As much as I enjoy watching movies at the Telluride Film
Festival, I also enjoy snapping pictures. Here are some of my favorites from
this year’s gathering, with some thoughts about the filmmakers and the work
they brought with them.
Master animator Richard Williams and his wife Imogen Sutton
show off a poster for Richard’s new short subject, which debuted in Telluride.
He says it’s the best work he’s ever done. I didn’t get to see it over the busy
weekend (to my regret) but I look forward to a Los Angeles screening sometime
soon.
Director Todd Haynes and Rooney Mara, who costars with Cate
Blanchett in his new film Carol, chat
with The Hollywood Reporter’s chief
critic Todd McCarthy. Mara is one of the youngest actresses to receive a Telluride
tribute, but Carol has been
commanding a lot of attention since its debut at Cannes in May.
After a showing of the new documentary He Named Me Malala, its “star,” the remarkable Pakistani teenager
Malala Yousafzai, appeared via satellite for a brief interview with filmmaker
Ken Burns. She couldn’t attend in person because she is in the midst of exams
in her adopted home of Birmingham, England. She’s applying to colleges right
now, including Oxford. I have a feeling that if she writes “Winner, Nobel Peace
Prize” on her application it may cut through some red tape.
Director Danny Boyle chats with his collaborator on Steve Jobs, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin.
Boyle joined the project after David Fincher dropped out, but it’s hard to
picture anyone else getting more out of Sorkin’s expansive screenplay, which bears
echoes of Citizen Kane.
Talk about a talented trio: director Tom McCarthy hits a
bull’s-eye with his new film Spotlight,
which he also co-wrote, about the Boston
Globe’s 2001 investigation of sexual abuse in the Catholic church. Michael
Keaton delivers another great performance as the leader of the editorial team.
Meryl Streep plays women’s rights advocate Emmeline Pankhurst in Sarah Gavron’s
Suffragette, and even though it’s a
cameo appearance, she was proud to represent the film in Telluride.
Rachel McAdams costars in Spotlight as one of Michael Keaton’s dogged reporters; it’s a great
part, based on a real-life journalist. The film brings to mind All the President’s Men—in the best
possible way.
Davis Guggenheim is a second-generation documentarian,
following in the footsteps of his father Charles, with an Oscar to his credit
for An Inconvenient Truth. His latest
endeavor is He Named Me Malala, which
opens theatrically in October. With him is writer-director Alexander Payne, who
came to Telluride as a Guest Director several years ago and got hooked; now
he’s a regular attendee.
Brie Larson gives a standout performance in Lenny
Abrahamson’s Room, opposite a
precocious young Jacob Tremblay. It’s also on the October release schedule. Here
she is following an outdoor panel following Telluride’s Labor Day picnic.
Chapin Cutler and his team at Boston Light & Sound equip
and run all the venues at Telluride, including several that are “invented”
every year out of a high school gymnasium, a conference center, and a skating
rink. This is the projection booth at the Chuck Jones Cinema, equipped with
digital equipment as well as film projectors. At the far right is a 16mm
machine!
