NYFF: Opening Night

I know people like to rag on Central Park's Tavern on the Green, but I'm often a sucker for its simulation of old school New York charm. It's entirely possible that the fact that I've never once paid for a meal there contributes to my benevolent view of the joint, but never mind. Last night's mild weather made the Tavern's garden, festooned with hanging lamps, a particularly magical spot as the restaurant hosted the opening night party for the New York Film Festival, celebrating Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited. I've rarely felt quite so comfortable in a tuxedo. Physically, I mean.

That's right, I'm a bit old school myself: when I get an invite that says black tie, I take it seriously. You never know. If you try to attend a black tie screening at Cannes and you're decked out in evening wear and your tie is a necktie rather than a bow, you're out. I think Picasso got away with not wearing a tie, once. But even then they had to sneak him in through the back or something.

The New York Film Festival is a little more relaxed about this, but My Lovely Wife and I were a little taken aback to see just how many people did not even make an effort. I swear I saw at least three guys in drainpipe jeans and hoodies gallivanting about. I briefly contemplated picking one of these individuals at random and just stomping the crap out of him to make a point, a proposal not dismissed out of hand by My Lovely Wife, who generally tries to discourage my more aggressive leanings. But we got over it as mingling began.

Phase one of mingling involved fellow scribes. Reeler majordomo Stu van Arsdale and Reeler reviews editor Michelle Orange, whose Hoyt Renfrew cashmere skirt was the envy of My Lovely Wife. Always fun couple Charles Taylor and Salon's Stephanie Zacherek. Owen and Sharon Gleiberman. Anthony Kaufman and His Lovely Wife. Keith Uhrich. David Fear and His Lovely Wife. The man we call Filmbrain. Many more. Shop talk and movie debates ensued. You don't care. Nor should you.

Okay then. Over at the bar I ran into Raymond DeFelitta, who made the charming Two Family House back in 2000, followed by the Paul-Reiser-written The Thing About My Folks and a doc about the jazz singer Jackie Paris. DeFelitta, a terrifically nice fellow, told me he's putting together a new picture, to star Andy Garcia and Chloe Sevigny, called City Island, about the Bronx locale of the same name. Two Family House was, among other things, a really evocative outer-buroughs-New-York picture, so this ought to be one to look forward to.

Stole a few words with Tilda Swinton (whose current hairstyle has a touch of Pinups era Bowie), about the absence of Bela Tarr, who directed her in the NYFF-screening The Man From London. Tarr's hung up assembling alternate soundtracks for the release prints of the picture and hence incommunicado. She seemed thrilled that someone wanted to talk about the Tarr picture (she's also in the somewhat more prominent release Michael Clayton, starring that Clooney feller) and so we'll hopefully get to do a longer sitdown about it soon. Staying pretty close to Swinton was a quiet Bill Murray (the two actors, you'll recall, had a very memorable couple of minutes together in Broken Flowers), who I didn't speak to. But one of the scribes mentioned above was positively giddy just to stand next to him as he was passing. See, we're not all so jaded.

A couple of friends from Sundance were kind enough to introduce me to Chang Dong Lee, the director of the unusual, wrenching drama Secret Sunshine, which I saw at Cannes and is playing at the NYFF. Chang is quiet, polite, humble, and smokes really really thin cigarettes. I introduced a friend to the ever delightful Buck Henry in the hopes that they might be able to brainstorm in rescuing a particularly important piece of Henry's movie-acting ouevre from obscurity. My Lovely Wife got into a pretty involved conversation with Darjeeling costar Anjelica Huston after complimenting her on her dress. Darjeeling director Anderson (doing a typically stylish variant on the evening's dress code by rocking a blood-orange bow tie) and I spoke once again about the Fox/Film Foundation restoration of Leave Her To Heaven—said topic ate up about ten minutes of our allotted time when I interviewed him on Wednesday. Jason Schwartzman, sporting a very snazzy antique cane (he recently injured his foot playing soccer—possibly still in character as Darjeeling's Jack Whitman, who goes barefoot almost throughout) was a friendly ball of energy.

My Lovely Wife and I had arranged to leave the party at 1:30, and it was still going strong—I had to tear myself away from an energetic conversation with Film Society of Lincoln Center programmer and ace critic Kent Jones and Criterion honcho Peter Becker. A splendid night out. As for Darjeeling, I liked it even better the second time than the first and would gladly sit through it again, oh, now.

Not to get too sentimental, but when I was growing up, the two film festivals that loomed largest in my imagination were Cannes and New York. Every summer my buddy Joseph Failla and I would obsessively page through the coffee-table-book-sized Variety Cannes special edition (printed on really crummy newsprint back in the day) and marvel and chortle at the ads announcing new productions and deals. We're not the only ones who recall that spread for the movie version of "The Greatest Epic in the History of Western Civilization: Paradise Lost!!" Then, as fall approached, I'd eagerly await the Sunday Times Arts and Leisure section that had the one page ad announcing the titles for that year's New York Film Festival. And once it came I'd drool over all the movies I wasn't going to see there. 1970 was pretty good: Resnais' Je t'aime, Je t'aime and Chabrol's Le Boucher were among the picks, but I was 11, my parents weren't interested (well, actually they were interested, I guess, inasmuch as they were mortified that they had an 11-year-old kid who was bugging them to take him to see French films in New York) and I wasn't quite so inventive an imp that I could pull off that kind of thing on my own. But you understand why now, every so often, I pinch myself.

Comments

[Claire K.]

Just as a point of clarification: I wish I could claim an involved conversation with Anjelica Huston, but truly, it was more that I just boldly marched up to her without an introduction and complimented her on what really was a fantastic dress, and she responded to my presumption incredibly graciously. And then I kind of scurried away before becoming a complete pest. But otherwise, you and I have identical memories of a very nice evening.