Glasgow Film Festival 2009
LIVING in the shadow of the Edinburgh film event that the imposing John Huston once described as “the only festival that’s worth a damn” doesn’t bode well for Glasgow’s own festival ambitions. Yet, in just half a decade, the city’s film festival is beginning to show not only its worth, but also the development of a distinct voice that speaks loudly on the packed international circuit. As if Huston’s comments aren’t enough of a burden, the fact that Edinburgh hosts the longest continually running film festival in the world since 1947 certainly is. But Glasgow, what some describe as a cinephile city, has now produced the fastest growing event of its kind in Britain, with more than 25,000 visitors expected this year. Co-directors Alison Gardner and Allan Hunter, respectively head of cinema at the repertory theatre GFT and a Screen International film critic, took the filmic bull by its horns in 2005 and answered the call for Scotland’s largest city to have a sustainable film event to match its cultural status.
With a rich history of cinema on its doorstep, it’s surprising that it has taken beyond the centenary of the medium for Glasgow to claim a festival of its own. From the days of La Scala and the Glasgow Film Theatre, through to the short film society The Magic Lantern, success stories such as distribution company Park Circus and Europe’s tallest multiplex, the metropolis positively screams cine-mania. The legacy of cine-clubs and film societies that helped shape Glaswegians’ eclectic tastes over the years are not forgotten in this year’s festival, to be reclaimed in a “Cinema City” event which will project local archived footage and festival highlights onto the sites of old cinema buildings around the city.
The festival itself has grown and diversified with 11 varied venues from east to west, 15 different strands, from Frightfest to the Youth Film Festival, and around 40 events including director question-and-answer sessions. On reflection of the past four years, only now is it possible to see an identifiable character emerging that might describe Glasgow on the world festival circuit. While Edinburgh has its roots in cine-culture and criticism and London has its focus on the importance of film-makers and the films themselves, Glasgow appears to have carved out a synthesis of both capitals. The Glasgow Film Festival is best described as the Geordie academic – serious and thorough on subject matter, but still game for a few laughs. For instance, recognising in its retrospectives that not everyone wishes to discover obscure talent, but instead revisit the golden age – last year with Betty Davis and this year’s Audrey Hepburn showcase – is a smart way of satisfying public demand and introducing other artistry in a subtle way. The excellent directing talents of Billy Wilder in Hepburn’s debut for him in Sabrina (1954), the tunes of Gershwin in the romantic musical Funny Face (1957), or the immeasurable writing of Truman Capote in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) all enhance the culture that surrounds cinema.
A February date is never the best for a small festival to occupy, with the late festivals of last year privy to premieres, January’s Sundance – “Cannes in the snow”– discovering fresh talent first or sharing calendar space with a major event such as Berlin. But Glasgow now has a consistent trend of appeal and who knows where it might be in relation to the big boys in a decade or so? Perhaps Huston’s statement can be forgiven after all, because he never had the chance to watch GFF grow.
Five GFF 2009 films for our times are:
Bronson (2009). Proving that absolute unbridled aggression is not a preserve of the working class, Michael Gordon Peterson or “Bronson” is explored beyond his middle-class roots to the prison system where he became known as the most violent inmate in Britain. While Tyson (2008), another biopic exploring the embodiment of volatile masculinity might be the more popular choice at the festival, this stylised work of fiction based on fact is the superior model and closer to home in understanding the menacing violence of man.
New Town Killers (2008). Richard Jobson, the former art-punk rocker of the Skids turned film auteur, delivers an apt thriller for our credit crunch times. How far would the bored rich go for excitement and to what lengths might the desperation of the poor lead them to willingly become fodder in a despicable game? The cat and mouse cliché is given a gritty but exhilarating edge, as a desperate teenager becomes quarry for two private bankers by attempting to survive one night on the streets of Edinburgh.
Religulous (2008). Religion seems to be a taboo subject around most dinner tables these days but the forthright abilities of Bill Maher to probe for answers would have you choking on your appetiser. A champion for the non-religious, Maher’s journey is directed here by Larry Charles as he travels the world asking the difficult questions we might all wish to ask – either ourselves or those who believe so fervently in religion. Perhaps that this was the most commercially successful American documentary of 2008 offers up a fascinating insight of its own into modern beliefs.
Synecdoche, New York (2008). If you ever wondered what the mind of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, could expunge without the influence of a controlling director then ponder no more. In his directorial debut, he has Philip Seymour Hoffman play a theatre director entangled in a final masterpiece: an aircraft hanger containing a virtual recreation of Manhattan. Alternative and parallel versions of the director’s own story and a general intertextual onion-peeling of our own ensue in a smart, funny and humanistic tale with tough questions and no easy answers.
The Age of Stupid (2009). When you go down the road less travelled in cinema by creating a monologue film, it is necessary to have an actor who can pack an emotive punch. Luckily, Pete Postlethwaite gives a nuanced but knockout blow in his performance as “the archivist”, one of the few survivors in the climactically devastated year of 2055. His somewhat enforced vocation is to recount the processes, folly and inaction which led to the eventual victory of global warming over humanity in the hope that some – read contemporary society – might find the information of use.
Andrew McWhirter
The Glasgow Film Festival runs until February 22. For further details visit: www.glasgowfilmfestival.org.uk
