thenationofartists.com

By Elliot V. Kotek
(Sept. 15, 2010)

Great day in the Moving Pictures studio …

Of course, on Day Whatever of the festival, the mind begins to go and the sleep deprivation begins to kick like a goat. We’ve eaten the same sandwiches for lunch every day so far, and it’s the genuine niceness of the festival folk and local townspeeps that is getting us up each morning for more expressions of cinematic artistry.

Dustin Lance Black (he goes by Lance, just in case you were wondering) — a brilliant screenwriter who picked up the Oscar for “Milk” and has the J. Edgar Hoover script being brought to life by Clint Eastwood — came into the studio to chat about his directorial effort, “What’s Wrong with Virginia.” While the film has received some mixed reactions over the past couple of days, do not dismiss this film.

The cast is powerfully led by Jennifer Connelly’s turn as a schizophrenic mother with an ebullient personality and nothing but love to give, and supported by Ed Harris (always brilliant), his real-life wife Amy Madigan, and a young Australian (yes, another one) named Harrison Gilbertson. Only Connelly could look this beautiful while playing a woman who hedges her bets on all franchises of Christianity, loves her son to the nth degree, is sleeping with the town sheriff and struggles to keep her mental monsters in check.

Black can so deftly provide a film that feels airy, open and colorful despite the presence of the usually claustrophobic issues of Mormon bigotry, homosexuality, political corruption, schizophrenia, adultery and sexual perversion.

Black has directed on occasions prior to his recent screenwriting success, and he will direct again. That he has jumped this deeply into his first mainstream effort on a project so close to home is admirable; many of the matters included in the project are particularly personal to the director. Exciting to me is that the film is superbly cinematic, thoroughly thoughtful and has its heart in precisely the right place and in the right measures, all elements of taste that augur well for future efforts. That some people won’t identify with the film, or won’t bother to give the film the chance to engage them, is part and parcel of the subjective nature of art. What even they cannot criticize Black for doing is delivering on the details and not sticking to the beaten path.

James Caan was in the studio with director Malcolm Venville on the Keanu Reeves-produced romantic comedy “Henry’s Crime.” Caan was in fine form, displaying quick turns of phrase, and kept the entire studio on its toes. John Turturro, who has directed a “Buena Vista Social Club”-type of film about the music and artistry of Naples, was also here. His film, titled “Passione,” makes it clear that Turturro has much love for the country of his ancestors, and his impassioned conversation, hands flying to elucidate his words, is contagious. Jill Hennessy also came by to talk “Small Town Murder Songs” — her second feature to grace TIFF in recent years.

All in all, a great studio day, after which I rushed to a screening of Charlotte Rampling and Bill Pullman’s “Rio Sex Comedy” (directed by Jonathon Nossiter) and followed that up with the smart documentary “How to Start Your Own Country” — I’ll let you know more about them later; I’ve got to go eat/sleep/eat!