Tallahassee Film Festival

It seems as though young filmmakers of today have forgotten the importance of actually watching films. Maybe you think that’s a bold statement for someone whose name doesn’t appear on this blog entry as Leonard Maltin, but I assure you, I can back it up. Let’s start with me. Yes, I’m an aspiring director; no, I don’t have Hollywood street cred. Do I think I’ve seen more films than most of the young Hollywood directors though? Yes.

So why is that important? Art is imitation. Some might say the highest form of imitation, but imitation nonetheless. Having the Rolodex of films-throughout-history in your head then, comes in very handy when you decide to make your own one day. Granted, imitation when done right can be incredible, but the best films are those that-while maybe inspired by others, still remain unique to any viewer in any generation.

Of course the obvious examples of the unique-but-timeless style, and ones that any standard film institution would likely promote, are probably something like Godard’s Breathless, Truffaut’s The 400 Blows or Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin. While it’s true, these are some great ones, I might argue these are really only notable because they are the films that ushered in new styles, techniques and even new genres. Sadly, it’s inspired filmmakers like Alain Renais, Abbas Kiarostami, Ken Loach and Michelangelo Antonioni that get overlooked during such discussions, when they did (or do) just as much to create new styles of filmmaking as any Godard or Eisenstein.

The real problem is that today’s budding filmmakers no longer seem inspired by any of these artists. Take for instance, the brilliant David Gordon Green. After 2000′s George Washington, I viewed All the Real Girls with an appreciation unlike many other filmmakers around that time. Green seemed obviously inspired by the work of Loach, Renais and even Antonioni and had begun to inspire me as a director to want to tell real stories and tell them unflinchingly and with that curious dark, Southern Comfort undertone permeating from the screen. When Undertow was released, I was elated. Having not only followed (as much as possible, by virtue of this internet thing) the production of the picture, I was transfixed in front of the frames when I finally saw it in the theater. Snow Angels was another good film in his repertoire. In 2008, continuing my role as a stringent DGG fan, I was betrayed. Pineapple Express.

So I began to wonder, is he bucking against his own instincts as a director? Is he simply cashing in during these financially meandering times? Is he fulfilling a contract he was trapped in by some previous picture deal? The answer doesn’t really even matter; the fact is that Green appears to have disregarded originality, vision and inspiration for funny. And even that may be debatable.

Last year’s Tallahassee Film Festival offered a host of seemingly inspired films and as the Programming Committee Chair for 2009 I can’t wait to start watching the submissions we get. Last year, I had the pleasure of introducing, what I would consider, one of the most inspired films of the fest (out of competition), Werner Herzog’s Encounters At The End Of The World. Herzog, throughout his career has consistently produced daring and amazingly original material. Now, a Pineapple Express under his direction would’ve truly been inspiring.