Documentaries examine the nation’s collapsed manufacturing base, its damaged health care system, a looming hunger crisis among the American poor, an epidemic of rape in the United States military, the American dream turned nightmare and the disastrous state of the government’s war on drugs.
Narrative entries look at financial fraud and corporate greed, unhappy young adults trying to push the reboot button on their lives and the broader theme of moral decay. “A midlife crisis as a country” is how Trevor Groth, director of programming for Sundance, sums up the dominant thematic current of this year’s festival, which starts on Thursday in Park City, Utah.
Independent film has always had a bleak streak: a desire to tell complicated stories that don’t end with everyone smiling is part of what sparked the indie movement (now pushing 40) in the first place. Perhaps the abnormally uniform mood of this year’s lineup is simply a reflection of how difficult the last few years have been, with two wars and a brutal recession representing just the most obvious aspects of the problem.
But festival organizers, including Robert Redford, Sundance’s founder, wonder if other forces are at play here, namely technology and a faster pace of filmmaking.
Yes, Sundance has always reflected contemporary society, but the view is usually blurrier than people (especially reporters looking for trends) want to admit, or at least more outdated. Historically, because Sundance films have roughly had a gestation time of three to five years, chances were high that the cultural moment they were examining had already faded.
That has now changed. Because of advances in digital moviemaking, a notable number of this year’s selections took less than a year and a half to come together. Some of the entries this year, using the latest gadgets and stripped of studio bureaucracy and complex scheduling requirements, took only four months or so to be made.
“If ever there was a crucial time for a hard, honest look at our country, it’s now — it’s no secret that we’re at the bottom of a very dark barrel — and the speed with which films can now be made is greatly helping artists to do just that,” Mr. Redford said.
John Cooper, Sundance’s director, also pointed to the speed of digital filmmaking tools, particularly home editing equipment, as having noticeably changed the festival.
“After 9/11 we didn’t start seeing films reacting to it until a few years later,” he said. “But even when the recession hit a few years after that, you felt the impact of it more quickly. From a programming perspective, we feel more tuned in to how people are feeling right now than we ever have before.”
Mr. Groth and Mr. Cooper both say that no efforts are made to mold the festival around certain themes; whatever emerges emerges. Both also insist that there is no political agenda at work in this election year (although critics of the left-leaning festival probably believe otherwise). But they do see Sundance’s role as cultural examiner as extremely important.
“Part of the reason that independent film is so important as an art form involves the special insight it gives us into America,” Mr. Cooper said. “Who are we? The honest answers are certainly not coming from television or mainstream movies.”
Sundance, which runs through Jan. 29 and showcases more than 100 feature films, sets the tone for this corner of cinema for the year to come because it functions as a bazaar for distribution companies. Last year more than 40 films were purchased, among the most ever (official records don’t exist), some of which are still unspooling in theaters.
“Sing Your Song,” a documentary about Harry Belafonte shown at last year’s festival, was released only last weekend.
There is, of course, a wide variety of films at this year’s festival that center on subjects that are happy, or at least less sobering. Julie Delpy’s
“2 Days in New York,” a follow-up to her 2007 critical hit
“2 Days in Paris,” is a witty romp co-starring Chris Rock.
“The First Time” is a funny story of two teenagers falling in love. (It is being shopped by John Sloss, the New York-based sales agent who sold
“Little Miss Sunshine” to Fox Searchlight for $10.5 million in 2006, still the festival record.)
Sales agents like happy themes, which are generally more palatable to a broad audience. But sellers are also optimistic about some of this year’s grittier selections because they are so topical.
“Moviegoers can really identify with these problems,” said Jay Cohen, a partner at the Gersh Agency. “Everybody in the world is trying to figure out who they are right now.”
Going by Sundance’s official program, which includes detailed summaries of the selected films, at least eight fall squarely into the category of “America is broken.” The most high-profile may be “The Queen of Versailles,” a documentary directed by Lauren Greenfield that looks at a Florida developer’s attempt to build a 90,000-square-foot home. (It has already spawned a defamation lawsuit.)
“The House I Live In,” directed by Eugene Jarecki, who won Sundance’s grand jury prize in 2005 for his military documentary
“Why We Fight,” tackles the failed war on drugs.
“I see a lot of movies in this year’s festival that aren’t made to be crowd pleasers but are instead made to say something about the moment,” said Tom Bernard, the co-president of Sony Pictures Classics and a longtime festival attendee.
Four films gaze intensely at corporate greed, including
“Arbitrage,” a thriller directed by Nicholas Jarecki (brother of Eugene) that stars Richard Gere as a billionaire hedge fund manager whose empire collapses because of fraud. At least 14 selections look at moral decay, among them “The Comedy,” directed by Rick Alverson, a tale of hipsters who act like spoiled children. Mr. Groth described it as “a camouflaged assault on contemporary culture” and “a carefully rendered cautionary fable for the autumn of America.”
Many movies, about 25, look at 30-somethings whose lives have come apart for one reason or another — divorce, drugs, depression — and who are trying to get back on track. Many are not as depressing as they might have been, with filmmakers tackling the topic through comedy and warm drama.
“Smashed,” directed by James Ponsoldt, stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Aaron Paul and Octavia Spencer in a story about what happens to a marriage of two alcoholics when one tries to get sober. The drama
“Nobody Walks,” directed by Ry Russo-Young, stars John Krasinski, Olivia Thirlby and Rosemarie DeWitt and looks at a liberal Los Angeles family’s unraveling.
Super Crispy Entertainment, a production company backed by Zygmunt Wilf, the principal owner of the Minnesota Vikings, and his wife, Audrey, produced both of those films, along with
“Like Crazy,” a darling of last year’s festival. “Smashed” had roughly a four-month turnaround from when the money started flowing and the film was completed, according to Jonathan Schwartz, one of Super Crispy’s principals. “Nobody Walks” also came together in a matter of months.
“That kind of timeline is outrageous,” he said, “but we were able to do it because editing software lets us work at home and around the clock.”
