My favorite snapshot of the year: Peter O'Toole tooling about on a bicycle in Telluride.

A NATURAL HIGH FOR
MOVIE LOVERS

Once again, the Telluride Film Festival proved to be both exhilarating and exhausting.  Hustling around from early morning to the wee hours would be tiring anywhere, let alone at 8,000 feet...but my family and I just love it.

          We’re not alone.  Among this year’s attendees:  honoree Peter O’Toole, author and movie lover Salman Rushdie, documentarian (and Telluride regular) Ken Burns, the notorious Werner Herzog, writer-director Paul Schrader (with his new film Auto Focus) and his stars Greg Kinnear and Willem Dafoe, pioneer documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker, director Phillip Noyce (with Rabbit-Proof Fence), director David Cronenberg (with Spider), Michael Moore (with his highly-praised Bowling for Columbine), Terry Gilliam (subject of the documentary Lost in La Mancha), and the brilliant performer and writer Betty Comden, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Singin’ in the Rain, to name just a few.  Bill and Stella Pence and Tom Luddy put on the kind of event that people want to attend.

The great French filmmaker, enthusiast, and historian Bertrand Tavernier presented his latest film, Safe Passage, an ambitious and richly textured story of filmmaking under the German occupation during World War Two.

Terry Gilliam, artist, animator, and filmmaker, poses at the entrance to the Chuck Jones Cinema in Mountain Village, a gondola ride away from the town of Telluride

The film would be exceptional under any circumstances, but having Tavernier there to introduce it and answer questions afterwards made the experience much richer, especially since he drew so heavily on real people and their experiences in the screenplay.  Tavernier was later interviewed for an hour by British film historian Kevin Brownlow, whose latest documentary, The Tramp and the Dictator, debuted at Telluride.  (The hour-long film about Charlie Chaplin and Adolf Hitler—who were born within four days of each other in 1899—will air in October on Turner Classic Movies.)

Although I saw Pedro Almodovar’s wonderful new film Talk to Her, I missed some other new movies I wanted to see—especially after the buzz started up among festivalgoers—but I do hope to catch them elsewhere. I’m not sure I’d have another chance to see the 1929 German silent film The Wonderful Lies of Nina Petrovna with live accompaniment by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra (see also Leonard’s Picks for information on their CD).  Paolo Cherchai Usai from the George Eastman House brought along this beautiful film, which stars the luminous Brigitte Helm (of Metropolis fame) as a kept woman,

Telluride regular Ken Burns happily poses with Broadway and Hollywood legend Betty Comden, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Singin' in the Rain.

and Franz (later Francis) Lederer as a Russian lieutenant who wins her heart.I also got to introduce a showing of Douglas Fairbanks’ wonderful silent film The Black Pirate with accompaniment by the Alloy Orchestra, who have become Telluride regulars. Roger Ebert and I were both browbeaten by the French contingent (including Tavernier, critic/author Michel Ciment, and film buff supreme Pierre Rissient) not to miss a special high-definition digital showing of Claude Sautet’s Max et les Ferrailleurs, a 1971 movie starring Michel Piccoli and Romy Schneider that was never released in the U.S.  We were both glad we attended; it’s a great movie, and the digital presentation was stunningly good.  This unusual crime story—about a moralistic police inspector who sets up a robbery just so he can nab the thieves—really should be seen by a wider audience.

And only at Telluride would there be people crazy enough—and knowledgeable enough—to mount a showing of three-panel Cinerama.  This involved building three projection booths as well as an enormous curved screen for one showing only of Dave Strohmaier’s fine new documentary and excerpts from several Cinerama features, as well as the original three-panel trailer for How the West was Won.

It’s my privilege to host and introduce a number of shows every year, including this year’s Cinerama extravaganza, but this year I had the joy of interviewing Peter O’Toole on stage, after an hour of choice film clips from his long career.  O’Toole is a great raconteur, but also an observant, witty, and generous participant in the world of moviemaking.  We had a ball.  (He also does wonderful impressions of some of his directors, including John Huston and Otto Preminger.)

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While most film festivals have resorted to video projection when mounting career tributes, Telluride’s Bill Pence prides himself on finding 35mm prints for his major programs.

Seeing Technicolor widescreen clips from Lawrence of Arabia, The Lion in Winter, Lord Jim, The Last Emperor and other O’Toole favorites was simply wonderful.

One of the nicest parts of attending this festival is its informality.  If you don’t get to ask a filmmaker your question during a formal session, you might just as easily stop him on main street, or on line for coffee the next day.  Telluride is small, and that’s a great part of its charm.

Frankly, I’m still recovering from my mountaintop weekend...but I’m also looking forward to next year. In fact, I can hardly wait.  (See more Telluride photos)