Los Angeles is baking under a relentless sun, air conditioners stressed to capacity, its citizens hidden away watching the tragedies unfold in Texas and New Orleans, and I have never wanted more to disappear into the lush Shangri-La of the Telluride valley. Nestled in a small remote pocket of ideal American life, Telluride is guarded by looming mountains that have been pierced, here and there, with ski gondolas and mansions built for the likes of Ralph Lauren, Tom Cruise, and Oprah Winfrey. Once a year we film folks get to visit by car or plane, and rent ridiculously pricey condos for the four-day event that unfolds during Labor Day Weekend at the start of Oscar season.
I found my first dog Jack driving up to Telluride three years ago. He had been abandoned at a gas station near the Four Corners. A friendly little mutt, he approached me for some food. I scooped him up and he’s been my stalwart companion every day since. He now has a new pal, a tiny, energetic puff of wiry fur named Luna, who before her rescue had stayed so long in the shelter in the East Valley of Los Angeles that she’s still struggling with doggie PTSD. Whenever she sees another dog she yelps, her tiny body nearly levitating off the ground with her piercing vocals. This will be her first trip to Telluride, along with Jack. I’m nervously anticipating her unmistakable yelping shattering the serene quiet of the Telluride valley every morning when I take them out for their walk. But what can you do.
The reason Telluride has become such an important step on the road to Oscar has to do with a few changes occurring at once. The first thing that happened was that Best Picture winners like Slumdog Millionaire and the King’s Speech both launched there, establishing a precedent. The second thing that happened began with the foresight of Variety’s Kris Tapley, who started attending there. Soon, the rest of us were following suit (or as he would say, “blowing up his shit”). Thus, the most important voices that help shape the Oscar race now attend year in and year out. It isn’t always easy to go to Venice, also an important stop during Oscar season, and Toronto is still a big deal but it’s big and gnarly – harder for a film to stand apart. Those are the contributing factors that help brew the perfect storm in Telluride, but there are other more important reasons why the festival is kind of a big deal: the attendees are very similar to the familiar demographic of Oscar voters: middle-ish aged, well off white folks. That makes them the ideal Petri dish to test out potential Oscar films. And indeed, in the years I’ve attended, listening to people who buy passes to Telluride and attend because they love going and love movies has been both informative and very useful. The movie that will eventually win Best Picture is usually the one that everyone likes. I’ll never forget sitting next to a white-haired old timer seeing Spotlight for the first time in Telluride. He sat there riveted to the story but afterwards he burst into uncontrollable sobs. He just sat there, crying, for about five minutes. That, more than any review I would ever read, told me a lot about how that movie would impact audiences.
When I think about Telluride, I think about how driving there is a palate-cleansing appetizer in itself. Set free on the open road through the Southwest with puffy clouds against the powder blue sky. I think about the green that is everywhere around you, the fresh and clear clean water that runs through the town’s creek. I think about early morning screenings, waiting in line with people in their goose-down vests and hiking boots for tea or coffee. That giddy feeling of knowing how lucky we are to be there, to see something no one else, or few people, have yet to see. We’re stupid lucky to be able to go there, even though anyone who has enough time to spare and money to pay for it can go too. Most of us pay for it. That is what makes it less accessible and therefore more exclusive and therefore more influential.
I’ll be leaving Los Angeles in the middle of a heat wave starting tomorrow. Flagstaff will be the first stop and then it’s onward to Telluride, arriving on Thursday. My friend Michael Grei will be coming with me to help with the doggies and we’ll be rooming with AwardsCircuit’s Mark Johnson. We have high hopes of doing all of the fun things we’re meant to do – parties, cookouts, rubbing elbows with stars – but in reality there we will be on the job, typing away, filing reviews, losing sleep, and working our tails off, mostly. It is always a challenge to work when all you want to do is pretend to be on vacation.
In so many ways, this past election has left us shattered and feeling resentment for one another. Nothing has facilitated that friction more than the internet. One thing that is nice about attending film festivals in general, or seeing any movie really, is that experience of being around actual human beings, the way we evolved to interact in groups, rather than have our isolated ids scream at each other, unfiltered and uninhibited, online. It’s essential to remember that people — like small towns, like rivers, like creeks, like mountains, like lost dogs — are meant to be experienced up close and personal. In theaters we sit elbow to elbow, we laugh together, cry together, mull out into the lobby and discuss movies together. We line up at the gondolas and listen to the chatter. We huddle under umbrellas. And sometimes we drink long into the night, stumble back to our overpriced condos, and forget all about working that night.
The Telluride lineup will drop in a couple of days. We will then know better in what direction to point our slow-moving ship. Until tomorrow, Oscar Watchers…
