Looking Back on the Festival for Everyone
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

For all the predictable, pre-certified selections at this year’s New York Film Festival, there was still a notable reservoir of surprise to be found among audiences making their nightly journeys to Lincoln Center. In fact, the festival closed up shop this weekend on a high note of originality, presenting two films that, at least thus far, have not made headlines at other festivals around the world.
Audiences were breaking into hysterics Saturday night at a star-studded 9:30 p.m. showing of John Landis’s documentary “Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project” (an unexpected selection for this year’s festival schedule) which, accompanied by an appearance by Mr. Rickles himself, elicited deafening laughs — whole segments of the film were obscured by howls — and a standing ovation. Last night, Marjane Satrapi’s lovable and heartbreaking animated memoir “Persepolis,” about a young Iranian woman who comes of age during the Islamic Revolution, followed last year’s “Pan’s Labyrinth” as another unique and inspired closing night choice.
With the two disparate selections, the NYFF again reminded the city’s film community of its vitality, ushering two relatively unknown works into the national film discussion. Together, the pair closed things out on a crescendo of emotion. People either went away laughing, or moved to tears — better than yawning, that’s for sure. Of course, no one would dispute the mainstream pull of this year’s lineup. Even before the list was announced, works like the Coen brothers’ “No Country for Old Men,” and directors like Wes Anderson, Brian De Palma, and Gus Van Sant were all well-known quantities. Some complained that the festival’s 17-day run lacked a certain spark of discovery. Others could be heard lamenting even the most anticipated entries, using words like “sloppy” (“Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead”), “aimless” (“Redacted”), and “indulgent” (“I’m Not There”).
There’s something superficial, though, about this desire by so many in the press to keep score of an event like the New York Film Festival. To borrow a sports metaphor, it’s the difference between the sports writer, who reduces the game to the box score, and the sports fan, who’s interested in the experience as much as the game. Press audiences at film festivals scrutinize, evaluate, and classify, while general audiences are excited to have an artistic alternative to the new George Clooney thriller. Erin Stella, a 28-year-old from Brooklyn who attended an opening night screening of “The Darjeeling Limited,” seemed all but unaware of the polarizing critical ruckus the movie had generated among its earliest New York reviewers. “We were just happy to get in,” she said. “We had crappy seats, mind you, but we only paid $15. I used to live in Philadelphia and went a lot to their festivals because I loved seeing these new films, and hearing the directors talk about their work, and I always enjoyed the vibe of opening night. And people seemed just as excited about ‘Darjeeling,’ so by those standards it was a good opening night film.”
Mike Wezel, a 26-year-old physical therapist attending his first-ever NYFF event — one of the October 4 screenings of Josef von Sternberg’s groundbreaking silent gangster film “Underworld” — felt much the same excitement. “I had never been to a film festival before, and really, I had no idea that this whole culture was out there — that there were people who would write musical scores to old silent movies and perform live, and that there were all these people out there who would line up to see it,” he said. “It was really cool. You can tell it’s an old movie, and that it’s silent, but really, it was pretty entertaining.”
Philip Lucas, a 17-year-old from Brookline, Mass., hopped a bus to attend one of the festival’s “Director’s Dialogues,” featuring Wes Anderson. A testament to the festival’s popularity, Mr. Lucas said he had searched the festival’s Web site in dismay, trying to score tickets for the “Darjeeling” premiere only to see that the title — along with numerous others — was sold out only hours after going on sale. Still, he was overjoyed to get a chance to see Mr. Anderson in person.
“It was kind of upsetting, that it was so hard to find tickets, but Wes Anderson was really interesting, to hear about his style and what he was trying to communicate with this film, which was really different from some of the other films and something that not every reviewer recognized,” Mr. Lucas said.
Heading out night after night, it seemed like the festival had something to offer a number of different audiences. During the opening weekend, a packed house cheered for the daughter of the celebrated author Philip K. Dick, Isa Dick, who introduced a special anniversary screening of “Blade Runner.” Ms. Dick choked up as she noted how much her father had hoped, before the film’s release, that it would make a real impact on the world outside film.
If “Blade Runner” brought together a crowd of appreciators, other programs brought out the thrill-seekers. Cristian Mungiu’s daring, provocative Cannes-winner “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” about an illegal abortion performed in an oppressed country, sent a handful of people walking out of its Monday evening screening. But those who remained gave Mr. Mungiu a thunderous ovation during his postfilm question-and-answer session, where he explained how the story was steeped in real Romanians’ accounts.
There was even some controversy to be had. Brian De Palma shocked an audience late last week when he revealed that he had fought up until 24 hours before the debut of his film “Redacted” to preserve a closing montage that uses real photos from the Iraq War. Forced by his producers to black out the faces in the actual photos, Mr. De Palma poignantly reflected: “My own film was redacted.”
So the 45th edition of the New York Film Festival was ultimately far greater than the sum of its parts. Critics, like sports writers, focus on the stats; but audiences seemed particularly energized and proactive this year, seeking out the abortion-themed thriller, the Iraq drama, the rarely seen silent, and, yes, the latest Wes Anderson endeavor. Maybe that’s the fun of going to an event like this: Critics haven’t yet had time to saddle each title with a star rating and a verdict. At a festival, audiences are just fine deciding for themselves.
ssnyder@nysun.com