DIFF ’01: Wish You Were Here (Introduction)

by Walter Chaw Going to the movies for a living is an incalculable blessing.

Watching films and writing about them is the equivalent of a lovelorn voyeur's tear-stained journal. A failed relationship with the moronic and abusive Pearl Harbor shares column inches with blazing liaisons like the clever Memento and the acerbic Ghost World. Watching is a consummation, for me: sometimes I go back to a film multiple times; other times I regret having stayed all the way through even once. Doing it as a job means that you go for free, but you have to do it with every movie and stay to the bitter end. (Or at least you should.) I thought I was a voracious moviegoer before I started getting paid to do it. The revelation that I had actually been exercising an extraordinary amount of discretion in my viewing choices was hammered home when I watched both Glitter and The Musketeer in the same week, chewing the insides of my cheeks raw and eyeing the exits like a castaway eyes the cruel taunt of a ship's smoke on the horizon.

There have always been critics, because there have always been people who love art and want to tell others about that love. Good criticism aids in the appreciation of a good film–bad criticism is the worst kind of onanistic endeavour. Criticism is a slippery thing in that it always reveals more about the critic than the criticized. The movie is a constant–but the reviews are unerringly different. When you write about a film, you confess your dreams, your darkest fears, and your secret prejudices. You reveal more than you ever intended to reveal, and you do it, if you do it right, because you love and respect film more than anyone else in that goddamned theatre. There is nothing else in the world I would rather do than honour the title of "critic," and in so doing, honour the films that I review with the full weight of all the love (sometimes tough love) that my courage will allow.

Once a year, the very fine Denver Film Society honours the courage of creation in all its forms with an ever-improving, ever-expanding, ever-diverse Denver International Film Festival (DIFF). There are 160 films from all over the world screening Oct 11-21 in the historic Tivoli theatre complex (so generously funded by Starz/Encore) on the University of Colorado's Auraria campus: documentaries, short subjects, animated features, big names, little names, no names–for a few halcyon evenings, they have equal footing. This is the first year that I'm covering the event in a press capacity, and I'm excited to say too much about myself through praise or hectoring of flickering celluloid dreaming. I'll meet filmmakers, watch films that may never get a wide distribution in the United States, drink too much, eat too much, be haunted when I fail to recognize someone before it's too late, and grin and grin and grin.

Film Freak Central's going to the Denver International Film Festival. Check back often, I'll be taking notes.