Last
year’s edition of Ebertfest, the annual five-day celebration of all things
cinematic that has been a tradition in
Champaign, Illinois since 1999, was the first to have been entirely conceived
without the participation of its founder, the late, great Roger Ebert, who
passed away the year before only a couple of weeks before the 2013 iteration.
As a result, some attendees may have arrived on the scene with a certain degree
of trepidation about the whole thing—could the festival go on
without Ebert? Happily, last year’s festival, put together by the crack
Ebertfest staff under the guidance of the indomitable spirit that is Chaz
Ebert, not only proved that it could and should continue on indefinitely, it
was one of the best editions in its history thanks to a canny lineup of films
ranging from all-time classics to recent critical favorites, a lineup of guests
that included the likes of Oliver Stone, Spike Lee, Brie Larson, Bennett Miller
and Patton Oswalt, the unveiling of a statue of Ebert outside the festival’s
home base, the majestic Virginia Theatre, and the cathartic opening night
presentation of the Ebert documentary “Life Itself” accompanied by
the premiere presentation of a deleted scene focusing on Ebertfest.
Those are
some mighty big programming shoes to fill, but, on the surface, it seems as if
the Ebertfest organizers have put together a collection of films for this
year’s event, running April 15-19, that is just as strong—a provocative and entertaining slate of titles from around
the world that includes the most recent works from two of the most audacious
filmmakers in the world today, a number of recent art-house favorites (including
the winner of this year’s Foreign-Language Film Oscar), advance screenings of
two highly anticipated independent films from former festival honorees, a
couple of strong older titles and the requisite silent film, once again shown
with a live musical accompaniment from the Alloy Orchestra. In addition to the
films themselves, filmmakers, actors, scholars and critics (including yours
truly) will be on hand to participate in discussions after the screenings and
during panel talks in the mornings of April 16-17 at the Illini Union (1401
Green St. Urbana, IL).
Here is a
brief overview of the titles playing at the 17th annual Ebertfest. For more
information on the films, guests, ticket availability or any other information,
please go to the festival website.
APRIL 15
“GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE”: This year’s festival kicks
off with the latest masterpiece from one of the all-time greats of the cinema,
the always-provocative Jean-Luc Godard. The film itself consists of his usual
stew of concerns—love, death, war, cinema and
the painful breakdowns of communication, romance and self in a world
increasingly isolated from itself, albeit with a little more comedic flair than
he has displayed in some of his more recent works (even indulging in a little
bit of toilet humor for good measure). This is all fascinating stuff on its own
but what truly makes it unforgettable is the stunning 3-D photography that he
and cinematographer Fabrice Aragno have utilized to tell the story. It sounds
like a joke but both in technical terms (including one moment—you will know it when you see it—that literally defies description) and in their use of the
added dimension to bring something more than simple visual glitz to the proceedings,
it puts every other use of the process that I have ever seen to shame. Heloise
Godet, one of the film’s co-stars, will be there to discuss this film, and,
trust me, there will be plenty to talk about afterwards. (7:00 PM)
HAROLD RAMIS TRIBUTE: This year’s festival is being dedicated to the memory of
Harold Ramis, who, before passing away in February, 2014, served as one of the
key architects of the revolution of American comedy on the stage and screen
that began in the ’70s and which continues on to this day. “SCTV,”
“National Lampoon's Animal House,” “Caddyshack,”
“Stripes,” “Ghostbusters,” “Groundhog Day“—any one of those credits would be more than enough on which
to base an entire career, but as a writer, director and performer, Ramis had a
hand in all of them and many other equally worthy projects to boot. (If you
haven’t seen the woefully overlooked “Stuart Saves His Family” yet, I
implore you to seek it out right now and prepare to be blown away by how funny
it is and how thoughtful it is in its look at the effects of corrosive familial
dysfunction.) To pay tribute to Ramis’ life and career, the festival has put
together a celebration that will include clips from his considerable
filmography (Oh please, let there be one of his portrayal of Allan “Crazy
Legs” Hirschman from “SCTV”…) and on-stage reminisces from his
wife, Erica Ramis, and colleagues Trevor Albert and Laurel Ward. (9:30 PM)
APRIL 16
“A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH
REFLECTING ON EXISTENCE”: One of the favorite filmmakers in the history of
Ebertfest has been Swedish director Roy Andersson, whose surreal and darkly
funny epics “Songs from the Second Floor” and “You, the
Living” played (in 2001 and 2010, respectively) to audience reactions that
ran the gamut from bravos to bafflement. (The former had an equally memorable
Q&A session from two of the actors who appeared on stage afterwards—one of them never spoke a single word in the film and
continued that streak throughout the Q&A as well.) Although one could make
glib comparisons between Andersson and the likes of Dali, Bunuel and Tati, to
name a few, the fact of the matter is that he is a true original and a
filmmaker seemingly incapable of coming up with a banal, run-of-the-mill image
and this film, a collection of 30-odd comedic vignettes focusing on love,
aging, death and other light topic–several of which involve a pair of sad sack
novelty salesmen, promises to be a fitting conclusion to the loose trilogy
begun with those two previous works. Producer Johan Carlsson, who worked on all
three of the films with Andersson, is scheduled to appear for a talk
afterwards. (1:00 PM)
“MOVING MIDWAY”: In this fascinating 2008
documentary, film critic-turned-filmmaker Godfrey Cheshire ventures to Raleigh,
North Carolina to visit Midway Plantation, a structure that was built before
the Civil War and where he spent many a childhood weekend visiting cousins. One
of them, now the owner of the place, decides to combat the urban sprawl just
outside its once-secluded doors by devising a plan to lift up and transport the
entire structure from its present location to a more peaceful spot. While
chronicling this effort, Cheshire digs into his family history and makes some
startling revelations that force him to reconcile the romanticized notions of
the past—both personal and cultural—with the darker realities lying just beneath the surface
that continue to reverberate to this very day. Cheshire will be on hand to talk
after the screening. (4:00 PM)
“THE END OF THE TOUR”: One of the more notable
successes at this year’s Sundance Film Festival was the newest work from
director James Ponsoldt, who visited Ebertfest two years ago with the stirring
coming-of-age drama “The Spectacular Now.” Based on the memoir from Rolling Stone writer David Lipsky (Jesse
Eisenberg), it chronicles the memorable few days that he spent with acclaimed
author David Foster Wallace (Jason Segel) following the publication of his
landmark novel “Infinite Jest” in 1996. Of course, most people going
into the film will know that Wallace would kill himself 12 years later, but
rather than spend its time foreshadowing that event, Ponsoldt is more
interested in the meeting of these two literary minds and examining the
struggle of Wallace to retain his normalcy in the wake of being deemed
“the voice of a generation” by seemingly everyone around him. Playing
here as a preview before its general release this summer, this screening will
include a Q&A featuring both Ponsoldt and Segel. (8:30 PM)
APRIL 17
“GIRLHOOD”: Despite the similar title,
this third feature film from director Celine Sciamma (whose previous efforts
were “Water Lilies” and “Tomboy“) has nothing to do with
Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood” other than being another excellent and
observant cinematic exploration of adolescence. This one follows the
misadventures of Marieme (Karidja Toure), a 16-year-old French girl living in a
housing project with her largely absent mother, a mean older brother and a
younger sister that she is practically raising by herself. One day she finds herself
falling in with a trio of “bad” older girls and at that point, you
may think that you know where the story is headed but you would be wrong.
Instead, Sciamma is more interested in the smaller moments that exist in the
life of every young person—regardless of race, gender or
nationality—as they go about beginning the
process of figuring out, through trial and error, who they really are and what
they really want out of life. There are a lot of coming-of-age movies out there—some very good, some very bad. This is one of the good ones
and I can almost guarantee that after seeing it, you will want to go out
afterwards and immediately download Rhianna’s “Diamonds.” (1:00 PM)
“THE SON OF THE SHEIK”: One of the most anticipated
events at Ebertfest each year is the presentation of a classic silent film,
often with a live accompaniment by the Alloy Orchestra, a musical trio that has
composed and performed such scores at festivals around the world. This year’s
title is the 1926 Rudolph Valentino vehicle that finds him playing Ahmed, the
son of a powerful sheik who falls in love with a dancing girl (Vilma Banky) who
has been promised to the evil Moor Ghobah (Montague Love) and who does not know
his true identity. When Ghobah learns of this, he kidnaps and poisons Ahmed,
telling him the the girl is nothing more than a lure for suckers like him.
Naturally, Ahmed escapes and, now filled with hatred for the girl, kidnaps her
and treats her cruelly. Will he ever learn the truth and if so, will he then be
able to rescue her for good from the clutches of Ghobah? I wouldn’t dream of
telling you but there are two things I can share—this
was one of the very first sequels ever produced by Hollywood (a follow up to
the 1921 Valentino hit) and it would arrive in theaters only a couple of weeks
after the unexpected death of its star on August 23, 1926 at the age of 31, an
event that sent shock waves throughout the world. After the screening, the
Alloy Orchestra will be on stage to discuss their approach to scoring this
particular film. (4:00 PM)
“A BRONX TALE”: When Robert De Niro offered to buy the rights to the
autobiographical one-man play “A Bronx Tale” from its largely unknown
creator, actor-writer Chazz Palminteri, in order to make his directorial debut,
it is said that Palminteri would not sell unless he was allowed to both write
the screenplay and play one of its key roles. Luckily, De Niro agreed to those
terms and the result was this wonderful 1993 film about a young kid (Lillo
Brancato) growing up in the Bronx in the Sixties who finds himself torn between
the influence of the flashy gangster Sonny (Palminteri) and his
nose-to-the-grindstone bus driver father (De Niro). The setup may sound
familiar but the results are anything but thanks to Palminteri’s skillful adaptation
of his original work, De Niro’s strong and sure work behind the camera in
evoking the look and feel of the period while telling the story in a cinematic
manner (despite showing much promise in this area, his only subsequent
directorial effort to date has been his thoroughly underrated 2006 CIA history
“The Good Shepherd“) and the excellent performances from the two
actors as well as Brancato. Palminteri and co-producer Jon Kilik, whose credits
include numerous projects over the years with Spike Lee, the “Hunger
Games” films and “Foxcatcher”, will appear after the
screening. (8:30 PM)
APRIL 18
“WILD TALES”: Revenge is the name of the
game in this wildly entertaining 2014 anthology film from Argentine
writer-director Damian Szifron (one of this year’s nominee for the Oscar for
Foreign-Language Film) centering on six tales involving people who have hit
their respective breaking points and set about getting back at their tormentors
in spectacular fashion. Actress Julieta Zylberberg, who stars in the segment
about a waitress who finds herself at a moral crossroads when the person
responsible for the destruction of her family unwittingly enters her diner late
one night, and casting director Javier Braier are both scheduled to do a
Q&A after the screening. (11:00 AM)
“IDA”: The winner of this year’s Foreign-Language Film Oscar was
this visually and emotionally stunning Polish-language drama from Pawel
Pawilkowski (whose previous features have included “Last Resort”
(2000) and “My Summer of Love“), set in 1962, about Anna (Agata
Trzebokowska), an orphan raised by nuns in a convent who is about to take her
final vows when she is ordered to go see the aunt that is her only living
relative, hard-living Communist Party official Wanda (Agneta Kulesza). When she
does, Wanda unveils a shocking secret about her roots and this sends the two of
them off on a journey to confront both the ghosts of their shared past and who
they really are. Composed largely of a series of extended shots shot in a 1.37
aspect ratio that, along with the luminous black-and-white cinematography,
quietly evokes the past without calling undue attention to itself,
“Ida” itself is a film that doesn’t overtly milk its potentially
melodramatic situation and is all the more powerful and meaningful for it.
Frankly, it doesn’t need to thanks to the two incredible performances from
newcomer Trzebokowaska and veteran Kulesza. (2:00 PM)
“THE MOTEL LIFE”: Frank (Emile Hirsch) and
Jerry Lee (Stephen Dorff) are a pair of hard-luck brothers who have shared a
lifetime of woes that have included the abandonment by their father, the loss
of their mother when they were young and a freak train accident that cost Jerry
Lee a leg. Things go from bad to worse when Jerry Lee hits and kills someone
with their car and they are forced to hole up in a grungy motel while trying to
plan their next move with only each other and their imaginations (Frank is a
natural storyteller and Jerry Lee has drawing abilities that we see depicted in
several animated sequences) to distract them from the inevitable. There are
also strong supporting turns from Dakota Fanning as the girl that Frank loved
until he dumped her after learning her terrible secret and Ebertfest veteran
Kris Kristofferson as a friend of Frank’s who gives him perhaps the closest
thing to fatherly advice that he has ever received. Dorff and Alan Polsky, who
co-directed the film with his own brother, Gabe (who also did the acclaimed
Russian hockey documentary “Red Army“), are scheduled to appear at
the screening. (5:00 PM)
“99 HOMES”: Over the years, filmmaker
Ramin Bahrani has become almost as readily identified with Ebertfest as Ebert
himself—though only 40 years old, he
has already screened four films at the festival, including the features
“Man Push Cart” (2005), “Chop Shop” (2007), “Goodbye
Solo” (2008) and the 2009 short “Plastic Bag.” This year, he
returns with his latest work, a drama about an ordinary construction worker
(Andrew Garfield) who loses his home and is forced to move himself, his mother
(Laura Dern) and his young son (Noah Lomax) into a seedy motel while desperately
trying to find a way out of his situation. Miraculously, one occurs when he
begins working for the very same shady real-estate magnate (Michael Shannon)
who is responsible for his predicament and while his plan is to use this job as
a way of getting back his home, the easy money and the dream of getting his
home back for his son is enough to distract him until he finds himself in a
position where he now has to evict people who are in the same situation where
he once found himself. Bahrani will be returning to the festival once again and
will be bringing along 13-year-old Noah Lomax to accompany him on stage. (9:00 PM)
APRIL 19
“SEYMOUR: AN INTRODUCTION”: One night at a dinner party,
actor Ethan Hawke happened to make the acquaintance of Seymour Bernstein, a
celebrated classical pianist who left the performing world at the age of 50 in
order to focus on teaching and composing, the musical areas where he felt most
at home. Over the years, a friendship would develop between the two and the
result is this fascinating documentary directed by Hawke that finds Bernstein
looking back on his life and career as he prepares for a 2012 recital that
would be his first public performance in over 35 years. Even if your working
knowledge of classical music is minimal at best, it is still possible to
appreciate this film as a loving tribute to one artist from another that says
things about the importance of the creative process that ring even more true
today in an era where a talent show or viral video can provide someone with
instant fame before they have even begun to master their craft. Bernstein
himself will be appearing on stage after the screening, along with activist
Andrew Harvey, who also appears in the film, and I suspect that at least one of
them may find themselves playing the piano for a few minutes as well. (11:00 AM)
