TFF 2016 got off to an early start by screening The Pagnol Trilogy (Marius, Fanny, and César) at the spacious Werner Herzog Theater with all new 4K DCP restorations by Janus Films. The next day had me screening Spies (Fritz Lang, 1928), a 2K restoration from 2004, with live piano accompaniment by Donald Sosin. At 143 minutes Lang’s money-recouping answer to his money-losing Metropolis strained the patience for some of the younger patrons, a handful who left early – which is too bad because the third act included crashing trains in tight tunnels and a killer clown surrounded by surrealistic props.
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Screening today: Variety (Ewald André Dupont, 1925) on a DCP restoration by Murnau Stiftung with live accompaniment by the Alloy Orchestra. I Was Nineteen (East Germany, 1968), with a DCP restoration courtesy of the DEFA Film Library and It Was the Month of May (Marlen Khutsiev, 1970). That’s pretty much it for the classics and repertory, although some TBA’s might yet surprise.
Tributes were selected for Casey Affleck and Amy Adams, who are respectively starring in two highly awaited films, Affleck in Manchester by the Sea, and Adams in Arrival. The former takes a cue from such melodramas as Ordinary People (Robert Redford, 1980), while the latter harkens to such classics as The Day the Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise, 1951) and more recent but smart films like Contact (Robert Zemeckis, 1997). Proving that everything new is old, and vice versa. Arrival, which deals with non-linear time issues, was effective despite big plot holes and I predict it’ll be as successful in our time as Close Encounters of the Third Kind was back in the ’70s.
California Typewriter (Doug Nichol, 2016) is new a doc that had plenty of love for the past, even if very focused on only the typewriter and the writers, artists, and collectors who love them. It includes a charming Tom Hanks and a wistful Sam Shepard. Curiously, attention never strays to the other lovers of analog (ie: film, vinyl, newspaper, etc.). I suppose that’s fair enough, as various docs that focused on the passing of film never gave voice to those who love their typewriters, but it made me think we analog lovers should be banding together. A festival where people leave their cell phones and computers at home to congregate in some beautiful and idyllic location, to read books, newspapers, swap records, and watch films interlacing crisp and swirling grain with true blacks that comes from the pure absence of light between frames. I’d buy my pass for that in a heartbeat. In the meantime, I’m here in Telluride where the past mingles comfortably with a slew of new and exciting movies. Titles that I’m missing with each minute that I keep tapping away at this laptop – so please excuse the brevity of this piece but it’s time to get back in line at the theater.
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