“But my best experience was in 1999 that was the year I was on the Dramatic Feature jury. So 2001 must have been his highlight year, right? “Actually, this sounds kind of corny,” Linklater says.
That’s why I never buy this ‘Sundance has sold-out’ noise it’s like, what are you talking about? Looking at the diversity of movies they’re showing there!”
#Slacker movie movie
I mean, I know I was somebody who people sort of ‘knew’ at that point, but they programmed a stream-of-consciousness animated movie and a lo-fi character drama that takes place in one room. I loved that experience! That kinda felt like my Sundance discovery moment it got us off to a great start with that film. “We had just finished Tape a few days before, we were showing it at a sold-out screening at the Eccles, it was being projected digitally so the movie looked amazing. I remember thinking, ‘Wow, I went from having this off little movie to coming back a few years later, with two movies that are kicking everything off.’ My greatest Sundance moment, though, was in 2001, when I got to go back with two films in one year: Waking Life, which was a premiere, and Tape. “Both of which ended up being chosen as Opening Night films, which was really flattering. “I went back in 1995 with Before Sunrise and in 1996 with SubUrbia,” he says. Over the years, Linklater has returned a number of times to the festival, showing new works and marveling at how the supportive atmosphere he found in ’91 has continued. ‘Oh, you’ve turned your back on your indie days because you made a movie for $2 million dollars and it has slightly more distribution now!’ It’s like, just shut up and make your second movie, man! So a few films got sold. “When I went there in 1991, right after the whole sex, lies and videotape phenomenon, people were already saying that: ‘Oh, there’s agents here now… Ooooh! People want to buy movies… bad!’ It’s always been a hilarious, ongoing argument that never seems to end.
“Right, the ‘sell-out’ notion,” he says, chuckling.
We really have a handful of distributors and Sundance to thank for that.”ĭespite the rhapsodizing about that Golden Age, however, Linklater is the first person to elbow the idea that the festival has turned its back on the ideals on which its built its foundation. Nobody talked about it at the time, but looking back, I do think that that period-the early 1990s-was the heyday for American independent movies. But the growth of specialty-market films and Sundance really go hand in hand. I think if it hadn’t been this mixture of people being burned out on Hollywood’s domination of the marketplace and the sort of stories that were being told-from regional films to just really out-there stuff-I don’t know that American independent film would have become what it did. “I mean, the whole wave only worked because everyone was into it. “You have to understand: they kind of created this whole world we’re living in,” the director proclaims. (“I never had that ‘aha!’ discovery moment that others had there,” he says.) But he’ll be the first person to tell you how important the festival was to both him and a generation of like-minded DIY mavericks in terms of giving a burgeoning revolution a home base. Linklater may not have been one of the young, hungry American filmmakers who became an overnight sensation because of the Park City festival. That was where everybody saw it to play there was a huge stamp of approval.” But the way Sundance works, it became like a big coming-out party. It was a second time around for that movie… It had already been a local phenomenon. When Orion Classics picked it up, we blew it up from 16mm to 35mm and then sort of ‘re-premiered’ the new print at Sundance.