  I will be in the temple I have chosen… the cinema.  And I will watch the spirits of friends and enemies, old and new.  I will consider it all.  And I will think of all of my good fortune and of the loss of one particular young gifted woman.  I will bow my head in prayer.  And in joy.

Life is petty.  Life is grand.  Life ends.  Life goes on.  Remember the Alamo.  Pick a day that will live in infamy.  Circle your emotional calendar on the first day someone you loved died.  Take a breath.  And live.  Or the terrorists will have already… awwwww, fuck the terrorists.  Have a nice day! 

E ME.