"The Queen": NYFF Friday, commercial theaters Saturday.
In this morning's New York Times, A.O. Scott offers his "Critic's Notebook" view of where the NYFF fits into movie culture (at least in New York). Scott sees it as a showcase for "quality." Compare to my questions and comments about NYFF:
Film festivals crowd the calendar and circle the globe, but New York’s is different. Instead of hundreds of films, it presents a few dozen, and it presents them, for the most part, one at a time, rather than in a frenzy of overscheduling. It is neither a hectic marketplace nor a pre-Oscar buzz factory, like Cannes or Toronto, or a film industry frat party, like Sundance. Its tone tends to be serious, sober, and perhaps sometimes a little sedate, even when the movies it shows are daring and provocative.If I may trot out another metaphor, the New York Film Festival might be compared to an established, somewhat exclusive boutique holding its own in a world of big box superstores, oversize shopping malls and Internet retailers.
If you want quantity — racks and shelves full of stuff to sort through in the hope of finding something that might fit your taste — wait for Tribeca, with its grab-bag programs and crowd-pleasing extras. The New York Film Festival, in contrast, prides itself on quality, refinement and selectivity. It is not so much programmed as curated. This selection is a form of criticism — it involves applying aesthetic standards and deciding that some films are better than others — and to understand this festival it helps to understand that its selection committee, led by Richard Peña, the festival’s program director, is made up of film critics. This year’s movies were chosen by Mr. Peña; Kent Jones, associate programmer at the Film Society and editor at large of Film Comment; Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly; John Powers of Vogue; and Phillip Lopate, editor of the recently published Library of America anthology of American movie criticism and an all-around man of letters.I don't question Scott's description of the festival's selectivity, or the motives of the programming committee -- fine, qualified movie people all -- to pick the movies they think are the best of those submitted for consideration.These critics, like others in their profession, incline toward material that is sometimes described as difficult or challenging, but that requires a disciplined, active attention. In previewing the movies that will be shown over the first week of the festival — and some that will come later — I have been struck by how few of them conform to the conventions of genre and narrative that dominate American commercial cinema. The split between the domestic mainstream and the world of international “art� films has rarely seemed so wide. As the big Hollywood studios, with their eyes on the global market, strive for maximum scale and minimal nuance, independent-minded filmmakers in other countries seem to be going in the other direction. Or, rather, in their own idiosyncratic directions, forging a decentralized, multifarious cinema of nuance, intimacy and formal experimentation.
But when nearly every film in the line-up has already been shown (and received international press coverage) at Cannes, Telluride and/or Toronto, and is then going into domestic theatrical release within a few days or weeks of its NYFF screening, what does the festival itself do for these films? Where's the "prestige" (a word Scott does not use, but Caryn James did in her earlier piece) come in, when the program is cherry-picked mostly from films that have already premiered at other, more prominent (and in Telluride's case, even more "exclusive" and "selective") US and European festivals? Where is the excitement of discovery a festival can offer, when virtually everything has been pre-discovered and there is nothing unheralded to be found around the edges of the galas? Don't misunderstand me -- I see no reason why a movie shouldn't play all these festivals. But what is "special" about NYFF? Is it really, as some have said, the New York Times Film Festival, because the NYFF showing marks the occasion of a Times review? (Like the opening night film, "The Queen," which is a festival premiere only in a technical sense, since it plays the festival on Friday and goes straight into theatrical release on Saturday.) Is that the NYFF's primary significance? Discuss.
Jim,
Perhaps the main "problem" with the NYFF is in calling it a "festival" at all. It's more like an exhibition (I'm thinking more in museum terms here) than a festival the way Toronto is. After all, there's hardly anything "festive" about the NYFF with its narrow selection and low-key atmosphere. Still, that doesn't mean it's not a quality event run by some top-notch people (Kent Jones is one of my favorite film writers, period.)
I don't know if the NYFF has anywhere near the relevance or impact it used to. The NYFF helped launch the careers of Herzog, Fassbinder and, for that matter, the entire New German Cinema back in the mid-70s. And I believe it's where Jim Jarmusch got his first boost with Stranger Than Paradise, though, keeping with your NYT theory, it was really Vincent Canby's glowing review that brought the movie to the public's attention.
Has anything like that happened at the NYFF in the past decade or so? That's a sincere question - I have no idea.
-chris
It would seem that the idea of a festival has changed in itself over the last decade or so. It used to be that festivals were places in which films were shown, not to garner Oscar buzz or bidding wars, but to be seen by an audience that normally wouldn't have the chance to see them, ever. Things have really changed now with foreign markets selling here much more largely on DVD than they ever did on on video, and with places like Netflix and other online places those DVDs are even more accessible. And with studios clammoring for the next indie break out (paying 3million dollars for something that could potentially make 100million - come one!). It's not about showing up just to see and appreciate the films anymore, it's business as usual. If the NYFF seems like you make it sound then it is one of the few festivals that has not given itself over to the ploys of marketing and sales, meaning that it is one of the few true Festivals out there, and not a film marketing convention, which it sounds like the Tribeca has become (I felt that ever since the American Express/Robert DeNiro commercial - gag!), and other prominent "festivals" have become. To me that's fine if things change, but I don't think then that NYFF should be condemned for not finding the big breakouts when all it wants to do is be what festivals were - venues to show great films from around the world that Hollywood wouldn't make, but as they've shown, don't mind buying for chump change.
Phillip: Nobody's condemning NYFF for showing good movies, even those that have already been shown at other festivals. Remember, my questions about the role of NYFF in the NY movie scene today were brought on by Caryn James' (totally false) assertions in the NY Times that the "prestigious" NYFF was a better Oscar launching-pad for movies than the "nonexclusive" Toronto festival. I think Oscar track records are ridiculous ways to judge any film festival. And I'm not saying Tribeca is better than NYFF (I don't know enough about the upstart Tribeca, anyway) -- just that it competes with it, at least for publicity, even though it's held at a different time of year. As Dave Kehr points out in comments to the previous post, it's tough to find a role for a festival in a city with so many other institutions that are basically running film festivals all year around. So, I'm genuinely trying to find out how people (especially New Yorkers) view NYFF, and what exposure in the festival offers to films, distributors, exhibitors, moviegoers...
If I knew how to use html tags, I would have put "condemn" in itallics, so that my unnecessarily dramatic use of the word might have read with a bit more humor, which was the intent.
Prestige, isn't that what it's about though for distributors and producers, and studios. Any film even selected to go to something like NYFF, which has been around forever, and started many careers, makes the film that much more iconic (even if momentarily so). It's about prestige at that point. Say your piece of art has been shown at several venues, but suddenly they want to show it at the Louvre, would you say no? Or wonder why they would want to do that? Or what the artist would gain? Prestige within the film community and within the audience that wishes to see a film like that. When you see a movie poster with Official Selections pasted all over it, it looks really grand to have the NYFF up there too, and as an audience member you feel like you're seeing something important. So as a film distributor who's already purchased the rights to distribute a film, that one extra tag is only going to help.
But festivals in general, what do they have to gain by trying to out market each other? It seems like it's an even more selfish kind of prestige. Send your movies to this festival not that. Premiere that one here, not there. The idea of what a festival is has been lost all together. Or even as you said TYFF trying to nab as many NYFF goers as they can... why? What do they have to gain by being a better festival other than a hey we're better than you attitude. It all seems so ridiculously Hollywood to me the more that you write about it.
JE: It's great to have your work accepted into a festival. You might say it's (not to sound redundant) a measure of acceptance, of some sort. Again, my reason for this and the previous post is to question Caryn James' claim that NYFF is "prestigious" as a way to denegrate Toronto as "nonexclusive." I don't think NYFF matters much in the world of film festivals (and it certainly doesn't seem to matter much to the critics, press, festival programmers, distributors and publishers I've talked to) -- so, my question (again) is: What function does NYFF, in fact, serve? Who does it benefit? If it exists just to give a boost to some good movies (most of which, this year, already have American theatrical distributors), then that's swell. I just want to get past this outdated "prestigious" myth that nobody seems to believe anymore and get some specific observations about what NYFF really does for movies. And I'm not saying it doesn't do anything. I've written about what kind of festival I think it's not. Now I'm asking: What kind of festival IS it?
BTW, Take a look at what David Bordwell just wrote about the Vancouver festival, and I think we'd both agree with him on what we value most about festivals:
Festivals are important to us film lovers, because you want to keep up with creative work being done all over the world. Living in the US makes it hard, because so many wonderful films–sometimes masterpieces–don’t get released theatrically. Marketing a film in a country as large as the US requires massive amounts of money, and many interesting films just won’t attract a big enough audience to pay back costs. Also, I’m afraid that some Americans are narrowing their tastes in movies, so that they won’t give a “foreign film� or a “little movie� a chance. Festivals exist to do just that.
Prestigiousness (is that a word?) is relative. Is a film more prestigious because it wins an Oscar? Is a film the best movie of the year because it has had the highest box office? Even festivals are headed by stars of the independent and world film community; as if to have Wong Kar-Wai say you have the best film in the world makes it so - it becomes like American Idol. But I feel like my point has gotten lost.
What is NYFF? Who does it benefit? I think the ideas of nonexclusivity and prestigiousness (there it is again) are red herrings. Words that in the scope of things have little to do with what festivals are about now days. For someone to use these words at all shows that they have no idea what's actually going on. Neither word means much of anything in determing what happens with these films. My point was that all festivals today aren't there to service those who love films or filmmakers. This might have been the case 10 or 15 years ago before netflix and the internet (which it seems like David Bordwell has never heard of since most people find these great films now via the internet and not theatrically - he seems to be living in another era all together), before these films were completely unavailable to the public in reading and viewing. But with the coporate money making ideals that Hollywood and festivals work with (premiering "The DaVinci Code" at Cannes???) all that festivals serve to do now are to market films. Sure we as filmmakers and film enthusiasts can enjoy them, but it's not meant for us. It's for us to get the word out for them. Every article you write about every film seen, while fun and enlightening for all of us, services them. Free advertising. This is probably the most cynical point of view, but festivals whether open to the public or not are in my opinion simply marketing tools. That's all the NYFF has become - why else show mostly films that have been purchased or signed for distribution? They are no longer there for the artist or the viewer, but the money making machines. The video game industry has something similar, E3, fun to play the games, but it's all marketing. You pay to get in to spread the word to your friends.