February 1, 2005

It's the week after Sundance and all through the town, most people weren't even paying attention, just knew Paris Hilton was around…

It's funny how Hollywood, for all the chatter-chatter, still doesn't care all that much about Sundance… or any festival other than Toronto (most of the time) for that matter. Books seem to be flying left and right about how the Sundance phenomenon changed the movies. But the most striking thing about Sharon Waxman's book, Rebels on the Backlot, which I still haven't quite finished, is that it is about five filmmakers who have made 19 movies in 13 years or one movie for each filmmaker every 3.4 years. Really, when you think that David Fincher has been the most prolific of that bunch (QT, PT, Jonze, and David O.), you realize that you are looking at a bunch of really talented guys who have already moved into retired Coppola territory before the age of 46… some long before 46.

The Output:

1992 - Reservoir Dogs
1992 - Alien 3
1994 - Pulp Fiction
1994 - Spanking The Monkey
1995 - Se7en
1996 - Flirting With Disaster
1996 - Sydney
1997 - The Game (which does not exist in Waxman's book)
1997 - Jackie Brown
1997 - Boogie Nights
1999 - Three Kings
1999 - Magnolia
1999 - Being John Malkovich
1999 - Fight Club
2002 - Punch-Drunk Love
2002 - Panic Room
2002 - Adaptation
2003 - Kill Bill
2004 - I Heart Huckabees

Now this is an impressive group of films, no doubt. But its around five years since any of these filmmakers could be called "influential," much less credited as "conquering the Hollywood system."

The sixth director in Ms. Waxman's book actually makes movies. Steven Soderbergh has made 14 films in his 16 years in the business. Four of his last six films grossed over $100 million domestically. Only two of the other group of five directors (Tarantino/Fincher) have scored $100 million domestic even once… and only once for each of them… and Se7en only grossed $100.1 million here at home.

But again, my contention that what really sets Soderbergh apart, more than grosses, is the fact that he makes movies and doesn't spend years navel-gazing before delivering another film that he hopes will get folks like Ms. Waxman to call him a rebel who conquered the backlot.

One of the reasons why I always seem to have a great time at Sundance is that the young filmmakers - and even some who aren't so young - are still filmmakers. They are still fighting. If you threw $2 million at almost any of them, including many of the great Asian directors, you would be guaranteed to get an interesting film in about eight months. There are exceptions, like Jeff Feuerzeig, who makes top money as a commercial director but who comes into the arena every once in a while when he really cares about a subject and delivers a knock-out documentary like The Devil and Daniel Johnston. Then there are guys like Frederick Wiseman, who delivered The Garden to the festival at the age of 75, still so intimidating to his subjects (in this case, Madison Square Garden) that they forced him not to show his film at the festival under legal threat. Uh, that is what you would call a rebel… not a young guy making an Adam Sandler movie that has no structure... oooh, daring!

Every year at Sundance, I meet a handful of new filmmakers who I know will be around, who are important because of the substance and who enrich my life as someone who covers the film world… and a bus-full of folks whose talents range from minimal to massive, but whose personalities range from arrogant to really, really, stupendously arrogant, most often assuring that I won't want to see them or their work again. But the odds are so much better at Sundance.

Don't get me wrong. I have enormous admiration for the talents of all six directors Ms. Waxman chose to cover in her book. There is not one of them whose work does not command my presence at the first screening possible of their latest film.

But the rebellion and conquering schtick… really. Six pulls on the back of the book. Every one of them features a "grabber": QT self-mythology, Fight Club nipples, movie star Clooney fights director Russell, Michael Stipe and Tom Cruise all in one Magnolia pull, Warren wants to be Dirk Diggler, and Michael Douglas stops Traffic. Not one of the pulls speaks to an essential part of the process, except perhaps the first. Selling, selling, selling…

Sundance… selling, selling, selling. And no one learned their lesson. The prices went back up this year after last year's quartet of hits, Napoleon Dynamite, Open Water, Garden State and Super Size Me. But perhaps the most striking thing about Sundance buys this year was the Paramount synergy strategies that emerged and the new reality that it's al about selling this stuff, not so much about the stuff itself. (MTV partnered with Fox Searchlight on Napoleon Dynamite last year and now will try to make a go if it partnering with Paramount proper on Hustle & Flow, while Nickelodeon will team with Paramount Classics on the Slamdance doc, Mad Hot Ballroom.)

Who conquered whom?

E-ME.

Sundance Preview Part I
Sundance Preview Part 2

January 3, 2005 - Reflections On A New Year
December 31, 2004 - The Ten Best
December 30, 2004 - The Ten Worst
December 29, 2004 - Movies You Should Have Seen, But Didn't