In his wonderful The Colossus of New York, Colson Whitehead notes that the thing that makes you a confirmed New Yorker is when you start noting urban geography in terms of what used to be. That Duane Reade used to be an office building; that Pinkberry used to be a weird, incompetent dry cleaner’s. If you can extrapolate this principle, and I think you can, I’ve been a confirmed Sundance Attendee for years: That bar used to be a press screening room, bare and concrete and cold; the Starbucks in the Marriott Headquarters used to be a gift shop; there’s now one large theater in the Yarrow Hotel where two used to be.
I have been coming to Sundance for, perhaps, 12 years; I’d feel either old or silly double-checking, but I do have memories of seeing both Human Nature and One-Hour Photo in the same cold space on main street, and being mesmerized and stunned by Justin Lin’s Better Luck Tomorrow in a small, converted yoga studio adjacent to The Library. In the past 12 years, Justin Lin has gone on to make Fast and the Furious films, while I have transitioned to being able to be inside the actual Library Theater. And I wouldn’t trade him, frankly.
That’s because Sundance, when you’re here, is vastly different from the Sundance people see from here; I have seen paparazzi photos of stars in parkas and red-carpet interviews with all parties shivering – but I’ve never seen anyone depict, say, the good cheer of the busy, chatty shuttles between films, and you rarely see big, glossy stories that explain Sundance as an incubator of talent and not just a display case. Manolah Dargis recently wrote a New York Times piece about how that paper of record had to review 900 films, last year, and that there were just too many movies, and how at Sundance, distributors should show caution. Put aside the slightly peevish and condescending tone of the idea that 900 films is too many – you can hear the Emperor from Amadeus saying “Too many notes” as you read the piece – and instead note that of those 900 films, not one person could say, definitively, what would happen to them before they played in front of an audience. The proof of concept can’t be in a black box of statistics, market research, or tropes checked off a list; the proof of it all comes when it’s seen, by people who had absolutely nothing to do with it.
That’s what Sundance is for, and if there’s any one danger it’s that the higher altitude and thinner air often seem to result in higher praise and fatter adjectives. Last night’s opener of Whiplash was good, certainly, but it’s also a tough sell with some holes in it, and yet twitter was ablaze with praise. It’s cold out here, but it’s also a hothouse — sealed and steamed up by the broiling heat of hype. I don’t need every film up here to be awesome — hope springs eternal, but experience is a harsh teacher. But ever film up here represents someone’s efforts, someone’s energy, someone’s ambition. (Whiplash, for but one example, started as a short …) And while, yes, the the Starbucks in the Marriott Headquarters used to be a gift shop and the Fresh market everyone goes to used to be an Albertson’s, that’s the one thing I hope never changes at Sundance — new talents, new visions, new movies, and an audience eager for them.
Talk soon,
Drink Water,
James.