Notes from the Tribute Evenings at the 2014 Santa Barbara International Film Festival
January 30, David O. Russell: I didn’t “get” I Heart Huckabees when it came out, and apparently I wasn’t alone. David O. Russell seemed almost willing to disown it, saying his life was at a bad point when he directed it and he quickly picked up on Roger Durling’s lukewarm praise for it. The clip of Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin was the bad outlier of the evening, and the best that could be said was that it was, in some unspecified way, a necessary prelude to the much better work that followed.
As for that better work, Durling grouped The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle as a related trilogy about second chances in American life. Be that as it may, the grouping reinforced the lukewarm reaction I had to Hustle: I tingled with electricity at the clips from the first two, but felt nothing from the third; it simply did not make the same emotional connection. Jennifer Lawrence was hysterical in Hustle, but in Silver Linings she was magnetic.
February 6, DiCaprio: As big as the SBIFF has become, one is reminded by nights like this of the still-amateurish level of the undertaking. The first setback for the Tributes was Emma Thompson’s canceling out of her “Modern Master Award” on the final night. I suspect that when she failed to get an Oscar nomination for Saving Mr. Banks she decided to skip the awards season in California altogether and lined up an acting job at home. Santa Barbara profits from its proximity to Hollywood, but it isn’t special enough to bring in a star by itself. Tuesday was an even bigger disappointment. After we were seated for the Virtuosos Award night, we were told from the stage that three of the seven honorees were “working” and couldn’t make it. Without Daniel Bruhl, Eve Exarchapolous and Oscar Isaac the evening lost much of its luster. Michael B. Jordan, Brie Larson, Jared Leto and June Squibb were appealing and convivial, but their respective bodies of work were meager and the evening left us looking for more. Tonight, the problem was the opposite: Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese showed up, but so did many more pass holders than anticipated, with the result that at least 100 people who had purchased tickets for the event were turned away. Including us. By allowing pass holders to show up and take a seat, without reservations, the Festival doesn’t know how many tickets it can sell. The safer, more professional route would be to sell fewer advance tickets and then fill the theater with rush tickets once it can be determined how many seats are left. The current system, which the festival cel admitted was “a crapshoot,” detracts some luster from the operation.
February 7, Robert Redford: We arrived earlier for tonight’s sold-out event, with borrowed passes, to avoid a repeat of last night’s shutout. Even so, the main hall was full and we were relegated to the balcony, which is okay if you’re on an aisle, as we were. When it started, Redford made the wait worthwhile. He was forthcoming, charming, humble, insightful, and above all seemed glad to be here. At 77, he neither looked nor sounded a day over 60. The clips from his iconic films of the ’70s brought back memories, but mainly they were opportunities to bask in his transcendent smile. Young, middle-aged, slightly older, he looked fabulous. The final highlight was an emotional Roger Durling saying that Redford had asked that he, Roger, be his trophy presenter. It was perfect: not only would any other presenter have paled in comparison to Redford, but by implicitly acknowledging Durling as a fellow festival director, it elevated the entire SBIFF.
February 8, Bruce Dern: We got free tickets from the DiCaprio fiasco, we had the night free from the Thompson cancellation, and we were downtown anyway from the SBMA cocktail party, so why not go see the final tribute, to Bruce Dern. Of course, there is the issue of the half-hour wait for the event to begin, another problem the festival should address. It is one thing if the crowd outside demands the star’s attention and she is late coming into the theater, but tonight the theater was half-full, there was no crowd outside and things could have started at 8:15 without any problem. Unlike, say, New York, the Santa Barbara crowd is docile and uncomplaining and, as Siri pointed out, everyone has a cell phone to play with in the meantime. Dern himself was good company. He didn’t have the starring roles of Redford, DiCaprio or Blanchett – the year’s other honorees – but he made something of being “the third cowboy on the right.” He had a story for every movie clip, some more interesting than others, but he more than held up his end of the bargain.
February 8, Writers Panel: By far my favorite event each year, the writers panel features five articulate, usually humorous screenwriters who seem to enjoy each other’s company. Best of all, they all seem to realize this is probably their only time on this stage, and they feel lucky, not entitled. Rather amazingly, this year’s panel featured every one of the Oscar nominees, and their experiences ranged from Bob Nelson (Nebraska), who wrote his first screenplay at 45, to Eric Singer (American Hustle), who admitted, this is the only thing he knows how to do. Most charming was Craig Borten (Dallas Buyers’ Club), who smiled readily at all his colleague’s jokes and had had to wait 20 years for his film to be made. What impressed me the most was just how hard it was to get a film made – and these were all really good films. As Eric Singer said, when everything comes together, it’s like catching lightning in a bottle.
