Toronto 2005: Day Nine

DAY NINE

The Toronto International Film Festival is a premature ejaculator.

I mean, it’s fun and all and it gets you about 60% of the way thinking its going really well, but then your “partners” disappear all of a sudden and there is a strong sense of disappointment.

Perhaps my sense of abandonment is all the greater this year because it has been such an easygoing festival with the best organized press opportunities in my memory and a relatively laid back group of celebrities involved. Of course, this did not guarantee an easy ride for any of the publicists or the press office, but easy going for many of us it was.

I can only assume that some of the comfort was my own personal sense of how I prioritize the festival after all these years in attendance. I did a grand total of three interviews, sitting only with people who would probably not be available in L.A. and with whom I really wanted to talk.

It would not have been a hardship today to spend another hour or more with Jeanne Moreau and Francois Ozon. Moreau, a bastion of femininity even in her advancing years, takes a little while to warm up. And I truly mean that in the best way. She kindly set the stage for our chat with some water and a glass of ice, creating her own coasters in honor of the hotel’s wooden coffee table. She’s that kind of person, it seems... a queen who does not suffer fools gladly, but gladly engages in conversation, getting right to what she wants to say, speaking with clarity and elegance.

Ozon is a different kind of charmer. Curled up on the couch next to Madame Moreau, he quickly acknowledges that publicizing his movies is the only part of the experience that is “work,” since everything involved with making a movie is done with love. This film, Time To Leave, is particularly intimate and personal and he offers that up himself. And when I hear him say, “This is not a film that I would expect to use a million dollars to make,” my stomach clenches a little.

It is one of my sadnesses of this festival that this film was not the subject of a bidding war and is to be distributed in the U.S. by Strand. And let me be perfectly clear... it’s nothing against Strand. They are an excellent small distributor and if it were not for their passionate efforts, there are excellent films every year that would fall into the abyss. But what kind of industry is it that cannot have one studio Dependent art arm put aside $25 million over the next five years for Francois Ozon to make whatever the hell he wants – within those budget restraints – and to have a home for one of the world’s most important working directors. It boggles the mind. (Based on previous budgets, he would spend 2/3 or less of the fund while delivering 5 or more films.) One hit the size of Swimming Pool and the deal is in the black in the U.S. But forget that... his films make plenty of money outside of the U.S. It’s kind of a no-lose with only upside and a committed relationship to an important filmmaker who could be every bit as successful as Almodovar. It is almost an artistic moral imperative that a director like Ozon, who is willing to work with so little, should never have to think for a moment about whether he can raise it and if his film will be seen in America.

Anyway...

Moreau told about how she got to know Ozon before working with him. And when he came to her with the script, she didn’t want to play a grandmother... but she would for Francois. But she also found more in this grandma that in most. She is a critical stop on her grandson’s tour of his life. And she gives him all the love of a grandma and a friend. She even gets to sleep in the nude. (Her grandson, who is gay, responds, “I won’t look” as he climbs into bed.)

The scene between Moreau and her grandson is the cradle of the film, and both she and Ozon know it. She represents safety and the lack of judgmentalism. And as she walks away, her back to camera, trying to respect her grandson’s request that she not cry (“It will just make it harder.), you can feel this actress’ every emotion. It is beautiful. And she tells me that it has actually gotten easier to connect with her emotion (“Films do not make people think first... first, they feel... and then, some, if they wish, can think about it too.”) as she continues working, but that she still waits to feel her way into a role, never knowing quite what she is going to do, going with her deepest emotion.

Ozon has this philosophy somewhat as well. Obviously, he could not improvise his way through his musical, 8 Women. But his screenplays, he says, are blueprints, not strict structure or dialogue tracks. This, he feels, is one of the flaws of Hollywood cinema. The script is too strict and producers have too much power.

By the time the conversation really started rolling, it was over. Jeanne rolled her eyes and made a comment about how frustrating it is to rush in and out of conversations, causing the heart of a publicist or two to skip in beat in various languages.

Fortunately for international relations, Madame Moreau will not be forced to sit through the closing night obscenity, Edison.

Perhaps the producer made a $1 million gift to TIFF to build the new building and Noah Cowan figured that no one would see closing night anyway and, if they did, they would drink so much afterwards that they might forget. “You’re getting sleepy... sleepy...”

I think Revolver remains the worst film at this festival on pretension points. But Edison is barely competent. The only thing the filmmakers clearly know how to do well is to write large checks with which they can entice top flight actors to spend a few days on a horrible film with a horrible script that is the feature equivalent of doing a commercial in the Far East since no one will ever see the whole movie. Little did they know that TIFF would allow this stinker into the festival, much less make it closing night.

Perhaps we should assume that Kevin Spacey’s hairpiece was meant to look like a patent leather Pez dispenser hair helmet... or that every time Justin “Couldn’t Act His Way Out Of A Music Video” Timberlake come to Morgan Freeman’s apartment for another magical lecture, he finds another surprise that legitimizes Freeman’s character (thank God they called it quits after the Pulitzer)... or maybe we aren’t meant to notice that the writer/director stole one of the final scenes directly from 48 Hours (without the sense of humor, of course).

The sad part is that David J Burke has had a terrific career as a TV writer. He can write. But not this time.

Fortunately, Bob Dylan and Marty Scorsese were right around the corner to help us recover from the ugliness. But more of that later...

by David Poland