Watershed's Head of Programme Mark Cosgrove was recently at the Toronto International Film Festival. Below is Mark's diary which he wrote during the festival.
(click on thumbnails to view larger images)
Toronto has got an easy going approach which is disarming in its friendliness. In fact the relaxed feel extends to the filmmakers and stars popping up as I scurry from one cinema to another. That guy I think I recognise but can’t remember where from, turns out to be Pedro Almodovar ambling down the road., whose new film Volver is making its North American debut here, Spanish Language directors have got a high profile at the festival with Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu also having new films on show.
As I was trying to get a ticket sorted for the special screening of Lets get Lost, Bruce Weber’s glorious and painful documentary on Chet Baker I inadvertently stumble into the press conference overspill of Inarritu’s Babel. Its in overspill I guess because Brad Pitt is in the cast and presently onstage taking questions about his approach to parts now that he is a father. I admire the journalist for getting the personal angle undercover of a serious question. The flashes from the press cameras almost burn the screen. Babel is as ambitious and densely plotted as Inarritu’s previous films Amores Perros and 21 Grams.
Humour in its many manifestations has been a high point so far. From singeing satire - For Your Consideration - to jaw dropping outrageous comedy of Borat Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (for those interested, and there may well be some, this is director Larry Charles follow up to Masked and Anonymous, also possibly a comedy) the projector broke down after 10 minutes in the public screening and you can follow proceedings at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqqXUXzkgj8 Khazak journalist Borat is the alter ego of Sacha Baron Cohen and distant relative of Ali G. His journalistic travels through America in search of cultural understanding and Pamela Anderson is hysterically shocking. Equally hysterical is Christopher Guest's insider comedy on the film industry For Your Consideration - this should do for the ego of the movie industry what spinal tap did for music. On the deadpannest of deadpan fronts Aki Kuarismaki’s Lights in the Dusk is a joy to watch. He gets the wryest of humour out of the most simple of scenarios - holding shots that no other director would dare - if you crossed Buster Keaton with Robert Bresson, Kuarismaki would surely be the result.
My plans to catch up with Rolf De Heer’s new film Ten Canoes is seriously scuppered - is that a pun - by the fact that there is not a subtitled print to show and as the film is in the aboriginal tongue of Ganalbingu this is a problem. I’ll try to catch up with it later in the week. Rolf De Heer is an interesting director whose work is rarely screened in the UK. I hear rumours that this new one is being picked up for UK distribution.
Other highlights so far: The U.S. vs. John Lennon, a documentary which reminds you how politically engaged (and witty) Lennon was. His support for many radical causes in USA - eg the Black Panthers - at the time of the Vietnam war and on the verge of civil unrest put him on a rapid collision course with Nixon’s government. Its easy to forget the phenomenon that was the Beatles and how influential a figure Lennon was. When he sang Revolution, as this documentary shows, there was a palpable sense it might just have been. The film covers the lead up to and five year ordeal over his deportation case. After he had won the case he is asked how he feels about the government, replying without missing a beat “time wounds all heels”
Best tag line for film so far is in the midnight madness strand - Black Sheep “there are 40 million sheep in new Zealand…..and they are pissed off!”
If you are at all thinking what the hell is that photograph of scaffolding all about. Its Daniel Liebeskin’s new addition to the Art Gallery of Ontario. Its impressive in its unfinished state.
I managed to get a ticket for Bruce Weber’s Lets Get Lost courtesy of Tony Jones, Cambridge Film Festival Director’s connections. He did a retrospective at his festival and knows Weber’s production team. The cinema ticket also comes with a rather glamorous invite to dinner for Weber courtesy of Agnes B attached. But more of that later. Lets Get Lost is glorious in a new print. Baker’s transformation from angelic James Dean like youngster to herion ravaged wreck is still shocking and the fact that his singing voice kept its sweet melancholy is moving. Weber introduces the screening, he’s got a warm west coast kinda feel to him and has brought along a jazz singer Angela McClusky who he met a couple of months back. After the screening she does a performance of My Funny Valentine which is extraordinary, her voice amazingly has echoes of Billie Holiday. What's even more surprising is that it turns out that Angela is from Glasgow now resident in New York, and over red wine - possibly too much - we share stories and inevitable connections – Glasgow’s that kind of place. Have a look at her website http://www.angelamccluskey.com Later on over some rather fantastic mojitos Tony and I decide a Chet Baker tribute concert is waiting to happen and Angela should headline it.
All of the screenings I’m at today are in the Varsity cinema which is on the 2nd floor of a shopping mall, so basically I spend all day holed up from the outside world. However its difficult to not notice it’s the anniversary of 9/11. People reference it in conversation and I catch a headline on a discarded newspaper. When 9/11 happened the festival apparently just shut down with many people I guess shocked, disorientated. The skyline of Toronto is similarish to NY which only resonates more with the day. I go into see a documentary Primo Levi’s Journey which retraces his 8 month odyssey through Eastern Europe following his liberation from Auschwitz. The opening images are intentionally blurred, disorientating. I get a sense it’s a modern American city and wonder what the connection is with Levi. It's ground zero and the voice over is a reading from Levi's The Truce. Suddenly Levi’s experience, account, recollections, and attempts to understand and comprehend Auschwitz brings the past and the present together. Will we ever learn?
That evening I catch up with Simon Field at his reception for the New Crowned Hope project which is brainchild of opera director Peter Sellars marking the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth. Simon and producing partner Keith Griffiths have got together five films all using as their jumping off point themes from Mozart's last three great works. The range of filmmakers is excellent including Tropical Malady director Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang. I saw the Chad director Mahamat-saleh Haroun’s contribution before the reception and it is impressive. They are planning to screen them all at the Barbican next year and I would hope to get them to Bristol. Coincidentally Mark Kidel (who's films are currently being shown at Watershed) is working on a documentary on Peter Sellars and interviewed Simon in Venice. Anyway back to the reception, it was on the top - 51st floor - of the Manulife building with glorious views over the city to Lake Ontario and New York state on the other side. I finally get my bearings on this magnificent city. To get to the bar you obviously have to take the lift but the weird thing is its only got two floors?
Darren Aronofsky’s film came hot from Venice film festival with critical slating - I see it this morning and I tell you it was one of my worst viewing experiences - I’m out of there in 20 minutes. I’m afraid a big budget does not always a good film make. Pi was fantastic, the energy and ideas packed into that low budget film was great. But it's just not happening here.
The day ends in a hotel bar where I have the odd experience of a fantastic mojito made by a waitress followed by a stinker made by the waiter. I make my point and find myself arguing about the use of club soda. The Toronto politeness for a moment vanishes. “It would just be alcohol without the club soda” he says. “Yes” I reply. "Where’s the waitress" I ask, deciding that a perfect mojito is worth the hassle. She’s gone. I and my colleagues take our leave but I tell you I’m going back there tonight and hope that waitress is getting that mint ready.
I’ve now seen a stack of films and realities are beginning to blur. I went to see Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s Invisible Waves, thinking it was Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Syndromes and a Century - it was early morning. I really hadn’t had much sleep and once inside the womb like comfort of the cinema when the lights go down I nodded off, woke up, nodded off, woke up - the film was my dream but I had had this dream before or at least bits of it. By the end I realised I had seen this film in Berlin and done the same thing only falling asleep in alternate parts. Now I can claim to have seen it all! Its very orginal, very slow paced - thus the dozing - but a very original movie.
I pass a guy in the street with a t shirt which reads “Welcome to Toronto” - golly they are sweet these people - they even welcome you with their clothes. He passes and I look round, on the back, “Now go Home!” it says. I new it was all surface. No, the Torontonians - is that the right word - are a mighty fine bunch. Someone was telling me that relationships between Toronto and Montreal are like Glasgow and Edinburgh - only over a greater distance. Pleasant rivalries everywhere. Further on down the road Madonna sells H&M whilst the Salvation Army sell hope & charity.
The only bit of conversation which strays from how good or bad films are, is the tragic incident at one of the hotels where three bodies were found in what sounds like a pretty bloody incident in one of the corridors. It transpires that the three were part a deaf group of German tourists and the theory is that it was a suicide pact. The hotel is filled with festival delegates and a judge’s convention. Many are being interviewed about what they have heard at 4.00am on Tuesday morning.
Michael Apted’s film Amazing Grace on Wilberforce and the parliamentary act to abolish slavery premiere’s here. I am worried at the beginning as it feels like it might be a sweet costume romp but any concern is allayed by both an excellent script and performances. The film focuses on the 8 or so years that it took Wilberforce to get the act through and is an insight into politic as well as a reminder of the powers both economic and social driving slavery. It should make a perfect contribution to Bristol’s Abolition 200 year.
Bump into Felim who I met at Berlin, who was working on Cork Short Film Symposium and tells me he is now programming the Galway Film Fleadh - a great place and I hear a very strong, sociable festival. Over steak 'n' chips 'n' beer we get onto discussing scriptwriting. Felim worked on a scriptwriting publication and interviewed, amongst others Krzysztof Kieslowski’s co-scriptwriter Krzysztof Piesiewicz. We talk about the power and mystery - both being lapsed catholics, well we would now - of the Three Colours Trilogy. A truly masterful work of sublime cinematic genius. I decide that everyone should see this series of films at least once in their life.
Sean Penn gives a barnstorming performance in All The Kings Men playing with relish and a mighty fine head of hair the part of a populist governer of Louisiana. I still think the original with Broderick Crawford is better but my main thought was how similar Penn looked to John Garfield - actually Garfield looks like a cross between Sean Penn and Chet Baker – or should that be the other way round?
The festival is beginning to wind down from the frenzies of the marketplace. As buyers and sellers begin to thin out the festival/Toronto actually begins to feel more relaxed. Rod White from Filmhouse has even planned to see The Black Dahlia which opens today and I am sorely tempted to go visit the cinema as a punter as it were.
I find myself with some freetime and decide to take in the Andy Warhol exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Another venue that is currently being redesigned by Frank Gehry. How many star architects can one city have? When all this building work is done - there are 8 sites either being built or planned - Toronto’s status as cultural hot spot will be confirmed. I’m not a big fan of Warhol, admire him, recognise his impact etc. but find the work too shallow. (“That’s the point.” I hear you cry. “It’s a comment on the very shallowness……” I know) But the appeal of this show is that it is curated by filmmaker David Cronenberg. It is quite excellent and makes me rethink Warhol. You are given a headset with commentary by Cronenberg and people from the NY Factory scene such as Dennis Hopper and writer Amy Taubin. Seeing the work through Cronenberg’s eyes and thoughts gives new meaning and depth to Warhol. The show looks at the period between 1962 - 66 when he created the Elvis/Jackie Kennedy/Elizabeth Taylor prints and made films like Empire State, Couch and Screen Test. The juxtaposition of film and still prints beside each other resonates beyond his signature reproduction of icons. Particularly striking, is Warhol’s attraction to newspaper photographs of crashes, death and the electric chair - the connection with Cronenberg becomes apparent. One of the most striking pieces is, from a distance, a serious of elegant curves, black and white, repeated about 3m high. As you get closer the curves reveal themselves as a repeated print of a woman’s body in the crushed roof of a limosene. She had jumped off the Empire State building. And now lay peacefully, elegantly cradled in the massive dent of the car. She and the print are strangely very beautiful and very disconcerting. It is a moving and illuminating show. Memo to self: must find out if its going to London, must speak to Arnolfini Gallery and see if any chance of getting it to Bristol.
Have convivial dinner with the team from Metrodome they are on a high as they have just secured a deal on the new Sarah Polly film - if my memory serves me they may well have picked up the bill. Just remember - there is no such thing as a free meal in this biz.
As we’re getting to the closing of proceedings I can reflect on movie experiences. Things that I remember, apart from being annoyed at the Aronofsky (note: some people are saying they enjoyed it, I hate when that happens - does that mean I have to give it a 2nd chance!!) - is Forest Whittaker giving a brilliant performance as the Ugandan dictator Ida Amin in the New King of Scotland. I suggest he will get an oscar nomination and I’ve already wagered a meal here and there. He deserves it, as you get a sense of how charismatic and paranoid Amin must have been. It is such a bizarre story, this young Scottish doctor befriending the dictator and getting caught up in his increasingly paranoid and murderous goings on, but Kevin MacDonald pulls it off excellently and it is one of my highlights of the festival. Another joy is Manoel De Oliviera’s new film Belle Toujours. This guy is in his nineties and gets a movie out every year. His latest - and lets hope there are many more to come - revisit’s Bunuel's characters from his classic Belle De Jour. What struck me was how beautifully it was filmed resonating of Bunuel’s style. The shots are held so that you almost feel the texture of the rooms. It flows elegantly and at a trim 80mins flys by. Still Life which won at Venice screened here as a late addition, it is set at the three gorges dam and portrays town/cityscapes about to be drowned. It is a beautifully filmed and includes bizarre effects such as buildings taking off. Paul Verhoeven’s return to Holland with Black Book is like one of those adventure style war films that I watched as a kid. Its an enjoyable yarn, bookended with a message but falls to pieces when you start thinking about the plot. There is still very much in evidence the Verhoeven problematic of his film’s attitude towards women.
Its time to go and as I head off I pass Simon Field who is striding purposefully with a cinema ticket clutched in hand. “What you off to see” I ask. “It’s the film everyone was talking about at Cannes” he replies. Blast, there’s always something else - I’ll try to catch up with that as well as more I’ve missed and heard about in Toronto in London.