On Friday afternoon only hours before the Opening Night of the New York
Film Festival (do you hear the trumpets?), I was not going to the Ball.
Having been told that I would not be given an invitation because I was
a mere and scuzzy press person and the Festival only invites donors, patrons,
stars and respectable people, I felt like your garden-variety Cinderella.
I was not rich, not a star, barely respectable.
Those who organize the festival keep saying things like, "there are
too many of you cyberfolk, and the internet is so....so..." They can't
find the word, but what they mean is "obscure, unintelligible, arcane."
Which is sort of how I feel about most of the films they're showing, so
I guess you could say we both suffer from a sympathy gap.
Anyway, my fairy godmother/web-mistress Mayra appeared on my computer screen
and waved her magic wand and, voila! A little card all sparkly and silver
that said "Invitation for One to the Utterly Exclusive Opening Night
Big Bash for Big Egos at our Big Night...." or something like that.
Then the same fairy godmother/web-mistress waved her wand again - voila,
voila! - little black dress, pretty pumps, flashy earrings - everything
but a tiara. So I strolled to the corner where my yellow cab chariot screeched
to a stop and I told the driver (who was a Pakistani mouse in livery), "Tavern
on the Green, please" and off we sped. I swept out of the cab - I
mean, chariot - and waltzed through the door, flashing my little silver
card. It was magic, and the sea of posh patrons parted for me to approach
the bar.
There I was among the glitterati - 1,000 of New York's most ambitious film
lovers. (The ambition has to be there to manage to get an invite to this
joint.) I was dazzled by the glow of Max Factor and Revlon. I was impressed
by the stentorian tones of film critics who have yet to publish a single
word. I nodded wisely at statements of producers who said, "We're
in development at Tri-Star." I couldn't believe how exalted it all
was.
Then I remembered why I came. No, not to meet Prince Charming. I was looking
for Wim Wenders. Because Wim is the kind of filmmaker that the New York
Film Festival specializes in. Deep, long, and metaphysical. Mostly long.
(Remember it was the NY Fest that inflicted the New German Cinema on you
only 20 years ago.) But Wim has survived that flash-in-the-pan stuff, and
I figured he wanted to see all these movers and shakers too - maybe to find
financing for his next film. Right? Right.
"Wo ist Wim?" I asked one of the festival organizers. No answer.
She just looked at me like I was from cyberspace.
"Wo ist Wim?" I asked a critic. "Oh, he's over there talking
to Jim Hoberman from the Village Voice." I looked but J. Hoberman
was as intelligent as ever and talking to nobody.
"Wo ist Wim?" I asked William Wolf. "Oh, he's going to come
to my class and dazzle New Yorkers with his German charm," said Bill,
adding that most of his guests are quite reliable.
"Wo ist Wim?" I asked one of the enthusiastic dancers cutting
a rug in front of the Lester Lanin Orchestra. "Vim?" she yelled
above the dulcet refrain of "When they begin the Beguine." "I
got vim - I got vitality! You too straight to dance with me?"
I waltzed away by myself. Try as I might, I found no Wim. If he were in
New York, he'd be among his own filmmaking kind. Standing beneath the tree
sipping Grand Marnier, I surveyed the crowd. No Wim. Not even anybody
wearing white, as Wim does. Just a mass of chattering homo sapiens looking
like a very toney funeral.
The clock struck. Dong, dong, dong... before it hit its twelfth dong, I
was outta there. Into my cab, my dress turned to rags, leaving my borrowed
slipper on the green indoor/outdoor carpeted entryway of Tavern on the Green.
Will Wim find it? Will he say, "An American friend - perhaps from
Paris, Texas - named Alice, who lives in cities and on occasion floats on
wings above Berlin - she fled. To her I will explain the essence and meaning
of festivals. If the shoe fits, will she wear it?"
As they say in the New York Film Festival Press Conferences - that's a good
question.
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