Sunday, May 12, 2002
10:29am
Well, this was bound to happen eventually: the precision with which the festival has been coming off has fallen apart, if only for a moment. The 10:30 screening of Sweet Smell of Success has been cancelled -- something about a scheduling conflict, and they need the auditorium to set up for the evening's awards ceremony. So that explains the teamsters hauling equipment around.
I was very disappointed with the new Broadway adaptation of Success -- it's been turned, awkwardly, into a musical -- and I'd missed a week of screenings of the original 1957 Burt Lancaster/Tony Curtis movie at the Film Forum (one of the few revival houses left in the city) when the play debuted, so I'd really been looking forward to finally having a chance to see the film. Guess I'll have to resort to video and the small screen.
When I turn in my ticket, the nice festival people give me a Tribeca Film Festival t-shirt in compensation. So it's not a total loss.
How to fill the morning?
11:56am
I wait on line for a screening of Suture, for which I snagged a last-minute ticket -- anything before noon, particularly on a Sunday, is simply an ungodly hour for most New Yorkers, which is probably why there were a few seats still available.
I've been meaning to check out The Screening Room, where Suture is playing, for some time. This combo restaurant/theater runs a regular Sunday Breakfast at Tiffany's brunch, which includes the meal and the movie, which sounds intriguing -- I wonder if they let you bring your mimosas into the theater. Coincidentally, Tiffany's is the film online voters at tribecafilmfestival.org picked, prior to the festival, as the movie that best represents NYC, and it will receive a special screening on Sunday night, the very last screening of the festival, actually.
1:46pm Suture's codirectors, Scott McGehee and David Siegel, are on hand to answer questions after the film, and it certainly lends itself to much discussion. A Twilight Zone-esque noir, it revolves around a pair of brothers, Vincent and Clay, who look so alike that they are easily mistaken for each other. When Vincent tries to fake his own death by attempting to kill Clay, Clay instead ends up with amnesia, and, thanks for Vincent's machinations, ends up recovering Vincent's life. What elevates the film beyond the simple potboiler it could easily have been is the clever casting: Vincent is played by a white actor, Clay by a black one (Dennis Haysbert), and so the issues of identity the film explores become much more fascinating and much more complicated. Instead of merely asking the audience to wonder "What makes me who I am?", Suture also wants us to consider how much of who we are is tied up in what other people assume we are based upon our physical appearance. The discord between our outward aspect and what others take from that, and how we really are is at the heart of Suture, and McGehee and Siegel admirably keep the film this side of gimmicky.
Suture dates from 1994, and their resume gets better: Last year, McGehee and Siegel codirected and wrote The Deep End and produced The Business of Strangers. With this kind of fascinating and slightly disturbing track record, I can't wait to see what they give us next.
3:10pm Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones got two screenings earlier today, private showings for children and families affected by September 11. Now the last screening of the film is about to begin, a fundraising event for The Children's Aid Society, which offers a broad range of assistance to city kids, from adoption services to recreation opportunities. So I head down to the Tribeca Performing Arts Center, to see what I can see. No press is allowed into the screening, but there's supposed to be a little parade of kids in Star Wars costumes entering the theater, and that could be cute. [my Clones review]
3:27pm
I either missed the costume parade, or no one dressed up except for the one half-hearted Boba Fett I saw. The red-carpet arrivals are around on the other side of the building, though -- maybe the costume kids entered that way. But there's plenty gawking to be done over here, too. Lots of celebrities, major and minor, have come out for the screening (they're who can afford the $500 and $1000 tickets, I guess), and they're waiting on line like everyone else. I spot Denis Leary, who is much taller than I thought he'd be.
3:35pm
There's not much else to see, so I decide to call it a day -- to call it a festival, I guess. As sheer, perfect, dumb luck would have it, I see Jane Rosenthal -- Robert DeNiro's partner in Tribeca Productions and cofounder with him of the festival -- talking to someone on the corner of Chambers Street and Greenwich Street. So I wait my turn and just as she's about to go, I say hello to Rosenthal and thank her for the festival. I tell her how great an experience it's been and that this is "just what the city needed," and she says "Yes!" in that "Yippee! I'm vindicated!" way.
3:41pm
I walk back up Greenwich Street toward the Tribeca Film Center, and you'd never know an enormous film festival had been obsessing the neighborhood for the last five days. The street is quiet -- a lonely taxicab or two passes, trolling for fares and having no luck. A young woman walks a dog, feeding it bits of her sandwich as they pass me. A mom and dad and their small child sit on a sidewalk bench, and the kid is blowing soap bubbles into the sky. If this had been the scripted closing shot of a happy-ending movie, it couldn't be more perfect. I can almost hear the director yelling "Cue the bubbles!" We've come through hell, but the sun is shining and the children are frolicking and though not all is right with the world at the moment, we're working on getting there.
