MYTHS OF SUNDANCE #3

In all my discussions about the American indie film festivals, people often like to throw out plithy statements that fail to appreciate the conplex history and evolution of the festival. And common recant among critics goes like this:

MYTH #3: SUNDANCE ALWAYS PLAYS IT SAFE

If anything Redford deserves a lot of credit for sticking with Sundance despite it's inability to serve his interests and follow the course he'd set for it aesthetically and politically. Often what conspiratorialists and simplistic paranoids fail to appreciate about the success of a cultural phenomenon that reaches critical mass is that as an organism its vitlaity often transcends individuals, supersedes best laid plans and takes on a life of its own far, far beyond the founding visions or masterminds behind them.

In order to maintain a pure conspiracy, there must be a vigorous denial of the truth and the truth behind Sundance is that it never had a cohesive plan that gelled into a controlled form of power. Redford could favor a film or a filmmaker, a script or a project but that never assured it of success either in the arena of Sundance itself or in the outside world of distribution, box office or financial success. Likewise, a filmmaker who saw success emerge from Sundance, Soderbergh for instance, could not easily return favor to Redford or any other minion or passionate loyalist in the Sundance family. As it should be in the world of dynamic and changing artistic expression, it's never that easy.

Before 1992 Sundance tried to promote a culture where artists could be protected from the mean and brutal world of business suits, lawyers, powerbrokers, shady dealers, and blood sucking bottom feeders. However, due to their open door practices and the onslaught of success the festival only served to attract these types more. What people fail to realize, is that the studio system in Hollywood, that everybody rebelled against for their creative survival, was originally established as a West Coast sanctuary for creative artists or, at least, the idea of it in the minds of Louis B. Mayer, Irving Thalberg, Marcus Loew, William Fox, and Samuel Goldwyn, and all the studio bosses that proceded them. But power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The years 1991 and 92 were big turning points for Sundance when its reputation shifted from the crunchy granola soft 70s-styled PCness that was in its founders hearts to what some would term the cell phone era. Did Sundance promote and conspire to create a "cell phone" culture ? -- No, the cell phone transformed Sundance at a time when it was at its weakest.

While in the midst of staff shake out and hugely changing times Sundance did NOT play it safe. In 1991 the New Queer Cinema movement arrived at Sundance with a young semotics deconstructionist from Brown named Todd Haynes and his producer Christine Vachon. This producer/director duo brought to the festival in Utah a film that was anything but safe called POISON. Haynes previous movie SUPERSTAR: THE KAREN CARPENTER STORY had raised a considerable controversy, first with its funders in the Lynn Cheney NEA era, and then with Mattel the makers of Barbie doll. Haynes Karen Carpenter film has been banned in the U.S. but has become available on the internet. Haynes, with an artist grant support from the Jerome Foundation, and Vachon led a troop of new gay filmmakers with an activist agenda.

Greg Araki THE LIVING END, Tom Kalin, Christopher Munch's THE HOURS AND TIMES and the doc PARIS IS BURNING are all militant gay films that made the Lands End, dockers, and mountain boot Sundance establishment uneasy. Sure, Sundanistias could happily have their heart-strings pulled with films like PARTING GLANCES and enjoy the antics of a film like THE BIRDCAGE but POISON drove them from the theater in fear.

In one scene from POISON, men spit in each other's mouths, a horrifying evocation in the post-HIV trauma era of the early 1990s. More than just a shocking depiction of rape and violence (topics not commonly appearing on the Sundance screen in the early years), Haynes film intercuts three stories of completely different genre, one staged as a documentary to challenge the very conventions of film itself. While most film institutions and certainly the funders were narrowing their aesthetic to narrative "golden mean" storytelling, Haynes was producing avante-garde cinema one could only rarely see on folding chairs in dank warehouses below Canal street or in European cinematheques.

Haynes was experimental and an exception to the simple narrative trend in American indie film. While the expectations at Sundance that year were that Hal Hartnley's TRUST or Julie Dash's DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST might take home the Grand Jury Prize from Sundance, the surprise was Hayne's shocking deconstructionist film POISON came away the winner and Vachon's thumbprint would stamp many Sudance seasons to come.

The Sundance of 1991 could not be termed safe and it radically shook the foundation and shifted the direction of the festival for the future.

MYTHS OF SUNDANCE #2

In the early 90s, just after the phenomenal success of SEX, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE, the administration of Sundance crumbled and many associated with the actor financed enterprise. Tony Safford left, there was much displeasure with the non-profit festival and institute and the for-profit resort and their symbiotic relationship. But more than anything else, people were asking what is the purpose of Sundance and why was Redford still funding it?

MYTH #2: SUNDANCE WILL ALWAYS SERVE REDFORD'S PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL INTERESTS AND NOT THE INDIE INDUSTRY OR FILMMAKER.

After almost sweeping the awards competition at Cannes, Steven Soderbergh returned to L.A. in hot demand. He agreed to be a poster boy for Sundance and let the festival take credit for being the world-wide launch pad for "sex, lies and videotape." For reasons of ego and money, not all filmmakers want to concede anything or give away credits to profit and especially non-profit development institutions whether they helped them or not. But Soderbergh, although he might come regret it later, was more giving than the average indie filmmaker toward Sundance and Redford.

And Robert Redford was actively courting Soderbergh for a film he wanted to make with Soderbergh called KING OF THE HILL. Even before Miramax released "sex lies and videotape" to sensational box office, Sodebergh was making arrangements to make his next films. He was happy to be talking with Redford, even hoped the generous A-list actor would become a mentor to his future career. But the young southerner was also talking with Pollack about making the biopic KAFKA and time frames are critical in packaging movies regardless if you are an rogue indie, a wannabee, or a Hollywood insider.

As many speculated at the time, it appeared Redford was using the developmental processes of Sundance Institute and launch pad of Sundance Film Festival to feather his own professional career. Many successful Hollywood actors found their own theater company but ultimately fail because of the conficts between personal interest and company concerns. Roping in Soderbergh was proof for some of Redford using the advantage of the non-profit for his own personal gain. While Sundance administration was in shambles, its mission and focus unclear and uncertain, his critics were certain Redford would ignore the needs of Sundance to make a deal for KING OF THE HILL.

The year after "sex, lies, and videotape" propelled Sundance forward despite staff defections, a new era was about to begin -- the Geoffrey Gilmore era. Two films highlighted the 1990 Sundance Festival: Charles Burnett's brilliant TO SLEEP WITH ANGER and the winner of the Filmmakers Trophy Hudlin Brother's HOUSE PARTY. These two films could not have had more opposite fates in theatrical distribution. Yet, the so-called "bidding wars" that would later come to typlify the atmosphere of Sundance had not come to the street cafes of Park City. "sex, lies" did not get picked up at Sundance and the Hudlin Brothers sold their house party dance movie at Toronto.

If for nothing else, as pundants and prognosticators would try to easily but wrongfully suggest, a Sundance "aesthetic" had still not emerged and Redford's professional interests in KING OF THE HILL were seemingly dashed as Soderberg picked KAFA (1991) to go into production rather than KING OF THE HILL (1993) much to Redford's displeasure. In the evolution of Sundance, 1990 was still a difficult adjustment year and one Redford had to bound through with no assurance of success for either the profit or non-profit aspects of his personal commitment to the concept of a mountain-side film development institute and American indie festival.

MYTHS OF SUNDANCE #1

Over the years I managed to have many arguments with filmmakers and enthusiasts about the power and influence of the Sundance Film Festival on independent film in the U.S. A couple of weeks back, after spending a few happy and nostalgic days with John and Janet Pierson of Austin, Texas I was reminded of the early years of Sundance and its effect on American indie film.

While observations of Sundance are passionate, others acute and perceptive, most are filtered through a lens of different myths that surround the institute and festival either by envious outsiders or insiders who engaged in a battle for the heart and soul of what they felt the festival should stand for and lost.

MYTH #1: SUNDANCE IS A FESTIVAL THAT LIKES COMING OF AGE FILMS AND HOLLYWOOD WANNABEES.

In the very beginning, Redford wanted the Sundance Institute and festival to feature regional character drama's with a political statement both in the Institute's development process and with the U.S Film Festival (as it was called before becoming Sundance). Redford had a soft spot for identity films, especially dealing with issues in the Native American community out west and environmetnal issues.

The first films to emerge from the Sundnace Institute were EL NORTE, THE BALLAD OF GREGORIO CORTEZ, HEARTLAND and the first films to win awards at the U.S. Film Festival Park City were WAITING FOR THE MOON a film that bitterly accounts the lesbian love between Alice B. Toklas and Getrude Stein. None of the films Redford wanted to push out into the world fit either stereotype of "coming of age" or "Hollywood wannabees". In some circles, they would say, if you wanted to act in a Sundance movie to had to be able to wear bib overalls.

Michelle Satter, who was one of the early employees at the Institute responsible for feature film development said, the Institute did not have a political censoring mechanism but it did have a stylistic one. The approach to formal filmmaking, following a Aristotelian golden mean and three act story structure was extremely conservative. Other Sundance employees like Tony Safford felt in the mid and late 80s, Sundance had missed the boat, when most of the greatest new American filmmakers being crowned at the Cannes Festival in France.

If anything, the early years of the Sundance Institute and festival defined its own stereotype of being what we called at the time "crunchy granola" films. In the arena of Native American films, Sundance championed Jonathan Wach's POWWOW HIGHWAY.

Many will argue Sundance had a aesthetic set by Redford or Sundance film family members like Annick Smith who made HEARTLAND a politically correct version of western drama that lionized the little man. However, soon Smith would be out of the sphere of influence that at the beginning propelled its programming forward. First, to others it was clear these films with a "content" driven agenda would soon give way to an author driven agenda.

But it should come as no surprise films like Spike Lee's DO THE RIGHT THING, Gus Van Zant's DRUGSTORE COWBOY, the Coen's Brothers BLOOD SIMPLE, Jim Jarmusch's STRANGER THAN PARADISE, John Water's HAIRSPRAY or documentary fillmakers Errol Morris' THIN BLUE LINE and Michael Moore's ROGER & ME were completely absent from the Sundance obit -- they never received Institute backing and were never screened in the mountain side festival. As Safford commented, Sundance missed the boat on the title wave of new American independent filmmakers who redefined the film industry after the studio system fell apart in the middle 1980s.

That new less politically correct face of Sundance arrived in January 1989 when Steven Soderbergh arrived with SEX, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPE shot in Baton Rouge, Lousiana. The slacker aesthetic of sex, lies and videotape wasn't a politically correct western drama, nor a Native American sufferage film -- it defied the angry indie films that emerged from the 60s. The film would be Sundance's first big hit. It subject was neither coming of age or a hollywood wannabee with a perverted sex tape maker who masturbates to his tapes of women "talking" about sex.

Just as likely, you will find people from that time argue that Sundance was not setting the agenda of the indie film community as much as following it and falling prey to it. Much bigger winds were blowing in the industry in the mid and late 1980s and Sundance became caught in them just like everybody else. Films were less often being made for a theatrical release in movie houses owned by the studios and more for direct to video and other ancillary markets. In fact, the ancillary markets were driving film to a much larger extent than the theatrical market. This gave indies an inside track to get around the studios. It was the VHR and home viewing of movies that would drive the new aesthetic not the much ballyhooed but mythic dominance of Redford's Sundance.

Sundance Institute and what was to become Sundance Film Festival struggled for nearly 10 years with a continuous lack of success. In the realm of independent film, it barely held a candle to Telluride and certainly nothing like the New York Film Festival, Cannes, Berlin or Toronto.

Yet, against all probability Sundance, nestled in a difficult and inaccessible second-rate ski resort corner of the Rocky Mountains would come to play a large role in the indie film movement even though it came late to the game and did not have success until the 1990s.