continued sxsw 2007 catch up - billy the kid

I kid Roseana about how much she must hate this blog since she stopped emailing after I sent her the url. The director of the new nonfiction feature, Billy the Kid chimes in, "Ooh, what blog? Will you blog about my film?" I explain I don't review films but she's interested anyway. She wants the attention. So this is my two cents about Billy the Kid. I found myself a bit in reserve during the screening. I was surprised to hear the complete gushes all around as the lights went up. I was even more surprised and moved to observe the tears and shared admissions in the lobby, "Billy's just like my brother....my father...my son...."

This film clearly touched a nerve. The jurors awarded it its prize for "a haunting and intense cinematic experience that truly allows the viewer to enter the world of its all too easily misunderstood protagonist." In the Q&A, the director described Billy as a hero - a boy who is so strongly who he is, regardless of the pressures to be otherwise. She loved that he compromised not one single bit.

So why did I feel resistance ? I appreciated the film, why didn't I love it? The romantic thread alone is one for the ages. As a mother, am I too aware of the reality of Billy's life? Is making him the hero, too simple minded for me? Of course, if he were my child, I would love him fiercely, and only hope I could be as calm and understanding as his mother appears to be. But is this 8 day immersion the whole story or just a shiny gloss? Why do I have this nagging feeling that something is missing?

sxsw 2007 catch up

A fair weather blogger I've turned out to be. Going when the going gets rough - well, not really rough. Just busy! March 6 was the Texas Motion Picture Alliance (TXMPA) lobby day at the Texas State Capitol. We kicked off with a board meeting on Monday, then training later that night. Tuesday about 150 industry participants spent the day at the capitol meeting with reps, then all gathered at a lovely party at the Austin Museum of Art. Great film crowd, lots of legislators, staff, and several cast members from Friday Night Lights which just wrapped its first season filming here. On Thursday we attended a private Austin Film Society pre-Texas Film Hall of Fame event for board members and sponsors. Friday was the glamorous and highly successful Texas Film Hall of Fame event. I particularly enjoyed the tribute to the recently departed great Anne Richards and the very loving and moving speeches by inductees Richard Linklater and Elizabeth Avellan.

Saturday I hit the movies, some panels, and lots of great socializing. I've always had a great time at sxsw, but now that I live in Austin, I cherish the opportunity to hang with old friends, and make lots of new ones. Everyone is just so happy to be here, reveling in the Austin vibe. Earlier in the week I'd started stressing about how to apportion my time - too many films, too many friends, but it ended up playing out just fine - one moment flowing well into the next. Yes I didn't see everyone I hoped to, nor did I converge with the interactive crowd, but it was a great, successful time nonetheless.

Films: (some of which I saw before the fest began) Hannah Takes the Stairs, Steal A Pencil for Me, Blackbird, Scrambled Beer, Audience of One, Manufacturing Dissent, Cat Dancers, The Devil Came on Horseback, Camp Katrina, Kurt Cobain About a Son, Knocked Up, Smiley Face, Billy the Kid, Run Granny Run, Inside the Circle, The Lather Effect, The Prisoner or How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair, The Unforeseen, Great World of Sound, Diggers, Third Ward TX, Elvis & Annabelle, Forfeit, The Last Days of Left Eye, Nick Drake: A Skin Too Few. A couple I missed that are on the top of my catch up list: Fish Kill Flea, Everything's Cool, After the Wedding, Helvetica, Blindsight, The King of Kong, Grammy's.

Some highlights:
Richard Linklater in his panel "conversation" with John, talking about how during the Fast Food Nation shoot - at one point, they had a location for only 2 hours. His great DP started stressing, "I can't do this in two hours. We need a day." Rick's invaluable 1st AD jumped in, "Anyone could shoot this in a day. Only WE can shoot it in two hours." Rick continued, "sometimes you just have to make that attitude adjustment."

Granny D, the (now) 97 year old subject of the wonderful and inspiring, Run Granny Run, said in her Q&A, "They say you forget the camera after awhile. Well you don't! In this case it made us be our better selves."

Getting great feedback for the catalog copy I wrote for Hannah Takes The Stairs, Scrambled Beer, Blackbird and Steal A Pencil for Me, all films I was thrilled to be able to help promote. The Steal A Pencil crew even called inviting me to join them at the Four Seasons for a drink. I loved meeting Jaap and Ina Polak, the subjects of that extraordinary documentary, Michelle Ohayon, the talented director and Theo Van de Sande, her excellent DP.

Listening to Elizabeth Avellan in her panel "conversation." Unpretentious, generous, and inspiring as she shared how she'd learned to do her job, grow, to transcend the hard times and move forward.

2 am meeting up with Joe & Kris in the pouring rain, moving on to eat and hang with some others, having missed their, by all accounts, fantastic premiere of Hannah Takes the Stairs.

Finally getting a chance to see Marcy Garriott's invigorating and insightful Inside the Circle after these last few years of becoming her friend, and watching her move through the creative process. Particularly delighted to spy her at the end of the second screening, after the crowd was gone, just hanging in her jeans and sweats, hanging in a circle with her husband and subjects of her film - the bboys Josh, Omar and Romeo, all hanging and laughing, enjoying each other.

Watching movies at the Paramount. Finally seeing Kurt Cobain About a Son and giving over completely to it. Watching everyone fooling around with their smartphones. Fondling them the way we used to attach to our packs of cigarettes. Starting to get the hang of texting myself on an old even pre-camera cellphone (trying to stifle my email phone envy). Actually kind of loving the process as a few checked in by text. No surprise that it's a social hot line but I find that I appreciate the way it feels like the better part of Jr. High, your pals looking out for you.

Las Manitas.

Loving the Wednesday arrival of the rockers. The changeover of the vibe. Rockers everywhere! Undeniably so.

Running into a lifelong friend completely unexpectedly after a Q&A . Since he was staying at the Four Seasons, I said, "let's have a drink there and see Iggy Pop in the bar." Which we did - Iggy quietly sitting by himself in the late afternoon. Our own conversation delightfully skipping over the decades - from the mid-60s to now, a lifetime of organically crossing paths and staying in the mix.

The Stax Revue at Antone's. Really don't mind being an old fogey when the music and the performers are as hot as this!

[To be continued]

Joan Didion's magic

This is why I still love Joan Didion's writing today - as much as when I first discovered her @ 1972.

[excerpt from NYT article: The Year of Hoping for Stage Magic]

...... Early that October, when Scott Rudin asked if I would consider doing “The Year of Magical Thinking” as a play, I was negative, even vehemently so. I had devised a narrow track on which to get through the fall. The book, an account of the year that followed the death of my husband, was just published. I had promotion ahead, flights, 5 a.m. pickups, Starbucks cappuccino at the gate in lieu of breakfast, Boston, Dallas, Minneapolis, Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Seattle, Chicago, Miami, Toronto, check in, check out, stay on track. I did not want to write a play. I had never wanted to write a play. I did not know how to write a play.

I repeated this.

I repeated it to Scott, and I repeated it to myself.

Yet at some point in the days that followed I was seized by the idea that the fact that I had never written and did not know how to write a play could be the point, the imperative, the very reason to write one. My husband had died, our only child had died, I was no longer exactly the person I had been.

True False then sxsw

I love film festivals. Love immersing myself into the multiple screenings, and the high impact socializing. At any festival I can reconnect with someone I'm happy to see from the last 30+ years, and meet new people I find interesting and talented. It's generally a short connect but intense, and often memorable. Good friendships really develop that way over the years. My brother-in-law used to debate me on this. "They're just your work friends", he'd say. "Not your real friends." And I'd disagree. I don't see it that way at all.

This past weekend found us at True False, a great new fest on the landscape for non-fiction films. Far away from the film biz and media, in a small kind of wonderfully arty midwestern college town, the festival can screen gems from Toronto, IDFA, and Sundance, and sneak films that are premiering at Sxsw, Tribeca, Fullframe and beyond. Premiering your film has become a bloodsport - doors opening and closing accordingly. True False has positioned itself out of that competitive fray, and therefore, yields a more enjoyable experience for actually watching the films. Talented filmmakers come from all over the world to share their work with the enthusiastic audiences. It's a terrain often neglected, not possible with the current distribution system. You get the feeling they're really grateful you've made the trip. And the filmmakers get to hang with one another and decompress a bit from the more pressurized festivals. It's a lot of fun.

This year marked the debut of their Swami program. The acronym doesn't make any sense but the program does. It matches a select group of new filmmakers with some industry professionals (aka swamis) for some informal conversation. We spent the day meeting together and individually. The swamis spanned a nice range of experience. Fun for us to see each other, really wonderful for the filmmakers to get the overview.

In our conversations John and I discovered a pretty hilarious disconnect. Used to American filmmakers charging up their credit cards to complete their work, we first asked an Israeli, then some Basque directors if they had any debt. ??? was their reply! Every other nuance we'd been able to communicate. "Debt" and "loan" and "having to pay back investors" brought back only stares. Then laughs as we finally got our point across. It's only the Americans who gamble that way making their films.

Now on to sxsw starting on Friday, always a great time, with the Austin Film Society Texas Film Hall of Fame kicking off the festivities. Lots of films and people I'm excited to see.

love this image

Love this image found on my friend Jarren's not particularly active blog. It's totally arresting and exquisite. I asked her the source, she said she found it in an article about the evolution of women and showing their bodies. I'm just crazy about it.

It reminds me of this odd lovely day years ago when I ran into a good friend's husband at a NYC auction house. I was trying to familiarize myself with buying photos at auction. I had a little death money burning a hole in my pocket and thought I would use it to buy art. I decided to buy one photo, this one time. For 18 months I haunted photo shows, and galleries, and the auction houses. This particular day I ran into JV. Turns out he was a collector/dealer in 19th century erotica and this was his world. He explained the workings to me and took me on a little tour of some of his other daily haunts. It was delightful and rare, like sightseeing in a foreign land. I bet he'd know all about this one.

Waiting for Daisy - Highly Recommended

I've been really lucky. I've been pregnant two times, intentionally, both times resulting in healthy babies who are now healthy teens. But all along the way I've met countless women with far less luck. Infertility. Miscarriages, suffered in silence, because well, while they might be wrenching to the would-be mom, they aren't really anything yet, are they? Infertility treatments. Adoption. Time and time again we say to others, "No big deal..." but everything surrounding pregnancy and motherhood is in fact a big deal. In fact, the biggest deal striking at the core of our existence. Even when we choose to forego that experience, as so many of my close friends have, or given in to the impossibility, - they’re all powerful acts, with profound consequences.

I just finished my good friend Peggy Orenstein's new book, Waiting for Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, an Oscar, an Atomic Bomb, a Romantic Night, and One Woman's Quest to Become a Mother. It’s a terrific read. Highly recommended.

The book would have spoken to me regardless, but it’s even richer because my friendship with Peggy is so precious to me. I met her, a then successful journalist working on her first book, because she'd married a Director we were involved with. I was very close with his producer, Lynn O’Donnell. Tragically, Lynn developed ovarian cancer right after her daughter was born. During those three years fighting the illness, I needed a knowledgeable but safe conduit. Peggy and I started emailing. And so we’ve continued for a decade, writing back and forth at great length. We've met face to face only a couple of times. In fact, for what would be the second time, Peggy walked into the kitchen where I was waiting, then walked back out again. Returning a few minutes later she laughed, “I thought you were someone else all this time….But that’s OK. It’s OK it’s you.”

Over the years I would whine about finding my place in the world, managing my career, if you could call it that, balancing my close partnership with my husband, and of course, the kids. Peggy was writing articles and books. And managing her own bout with cancer, career, miscarriages, adoption, misgivings, and birth. We would write directly, or I would catch up via her NYT Sunday magazine articles. I’ll never forget the Sunday morning John woke me by throwing the magazine on the bed, “Here’s what Peggy’s been up to.” “35 and Mortal: A Breast Cancer Diary” I checked my email archive and damn, there it was, the last email saved, dated the day before her surprising diagnosis. And so it continued over the decade. Funny stories, Lurching, painful movements forward, supportive dialogue. One day she said, “I’m going to write my memoir and my HD crashed. Did you bother to keep a copy of my emails? ”

And so now, here it is, Peggy's moving, rich study of her journey from ambivalence to motherhood. It's such a clear narrative for our time. There are twists and turns, a coming to terms with the hand you’re dealt. And though I knew the outcome, I was still on pins and needles, so deftly has she spun the story. And it's not just about procreation, on top of everything else, Peggy has created a glorious, very honest love story. I highly recommend it.

NYT Article on terrific new doc: Manufacturing Dissent

Check out this NYT article by John Anderson about John's latest project with his UT Advanced Producing Class: Manufacturing Dissent.

valentine postscript

Someone unknown left this as a comment on my Valentine's Day post - and it's so beautiful, and been sticking with me so deeply I thought I'd post it again here:

A poem for the drought.

To love a person is to learn the song
That is in their heart,
And to sing it to them
When they have forgotten.
- Anonymous

Mirror in the Bathroom

John just came back from a couple of nights at one of our favorite hotels - The Charles Hotel in Cambridge MA, raving about this wild new TV in the mirror...

see the future. (John says it's much better in real life.)

"I hated being a kid" interview with Ryan Gosling

I love this quote in a Guardian interview with Ryan Gosling - and not just because Half Nelson was one of my top 5 fave films last year. I love it because it's closer to how I felt as a child. I so needed to grow up to be happy! I can never relate when people recall the idylls of childhood. My favorite yoga teacher has lately started referring to that wonderful time in our youths when our postures and breathing were perfect. It always takes me out of the moment because my memories of those years are never free, not good at all. And I see it with my daughter too. Not that her childhood was an unhappy one. I don't think it was. I think she was physically able and expressive, but I see it in terms of dealing with authority. Some people just need to be grown up and under their own steam.

when Gosling was 10 his mother took him out of class and home-schooled him. The year spent with her, watching movies, listening to Chet Baker and Billie Holiday, gave him, he says, 'a sense of autonomy that I've never really lost'. That confidence was crucial: 'I didn't want to work in a paper mill, and I wasn't going to stay in school. I hated being a kid. I didn't like being told what to do, I didn't like my body, I didn't like any of it. Being a kid and playing and all that stuff just drove me nuts.'

(complete interview)