It is at this time every year that the small town of Park City, Utah, becomes a little Hollywood because of the Sundance Film Festival, an event that began Thursday, Jan. 18.
The festival first started in 1978 and was made famous by the Sundance Institute’s president: Robert Redford. It has become one of the biggest film festivals in the world and is an opportunity for prominent filmmakers and actors to try more ambitious and independent projects. It also serves as an opportunity for aspiring filmmakers to hit it big. Last year’s festival was the largest to date, premiering films such as Lucky Number Slevin, Friends With Money, The Descent and Thank You For Smoking, as well as the Oscar-nominated films An Inconvenient Truth, Half Nelson, The Illusionist and Little Miss Sunshine.
Since many movies from the festival have achieved so much success, Hollywood studios are present at the festival, many obtaining rights to put the films into nationwide release. Some films have already been picked up this year, including Son of Rambow, a comedy from writer-director Garth Jennings (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). The film is about two boys in the 1980s who produce a homemade sequel to the Sylvester Stallone film First Blood. It has been sold to Paramount Vantage (Babel) for a reported $8-9 million. Paramount Vantage also picked up the rights to a film called How She Move, about a girl from a poor community who sees a way out by competing in a step competition. The interest in this film was no doubt due to the current number one movie in the nation, Stomp the Yard. Most of the other films at the festival have been sold for around $3-4 million.
Sundance is known for producing works that cause a stir, and this year is no exception. The most controversial film this year is called Hounddog, a film about a young girl in 1950s Alabama who lives a life of poverty and abuse, finding refuge only in music. The movie stars Robin Wright Penn and Dakota Fanning.
Why did the film generate such controversy? In one of the film’s scenes, a boy in his late teens lures Fanning’s character to an abandoned shack by promising her tickets to an Elvis Presley show. The scene lasts about a minute and shows Fanning’s face, hand and foot as she falls and then turns away as she cries. There is no nudity or sexual act shown on screen, but many are still up in arms about child star Fanning, who normally takes on lighthearted roles in films, such as Charlotte’s Web and Dreamer, playing in a role in which her character is raped.
Fanning responded to the criticism by saying that the scene was not disturbing to shoot. “I know my mom would take me to see [the movie] . You have to prepare your children for things that happen in the world. Everything isn’t rosy.”
Other controversial films from this year’s festival include Chapter 27, starring Jared Leto (Fight Club), as Mark David Chapman, in a role humanizing the man who assassinated music legend John Lennon, and Save Me, starring Judith Light from TV’s Ugly Betty, as a mother who runs a ministry to “cure” gay men.
Not all films at Sundance need to create controversy to get noticed. The film Grace Is Gone, starring John Cusack (High Fidelity), is already being called an Oscar contender for next year. The film stars Cusack as a blue-collar father who takes his two daughters on a road trip to avoid telling them their mother has died in Iraq. The movie, written and directed by James C. Strouse, has brought audiences to tears and has hit close to home for many people who have personal stories about family serving overseas. The Weinstein Company will distribute the film nationwide.
Another film drawing crowds is the trippy drama Slipstream, written and directed by Anthony Hopkins (Silence of the Lambs), who also stars and even composed the score. The film is about a man named Felix Bonhoeffer, who lives a life of confusion that includes disconnected images and nonsensical conversations. In addition, a bizarre film crew keeps appearing in his life. Hopkins said that the film was a spoof of the movie business and that his main interest was to break every rule of cinema, something he apparently has achieved with Slipstream.
Fox Searchlight has picked up a new comedy at Sundance, The Savages, hoping to recreate the success of the studio’s previous Sundance pickups including Napoleon Dynamite and Little Miss Sunshine. The Savages is a comedy starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman (Capote, Along Came Polly) and Laura Linney (Man of the Year) as a brother and sister who have to decide how to take care of their ailing father, who mistreated them as kids. The film is currently set for nationwide release in the late summer.
Among other actors and actresses appearing in festival entries this year are Kate Beckinsale, Steve Buscemi and Chris Klein. The festival, running through Sunday, will have a lasting effect on the movie industry this year.
