I watch films to find answers.
The answers to what happens to us, why we are here, who we're meant to be. Wim Wenders probably put it at its simplest in his latest oeuvre, Beautiful Days of Aranjuez, by having one of his characters utter the simple line "Where, what, who?"
Cinema sometimes gives me the answers through a film, and at other times the solution comes in the figure of a filmmaker, an actress or a festival director. At this year's Venice Film Festival -- La Mostra Internazionale del Cinema di Venezia, in Italian -- the answer has come from many different sources. And I'm not even 24 hours into it!
On the morning I arrived, with an incredible door to door transfer -- or rather airport to hotel water taxi organized by Book Water Taxi Venice, I didn't manage to make the midday press screening of the opening film. I knew I just needed to watch Damien Chazelle's much anticipated third feature La La Land, featuring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. But not to worry, missing the morning screening only meant that I'd actually get to watch the film with a real crowd, at the opening ceremony later that evening. A real cinematic treat!
Damien Chazelle, center, with Emma Stone
At the press conference for La La Land, I was impressed by Chazelle's depth and Stone's easygoing, down to earth ways. It's undeniable that musicals are a part of our culture these days, from Rent, which started the resurgence in my humble opinion, to Glee, to the various incarnation of dance films geared towards teenagers. I mean, Broadway shows alone are responsible for some of the highest revenues in NYC! But these ain't your mama's musicals! No, they have reinvented themselves, or rather, the artists behind these works have reinvented and transformed the art form.
Being actual doesn't mean standing still in the here and now, but rather moving ahead of our times and figuring out new ways to make, what has already been made probably millions of time. It's true that most film plots revolve around seven scenarios, and yet think about it, we can watch films from now until eternity, and still find new magic in the genre.
Among the highlight of the comments made during the early afternoon press conference were praises from the media about the opening sequence of the film, which Chazelle admitted was inspired by the most "iconic traffic jam in movies, in 8 1/2" by Fellini, and that "idea of being trapped and you resort to fantasy in real life, it's what I wished I could do in real life -- dance." The film also draws inspiration from typical things Los Angelenos make fun of, complain about, especially those who are transplanted to the city as Chazelle was, like "the traffic, the terrible parties and the celebrity aspect," he admitted.
Stone chimed in asking us to remember the words Conan O'Brien uttered when he retired from the Tonight Show. "He said to 'let go of cynicism'. Thats the ugliest quality. That's what Damian is about," she explained further, this idea of trying to teach young people to let go of that. To dream the magic of the movies, I'll add myself, as an afterthought.
Paolo Baratta greets Sonia Bergamasco, as Venice festival director Alberto Barbera looks on
The evening celebrations were hosted by Italian actress Sonia Bergamasco, a classy breath of fresh air in a beaded, strapless nude colored gown. Her opening remarks about being torn at such a time, between "our celebration of cinema and the pain we feel for the victims of the recent earthquake victims," where right on point. Though coming into the festival I learned that the opening gala dinner had been cancelled due to this Italian tragedy, I have found that the celebration of cinema played in concert with the pain. Our emotions are right on the edge, and a good cry, or laugh at the movies is exactly what we need. As Italians in particular, as humans in general.
Bergamasco also pointed to a familiar face on the big screen, the image of Eleonora Duse, the first actress to make the jump from theater to the moving pictures, nearly a hundred years ago. Bergamasco reminded the audience that Duse called cinema "the glass that sees through souls" and perhaps that's why I personally look to movies to help me find the answers.
Paolo Baratta, President of La Biennale di Venezia said three words that made me cry, "grazie alla stampa" -- thanking the journalists for their support. Classy, but then he's the kind of man who although rushing from one event to the next, will always give way to a woman, in a gentlemanly way. I know, because I shared an elevator with him once.
Jerzy Skolimowski and Alberto Barbera on the opening ceremony red carpet
The evening also belonged to Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski, who was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievements, the first of two at this year's festival. Roman Polanski once predicted that "Skolimowski will stand head and shoulders above his generation" and at a press conference earlier in the day, Skolimowski made a wondrous confession. He said:
"Most of my films dealt with outsiders, I care about people who are on the margins of society. About those who are called losers, who cannot find really a place in their life. I was an immigrant myself for many many years so I know how one feels being forced to leave your own country and find a new place. This is one of the greatest problems of our time."
I'd noticed a dashing looking man in the crowd earlier that evening, other than the sultry Sam Mendes of course who heads the Competition jury this year. When the mystery man, who turned out to be Jeremy Irons, walked onto the stage to hand Skolimowski the prize, I saw that he was wearing a daring fashion combination of knee length black Nehru coat and a white Mandarin button jacket underneath, which of course he carried off to perfection.
But a film festival opening night is nothing without the perfect film. Venice has that down to a science, as most films that have kicked off past editions of the festival have ended up as Oscar winners, or at the very least Academy Awards pretenders. And La La Land is history repeating, once again.
I loved La La Land. Deeply and unabashedly, I laughed, cried and I felt like I was riding a cinematic rollercoaster, complete with loud music and neon lights. Gosling is the modern day, thinking woman's Fred Astaire, a stylishly handsome, debonair anti-hero who can bring on the funk in one instance, but also tear the audience down to a sobbing mess in the very next scene. Stone sells us on her actress, we make her humiliation ours and buy her journey. Her dreams, his dreams, they are our dreams.
Just as Chazelle had admitted earlier in the day, "everyone who's ever had dreams has a memory of that dream being shattered."
So "here's to the ones who dream" -- grand, cinematic, technicolor dreams!
Images courtesy of La Biennale, used with permission.