At noon, the third-annual Masterworks program, masterminded by brilliant and driven filmfest Executive Director Laura Thielin, began at the Wheeler, a last-minute venue change from the recently water-damaged Isis Theater--still reeling, I surmised, from our blizzard of the century of a week ago. Essentially a panel program moderated loosely by a largely unhelpful and self-satisfied Richard Masur (Richard Masur!), the keynote speakers (Beresford, Siegel, McGehee, Payne, Hickenlooper, Julie Taymor) each took a turn describing a collaborative aspect of filmmaking highlighted to varying levels of success with digitally-projected examples from their own films: Beresford and screenwriters; Siegel and cinematographers; McGehee and production designers; Hickenlooper and editors; Payne and actors; and Taymor and composers.
I left before the Q&A started--after Masur offered that Frenzy is the worst Hitchcock film and apologized for a lengthy interjection by saying "I'm an actor and you asked me here to do this," I'd had enough. With Hitchcock the running theme in a majority of the talks (Hickenlooper mentioned Dziga Vertov's landmark Man with the Movie Camera in the morning's most surprising moment), many of the presentations appeared to be junket soundbites, though Beresford's frank sense of humour about Double Jeopardy did strike me as ingenuous and charming. In that light, the best of the presenters was Hickenlooper, who, in his brief allotted time, spoke of the editing process in a way educational and precise. He managed to evoke André Bazan in a way somehow self-deprecating and championed auteurism with passion and wit; the most prepared and thoughtful of the presentations, Hickenlooper taught me something about the craft, impressed the hell out of me in the process, and embodied best what I suspect is the mentorship mission of the Masterworks program.
Returning to the hotel for a nap and lunch on Main St. with my wife, I found myself back at NXT with battered taperecorder, nth generation outmoded digital camera (that doesn't seem to do colour anymore), and dog-eared notebook to meet the Masterworks panel one-on-one. Ms. Taymor the only exception, she choosing (sensibly probably) to spend her time in Aspen skiing and hanging out with the directors, I found myself distinctly weary of the interview process: a combination of war coverage-overload (damn those hotels and their cable-readiness) and altogether too much perspective on the whole cinematic shooting match. Still, McGehee and Siegel, first on the list, thawed me with their charm and enthusiasm--then Beresford with his rumpled open-faced honesty followed fast by Payne's tightly wound, acerbic ripostes. The highlight of my visit though, aside from screening shorts like the amazing Fits and Starts, Terminal Bar, John and Mia, and Family & Friends, was without a doubt my chat with Hickenlooper--a guy who should probably be teaching film somewhere instead of toiling in the snake pit. We need as many fresh, sharp voices on this side of the critical divide as the other, after all, and his frankness and passion fuelled a lot of the four-hour drive back to Littleton--the other side of the universe.
The Aspen Shortsfest is a juried festival, as XP Thielin (who spent ten of her 25 years in the film distribution and presentation business as program director of the San Francisco International Film Festival) described to me: over 1,400 shorts from over 40 different countries were considered for this event by a committee of volunteer screeners led by herself and Competition Coordinator (and husband) George Eldred. At least three pairs of eyes saw each film before Ms. Thielin composited the shorts into 120-minute bundles intended to present a variety of mediums, lengths, and subject matters. Offering over $20,000 in prize money (including a $1,000 audience-favourite award decided via paper ballots that, sadly, encouraged people to bring little flashlights into the theatre), the winners of this year's awards are listed here.
An emerging, exciting festival featuring professional projection, skilled and friendly staff (thanks Joanne, Bridget, Deb), a lovely venue, an opulent setting, and an impressive roster of guests (including FILM FREAK CENTRAL fave Peter Sollett on opening night), the Aspen Shortsfest is rewarding and representative: a reminder that film can still be exciting even in the Hollywood doldrums of dead of winter into early spring (into summer, into early fall). A cure for what ails and the fantasy (and hope), for a brief while at least, that energy and imagination is still the rule of the day in the American cinema.
dvd reviews: a to k | l to z | special categories