The new Resnais

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• Tess says:

  September 17, 2009 at 10:45 pm

  What a beau­ti­ful shot! And, too funny b/c my FB status update is cur­rently: “Tess hopes she looses her purse open­ing night @ NYFF.” I pos­ted it after my friend sur­prised me earli­er with tixs. Countdown to the 25^th. Can’t wait!

• Peter Nellhaus says:

  September 18, 2009 at 7:31 am

  While my own pref­er­ence has been for Resnais’ earli­er films, I can­’t wait to see this.

• The Chevalier says:

  September 18, 2009 at 12:35 pm

  I think the argu­ment people have against this year’s NYFF, and its last two open­ing night films (the oth­er being The Class), is that high-profile releases serve a pur­pose. The open­ing night film isn’t really sup­posed to be about anoint­ing qual­ity – it’s assumed the selec­ted movies are already of qual­ity – it’s about cre­at­ing pub­li­city for the fest­iv­al. That’s why Cannes often screens an out-of-comp block­buster. The NYFF has got­ten it right with Good Night. And Good Luck, The Queen, Mystic River and The Darjeeling Limited, among oth­ers. But here, going two years in a row with low-profile French films, it smacks of will­ful intent.
  There’s always been a con­flict in the fest­ival’s fab­ric between those who believe the fest­iv­al should skew entirely toward “élite” films and those who feel it should be more open. I agree with the lat­ter. Most of the “élite” films aren’t very good – simply being uncom­mer­cial does not make it good art. In fact, I’d argue a lot of the so-called art on dis­play, in its own way, is just as bad as mind­less Hollywood enter­tain­ment – just exist­ing on the oppos­ite extreme. The best art always finds a way to be uncom­prom­ising yet accessible.
  At this point, when all four rotat­ing mem­bers of the selec­tion com­mit­tee are Village Voice crit­ics, there are no oppos­ing views. They’re all of a sim­il­ar aca­dem­ic bubble mind­set. And the fest­iv­al suffers.

• Glenn Kenny says:

  September 18, 2009 at 1:24 pm

  Oooh, the old “Village Voice”=“academic bubble mind­set” gam­bit com­bined with the knock against “élite” films, none of which you can be bothered to cite titles of. Yeah, I might as well just go get bur­ied with that argu­ment. You really think Robert Wilonsky, Jim Ridley, Luke Y. Thompson, and the vari­ous and sun­dry freel­ance stringers who’ve writ­ten for the “Voice” since the paper was taken over by New Times are aca­dem­ics, or elit­ists? I’m not nuts about the makeup of the cur­rent selec­tion com­mit­tee myself, but Hoberman’s the only old-school “Voice” writer among them. I wrote for the rag myself from ’84 to 2000, and I don’t even have a col­lege degree.
  Your sub­jectiv­ity gives you away in some respects. There are plenty of people out there who would counter to you that some­thing like “Darjeeling Limited” is, in fact, an “élite” film. I’m not one of them, but still. In the mean­time, your buzzwords really aren’t work­ing on me here.

• Jon Hastings says:

  September 18, 2009 at 1:45 pm

  More sub­jectiv­ity: I thought those recent open­ing night choices were “play­ing it safe” (i.e., “The Class” – appeal­ing story, access­ible sub­ject, lots of drama; “Wild Grass” – new film by acknow­ledged mas­ter of cinema).

• The Chevalier says:

  September 18, 2009 at 2:03 pm

  Why both­er cit­ing titles if my mind erases them the moment after step­ping out of the screen­ings? That’s my point. I’ve atten­ded the NYFF for most of this dec­ade – at first see­ing every film. Then, year by year, becom­ing more and more select­ive since I’m tired of either walk­ing out, fall­ing asleep or just plain wish­ing the movie would end so I can get some fresh air.
  The “élite” lan­guage comes straight from Manohla’s yearly column where she com­plains about the “com­mer­cial” films not being appropriate.
  The Darjeeling Limited was a movie released by a hipster-popular Oscar-nominated film­maker, star­ring one big star, one Oscar-winner and Hollywood roy­alty, released by a major cor­por­a­tion. By those stand­ards, it’s one of the more com­mer­cial films that the NYFF pro­grams, just as by those stand­ards The Wrestler last year fit a sim­il­ar mold. Not neces­sar­ily huge gross­ers – but movies with high-profile tal­ent that hopes to fea­ture in the year-end awards races.
  Normally, the NYFF fea­tures 3–5 of those type movies out of 28 (give or take) titles. There are none, save for maybe Precious, this year.
  And, based on quotes I’ve read, this is a will­ful act on the com­mit­tee’s part.

• Glenn Kenny says:

  September 18, 2009 at 2:12 pm

  @ Chevalier: “Why both­er cit­ing titles if my mind erases them,” you write. Fine, have it your way. I’m still curi­ous, because I’d like to know how far we dif­fer aesthetics-wise. Maybe.
  I’ll have to look at Manohla’s columns, but I hate the word “élite;” it always strikes me as a kind of dog whistle. And yes, everything you say about “Darjeeling” is object­ively true, and for all that, people got off on con­demning it as rar­efied and twee-other words for “élite,” depend­ing on how they’re used.
  The thing is, I don’t neces­sar­ily dis­agree with you on all your points. But I do think this is a lineup with some dis­tinct­ive strengths, and I do believe—this was my main point, after all—that in terms of its qual­ity, Resnais’ film has every right to open this year’s festival.

• Zach says:

  September 18, 2009 at 2:46 pm

  Not being a huge festival-goer (if I were a rich man…), I’m a bit fuzzy on the dom­in­ant schools of thought when it comes to programming.
  Maybe this is hope­lessly uto­pi­an, but I would much rather attend a fest­iv­al with reas­on­able tick­et prices and over­all pack­age deals, eclect­ic and chal­len­ging pro­gram­ming, and less over­head – less glam and exor­bit­ant parties, just a cool place to watch and talk about movies.
  As for the fest­iv­al “suf­fer­ing” – do we have num­bers to sup­port this? Has there been a noted cor­rel­a­tion between lower-profile opening/closing selec­tions and lower over­all attend­ance? Or do you mean in a purely aes­thet­ic sense?

• The Chevalier says:

  September 18, 2009 at 2:52 pm

  I think a lot of the time films are selec­ted more for what they rep­res­ent than for their actu­al qual­ity. There are plenty of examples.
  For instance, I’ve seen sev­er­al doc­u­ment­ar­ies over the years that, while fea­tur­ing inter­est­ing mater­i­al that would make great movies, were obvi­ously selec­ted for their raw con­tent even though the films them­selves were out­right failures.
  Or, I could point out the pre­val­ence of “reality”-based films that invari­ably are about poor people, are shot hand-held and fea­ture no music­al scores (often no die­get­ic either).
  Another example could be some­body like Jia Zhangke. I went into The World back in ’04 know­ing noth­ing about it. Walked out think­ing it was a mas­ter­piece. Went into 24 City last year with high hopes. But it was excru­ci­at­ing. A really inter­est­ing sub­ject real­ized in a man­ner that was so arid, so mono­ton­ous, so lack­ing in any sense of the audi­ence that, even though is was much short­er than The World, it felt much longer.
  In a sense, I guess you could say, all three above examples show­case the com­mit­tee’s blind­ness for present­a­tion over inten­ded con­tent. And that’s why I think the term “aca­dem­ic” is appro­pri­ate – it’s very much based around the concept that a movie solely exists as a con­vey­or of ideas and that the film­mak­ing itself is irrel­ev­ant; it’s all about the abstract and noth­ing to do with the pragmatic.

• Glenn Kenny says:

  September 18, 2009 at 3:15 pm

  @ Chevalier: Your com­ments about the two Zhangke films remind me of some­thing else that’s very much at play in fest­ivals, which is their selec­tion com­mit­tees’ loy­al­ties to par­tic­u­lar dir­ect­ors. From what I understand—don’t quote me!—the new makeup of the NYFF com­mit­tee this year explains, among oth­er things, why the most recent Hong Sang-soo pic­ture did­n’t make it in this year!

• The Chevalier says:

  September 18, 2009 at 3:24 pm

  Yes, the Hong omis­sion was a pleas­ant surprise…

• Tom Russell says:

  September 18, 2009 at 3:30 pm

  Since I’ve nev­er been to a fest­iv­al in any capa­city, I prob­ably should recuse myself from this dis­cus­sion. But, this being the inter­net, it’s nev­er stopped me from hav­ing an opin­ion (and voicing it) before.
  I think that, bar­ring a par­tic­u­lar theme– a chil­dren’s film fest­iv­al, for example, or a GLBT fest­iv­al (though how you can have a whole fest­ival’s worth of films about Guacomole Lettuce Bacon Tomato sand­wiches is bey­ond me)– fest­ivals should be eclect­ic, yes, but should also err more on the side of films that are dif­fer­ent, “non-commercial”, chal­len­ging, or obscure. More popular/accessible/whatever-you-want-to-call-it type films gen­er­ally already have a dis­trib­ut­or lined up, some kind of mar­ket­ing strategy, a guar­an­tee that, some­where down the line, many people will be able to see it. And if I can see Film X at the mul­ti­plex in a month or two, why both­er going to see it at a fest­iv­al? Give me some­thing dif­fer­ent for my money. “Non-commercial” might not equal “good”, but the oppos­ite is equally untrue and I’d rather take the chance on some­thing like INTO GREAT SILENCE, which is a frickin’ mas­ter­piece, than some­thing like JUNO, which is not.
  That said– this is likely why I’ve nev­er had any suc­cess with fest­ivals as a film­maker—- my taste is per­haps too “élite” and “aca­dem­ic”. (For the record, I nev­er went to col­lege, either; I gradu­ated from High School with a D- average.)
  But what I did want to say, Mr. Chevalier, is that you’re spot-on about a lot of doc­u­ment­ar­ies that are abso­lutely engross­ing yet res­ol­utely ter­rible films, and the way in which the sub­ject mat­ter will often excuse bad film­mak­ing choices. Cf. Jesus Camp: scar­i­est film I’ve ever seen, des­pite the way it’s put togeth­er. Or, if fic­tion film is your bag, look at the work of Kramer comma Stanley, whose films are as import­ant as they are dif­fi­cult to actu­ally watch.

• Zach says:

  September 18, 2009 at 3:30 pm

  Glenn,
  re. the Sang-soo busi­ness – have you got any juicy details to flesh that out a bit? Very inter­ested, as I’ve just dis­covered this hugely buzzed-about filmmaker…

• Daniel says:

  September 18, 2009 at 11:34 pm

  Chevalier – your com­ments reek of a kind of myop­ic, self con­grat­u­lat­ory sense of enti­tle­ment. Of course the NYFF selec­tion com­mit­tee must be some kind of con­spir­acy, how else could they so per­fectly align against your own interests? I’m glad you like The Queen, Good Night and Good Luck, Darjeeling and Mystic River (for the record, I think 2 out of those 4 aint bad), but to insist that pro­gram­ming those films some­how “gets it right” is absurd – by your own admis­sion, these are reas­on­ably large scale films with award sea­son mar­ket­ing dol­lars and pub­li­city galore. In oth­er words, they don’t need addi­tion­al expos­ure. Furthermore, I don’t think any­one here would argue that fest­ivals don’t play the pub­li­city game. The ques­tion, to my mind at least, is who needs the pub­li­city the most? Obviously a sub­ject­ive issue, but really: anoth­er Fox/Sony Pictures Classics/Miramax/TWC award mon­ger, or a film by Zhangke, Tsai or Tarr (off the top of my head). As a state­ment of pur­pose, the fest­iv­al that cel­eb­rates non-corporate product seems to me to be “get­ting it right”. I can­’t wait to see the new Resnais – instead of com­plain­ing about elit­ism, you might be grate­ful that you live in a city where you can even see it in the first place. Enjoy your office awards pool next year, since that seems to be what you’re most inter­ested in.

• The Chevalier says:

  September 19, 2009 at 12:14 am

  Daniel, you’re com­ing off as a raging dick. I don’t know who you’re arguing against, but it’s not me. I don’t think you under­stand a single point I was mak­ing. What are you a col­lege sophomore?

• John M says:

  September 21, 2009 at 3:25 pm

  Certainly, Daniel could’ve made his case more del­ic­ately, but he has some points, The Chevalier. (If that is your real name.) I under­stand the appeal of not respond­ing. Your uphill battle­’s get­ting steep­er and steeper.
  (This might be a good time to throw in my hat for Hong Sang-soo, one of the most excit­ing film­makers work­ing today. I’m sorry you don’t like him, The Chevalier, but plenty of people do…)
  You’re basic­ally arguing that the Festival should cor­don off more room for films that are guar­an­teed dis­tri­bu­tion any­way. So that…an exas­per­ated view­er such as yourself…can…see…them…a little earli­er than every­one else? I guess?
  How elitist.