TELLURIDE HISTORY BOOK: TFF #19-1992
My retrospective of the history of Telluride Film Festival continues today as I resume after a six week hiatus with a look at the 19th TFF. Now that TFF #44 has concluded, I'll get back to this project with the hope that I can conclude it episodically between now and the Oscar ceremony on Mar. 4th.
Here's a look at TFF #19:
Guest Direct: C. Cabrera Infante
Tributes: Harvey Keitel, Elmer Bernstein, Cy Endfield
SHOWS:
Bad Lieutenant
The Chosen One
Close to Eden
The Cranes Are Flying
The Crying Game
The Donner Party
El Mariachi
Feed
The Firm
From Hollywood to Hanoi
The Godless Girl
Homeland
I Am Cuba
I Want to See Angels
La Virgen de la Caridad
Laughter
Leolo
Lessons of the Darkness
The Letter That Was Never Sent
Life in Shadows
The Long Day Closes
The Loveless
Made in Britain
The Magnificent Seven
Momento Mori
Nail in the Boot
The Oak
Olivier Olivier
Peter's Friends
Reservoir Dogs
Road
The Sound of Fury
Strictly Ballroom
Tous Les Matins Du Monde
Victim of Sin
Visions of Light
Guests:
Kathryn Bigelow
Werner Herzog
Chuck Jones
Michael Moore
Gary Oldman
Robert Rodriguez
Tim Roth
1992's lineup seems amazing to me as it included: Reservoir Dogs, The Crying Game, Bad Lieutenant, El Mariachi and Strictly Ballroom. Mike Leigh also had his short film A Sense of History at the fest.
MORE ON HARRY DEAN STANTON
I wrote in Monday's post about the loss of the great Harry Dean Stanton. Yes...I am the one man campaign for a Best Actor nomination for him this year for Lucky.
But I also pointed out that I wasn't certain that Stanton was in Telluride for the screening of Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas in 1984. I couldn't confirm or deny based on the official program from that year. I asked for further information from MTFB readers and my request was rewarded.
Long time Telluride Film Festival staffer Jim Bedford confirmed via email that Stanton was, in fact, in Telluride in 1984. From Jim's email:
From 1973-1983 I ran the Sheridan Opera House for Bill Pence's small chain of Denver and ski town theatres. In the early years Bill would do the programming from Denver and give us three-month schedules with three films a week, two for three days each and an art film on Wed only. Anything that worked would be brought back (think THE KING OF HEARTS, CHINATOWN, MCCABE, etc.) for rep runs. Boy, did I see a bunch of great movies during those years.
In 1975 we showed RANCHO DELUXE which our Telluride audience fell in love with and my love of Harry Dean Stanton (which was reinforced by Stella Pence, who was also a fan) continued from that time on. My guess is that we showed RANCHO at least a half dozen times over those years and it never failed to draw a quite pleased audience. Our little town embraced this film's quirky ethic, great one-liners and indelible characters (including clearly HDS).
In 1981 when Bill, Stella, Tom Luddy and Bill Everson did the second year of the Santa Fe Film Festival as a tribute to the Western Film and I convinced Bill that RANCHO was a Modern Western, a perfect foil for the real end of the Old West (sort of an anti-THE WILD BUNCH). It was included in the program and I got to present it at the Lensic Theatre and give Santa Fe Festival sterling silver belt buckles to Tom McGuane and Harry Dean on stage (pictures are available).
Two years later at the TFF, HDS was certainly in town for PARIS, TEXAS. Bill had also scheduled a by-then out-of-circulation REPO MAN in 16mm in the Community Center (it had premiered in Berlin earlier that winter and died after a short March release). (Meanwhile, the TFF early arrival staff had screened REPO MAN on 16mm on the TFF office wall two weeks before so we were all nuts about it already.)
It was my job to get Harry Dean from the New Sheridan Hotel to the CC for the screening so I picked him up and we walked up the hill while I think he smoked 2-3 cigs on the way. It was a packed show at the CC that included Roger Ebert. After the screening Roger talked to HDS and later that week gave REPO MAN (which he had not seen or reviewed yet) a 3.5 star review. Universal then gave the film another release and the rest is history; REPO MAN became one of the great Cult Films from then on.
(PARIS, TEXAS wasn't bad either. I got to watch its premiere sitting on the SOH floor and then watch Wim Wenders take the stage after the film joined by Kit Carson, Hunter Carson, Nastassja Kinski, Dean Stockwell [a surprise visitor up from Santa Fe], and of course, Harry Dean.)
Jim also kindly included two photos. A still of Stanton from Telluride as well as one from the ceremony at the 1981 Santa Fe Fest:
CAMBODIA CHOOSES JOLIE'S FILM, ISRAEL WILL FOXTROT
Since my last post on Monday there have been some moves from various nations to put forth their films for consideration for the Foreign Language Film Oscar. Cambodia jolted the race and the calculations with regard to nominations by announcing that their choice is Angelina Jolie's First They Killed My Father.
Jolie holds citizenship in Cambodia.
The film ranked # 10 on MTFB's Composite Ratings of Telluride films with a decent 7.05 combined rating.
Coverage is here from:
Variety
The Hollywood Reporter and
Deadline
Meanwhile, Israel's Ophir Awards have determined that Foxtrot will be their entry in the FLF Oscar sweepstakes. The Samuel Maoz directed film dominated the Israeli "Oscars" winning 8.
Coverage from Variety.
TROUBLE IN IRAN
Though it didn't receive enough ratings from wither the Pros or the People to establish a rating last week, Mohammad Rasoulof's A Man of Integrity seemed to be well received by the TFF patrons that I ran into and that had seen it. The film also won the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes last May.
Rasoulof was detained by Iranian authorities this past week as he returned to Iran from Telluride. The film maker had to surrender his passport and has been ordered to court.
Here's the story from The Hollywood Reporter.
That's your MTFB filing for Thursday, Sept. 21st. I'll have more on Monday.
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