The Montclair Film Festival
The Montclair Film Festival (Montclair, NJ) is in its second year. For 2013 (from April 29 to May 5, to be precise), it expanded, with more venues, films, speakers, and discussion sections (over 80 films and events). We attended last year. Because I’m an incurable people watcher (even though I’m introverted and don’t enjoy being in large crowds), I observed that there is a large overlap between films and book lovers. Thought-provoking films make people think while they enjoy the film and lead to discussions afterward—these are the films shown at the Montclair Film Festival. A thought-provoking book does the same thing.
“Thought-provoking” is a sloppy term. I can easily enter a vicious circle—a thought-provoking book is one that makes you think beyond its plot and characters to more substantive issues. Even a vampire romance can make you think of issues you might not consider outside of your reading. My sci-fi thrillers will make you think too—they’re entertaining extrapolations into the future. What I observed at last year’s crowd at the Festival was that thought-provoking films and books have a common audience—people were talking about films and books.
The connection between books and film is probably as old as the movie industry. Hollywood takes a good book and adds visuals and, nowadays, a soundtrack. They can destroy a good book too (I, Robot comes to mind), but every writer seems to yearn to have one of his books made into a movie. I once asked a screenwriter what it took to make a book into a movie. His answer was simple—the book has to be popular. This is certainly true for mysteries and thrillers—The Da Vinci Code hit the silver screen very fast, although it took the more complex Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy many years, although you can probably guess which book I think is better.
The screenwriter’s answer was a bit glib, in fact. A bad book might become a good movie, or vice versa. His answer was therefore not covering all the bases. Consider the example of Reacher: This film was boycotted because too many of us couldn’t relate to Tom Cruise as the six-foot-six ex-MP. This would have happened no matter how good Lee Child’s book was. A film that was much better than the book, for example, was Moby Dick—the screenplay cut out all the crap about how to render a whale to lamp oil.
In fact, many screenplays are original and don’t come from a book. They are different media, after all. A Hollywood movie, no matter the genre, is much more passive than a book (though not as much as TV because of the audience). You sit back, watch, and listen. Maybe the story on the screen resonates with you—it’s thought-provoking—but the moviegoer is spoon fed the story via the visual and aural medium. A book reader becomes part of the creative process—often must use his own creative mind to visualize the action and imagine the sounds (a good writer recognizes this and leaves enough room for his reader to create).
The flip-side of the coin is that it’s hard for the moviegoer to really get inside the head of a protagonist or villain. Some movies try to get around this via narration. For example, in Blade Runner, probably the greatest sci-fi movie ever made, the protagonist narrates key items in the story. (This movie is also an example of a case where the original prose work, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, wasn’t that popular—Hollywood “rediscovered” Phillip K. Dick, who was immensely popular to sci-fi enthusiasts but otherwise mostly unknown.) Books, however, have all the advantages when it comes to getting inside characters’ heads. (One of the films I report on below, Midnight’s Children, uses the narration technique.)
In the film festival, with over 80 films and events to choose from, we had to be selective. Unlike a scientific conference, not much is accomplished between presentations—you can only schmooze with the film people in Q&As after the film or event, and there are no corridors to be had where people can privately chat with each other. We were therefore selective and limited ourselves to weekend events, choosing the Carr/Gibney and Michael Moore talks (no relation) and the films You Will Be My Son and Midnight’s Children, both NJ premieres.
You Will Be My Son is set in the arcane world of French wine-making. (A native Californian, I’m quick to point out that without Californian winemakers, you would have no French wine. Probably for the same reason, the best Californian wine trounces the comparably priced French wine. My apologies to any French readers, but history is what it is.) In the film, a domineering vineyard owner resists the possibility that his loyal son may one day succeed him. There are elements of biblical legends and Shakespeare’s plays in this movie. There are also nods to an Edgar Allan Poe story, but, as far as I know, the screenplay is original. Gilles Legrand directs and was invited to speak about the film. In spite of the title, this was the best film between the two we saw—superb acting. Recommended, if you have access to foreign films (this one has subtitles).
Midnight’s Children is based on Salman Rushdie’s epic novel that intertwines magical realism with the history of modern India. (Magical realism is not new. Garcia Marquez practically invented it and received a Nobel prize for it. Latin authors perfected it—for example, Isabel Allende. However, I consider Franz Kafka to be the true inventor. Rushdie is a Johnny-come-lately, relatively speaking.) Spanning several decades, this story follows two infants separated at birth who find themselves on opposite sides of class, political, and romantic conflicts. Oscar-nominated Deepa Mehta (Earth) directs. Rushdie also wrote the screenplay. I don’t think his book benefits from translating it to the silver screen. It’s a ponderous version of The Life of Pi or Slum Dog Millionaire, hard to follow, with clichéd acting. Not recommended.
The Carr/Gibney chat featured N Y Times reporter/columnist David Carr and documentary journalist Alex Gibney. Because one of the main protagonists in The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan is the Pulitzer-prize winning investigative journalist Eduardo Ortega (fictional character), I was interested in this discussion to see if I had any of the characteristics right. After the discussion and modesty aside, I think I nailed it, although these guys probably haven’t been in as much trouble as Mr. Ortega. There were some pointed questions from the audience too.
Michael Moore was his inimitable self—funny, cynical, liberal, progressive, anti-gun, anti-corporation, you name it. Maybe he is a relative and I’m another carrier of those genetic characteristics? I can’t say I learned anything new, as readers of this blog might surmise, but it was fun to hear unintentional echoes of my own thoughts. Michael helped launch the film festival in Traverse City, Michigan, and aided in the launch of the Montclair Film Festival last year. It was nice to have him back this year. This year was a bit different as he led a discussion group of three documentary film directors whose films had been featured by the festival. Montclair’s own Dawn Porter (Gideon’s Army), Bill Siegel (The Trials of Muhammad Ali), and Lucy Walker (The Crash Reel) are all top-notch documentary film makers that really make you go away a changed person after seeing their films. They held their own with Moore, who made a couple of startling announcements he asked the audience not to repeat, so I won’t.
If you live anywhere in or near the tri-state area, try to attend MFF next year. It’s fast becoming an exciting, entertaining, and thought-provoking tradition.
And so it goes…
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