THE ARTS Film Flams

Back in 1970, when the USA Film Festival was known as the Screen Generation Film Festival, Director Bill Jones and a group of critics and movie buffs gathered at Gordon McLendon’s ranch to put together the first program. Then, as now, the focus was on American films, the premise being that they were the most neglected. Bolstered by double Scotches and frequent dips in the pool, the panel viewed whatever new releases Jones had been able to secure from studios and distributors. No one got much sleep, consensus was difficult, yet in the end about a third of the films submitted made it to the Bob Hope Theater. As it turned out, this competitive procedure angered the studios. They cringed at the thought of not making the cut in Dallas, and made it clear that if the festival remained competitive it could forget about receiving major releases. Subsequent offerings like Brandy in the Wilderness and Summer Run, too bad even for the late show, convinced everyone that the studios meant business. In 1973, the competitive policy was dropped and the festival turned to the non-juried, critic’s choice format it has now. Three critics select four feature films apiece; a fourth critic is responsible for a day of short films. No satellite screenings or special programs such as most major festivals offer. Everyone gets to see everything.

In addition to new films, the critics presumably bring credibility and glamour, things the USA Film Festival did not have in the beginning. It was a low-budget, low-profile operation run by Jones and a handful of people in the SMU Broadcast-Film department. The university offered moral support and enough projectors to show films in every empty classroom on campus. One day I ricocheted from Bunuel’s Simon of the Desert to The Big Sky to a program of shorts in the depths of the Owen Arts Center to the evening screening of M*A*S*H. Other days were equally exhausting and exhilarating. It felt like a festival, even if you weren’t sure what was going to happen from one moment to the next. Cameramen and grips mingled with Park Cities matrons. Audiences got drunk on Celluloid instead of champagne.

Remarkably, the festival stayed in the black the first two years. But in 1972 it lost $25,000, a situation that led to the creation of a larger, more active board of directors responsible for raising money, giving parties, and in general seeing to it that the festival became a fiscally sound operation. As one would expect, the board was top-heavy with businessmen and socialites, most of whom also belonged to TACA, The 500 Inc., and the boards of the other major arts organizations in town. Their presence gave the festival standing in the community, to the point that it got almost as much attention in the society pages as in the arts columns. Around the country, the festival soon developed a reputation for being friendly, relaxed, and very, very comfortable. Guests were met at the airport and pampered at parties; films were shown on time; audiences were cordial, if not downright reverent. For critics and filmmakers accustomed to the frenzy of New York and Los Angeles festivals, a visit to the USA Film Festival was like a weekend in Palm Springs.

Which is all well and good. But the question remains, is it good enough? Regardless of what the festival does for visitors, what is it doing for us? Is it providing the kinds of films we would not see otherwise? Is it helping to create a more knowledgeable, sophisticated film audience in Dallas? Is it educational as well as entertaining? The answer to all of these questions has to be a qualified “No.” Qualified, because “educational” is a slippery word: One man’s pap is another man’s epiphany. Qualified, also, because I can think of a number of outstanding films that would not have played here except for the festival: Hester Street; The Wild and the Brave; Harlan County, U.S.A.; Thieves Like Us; Hearts and Minds. This year, the festival attracted several good small films, including The Boss’s Son, The American Game, and Joe and Maxi. Of the three, only Joe and Maxi, an intimate, at times voyeuristic examination of a daughter’s relationship with her dying father, could be considered unusual. Yet the overall mix of studio theatricals and independent projects was satisfactory enough to make any blanket condemnation of the festival’s policy unfair.

But the answer to the original questions must still be no. The adjectives that come to mind in connection with the USA Film Festival are “safe” and “predictable.” After 10 years, it remains essentially a middle-of-the-road event that tries to give an overview of what’s happening in contemporary American film without offending anyone. It has a format, but no real point of view. Except for an occasional Altman film and marginal offerings like George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (which defies classification as well as rational analysis), the festival avoids the innovative and controversial. In fact, the majority of the festival’s films open within a few weeks at NorthPark and the Loew’s Quad – a situation that has provoked some critics, myself included, to ask why anyone should lay out $45 for a week’s pass when, with a bit of patience, he could see the pick of the crop at considerable savings.

The answer usually has something to do with “glamour.” The USA Film Festival, we’re reminded, isn’t just a showcase for new films but an exciting media event that gives people a chance to see the stars and listen to critics and directors chat about their latest projects. It’s difficult to quarrel with this explanation. I enjoy stars as much as the next person. I adore Glenda Jackson. The issue is whether such affections should have as much effect on the structure of the festival as they seem to. Given a choice between star-gazing and seeing a provocative but unescorted film, I would gladly give up the star, unless it happened to be Glenda Jackson. The celebrity argument is rooted in a couple of long-standing and rather patronizing assumptions about Dallas audiences, namely that they buy only name brands and aren’t yet ready for grainy film and subtitles. Well, either we are the sophisticated, cosmopolitan community that the city fathers and the Chamber of Commerce is always boasting about or, at least where film is concerned, we’re a backwater. Other festivals manage to have their celebrity hoopla without sacrificing diversified programs for film enthusiasts. In addition to its first-run features, for example, the Los Angeles Film Exposition (Filmex) has series on animation, the documentary, new German films, misappreciated American films, and half a dozen other topics. The Denver Film Festival, only two years old, shows new Japanese films, experimental shorts, films by and about women, student films, films by Western filmmakers, and so on. Surely we’re as hip as Denver.

All of which says that, after 10 years, the USA Film Festival’s format is worn out. In the beginning, the festival needed a cachet to set it apart, and featuring American films was it. It was a shrewd move. But as film budgets have soared, so has the reluctance of many studios to trust their darlings to the mercies of a festival audience. Bad word of mouth can kill the marginal film, whereas the blockbusters like Star Wars and The China Syndrome, already hyped to death in the national press, have little need of festival exposure. The only exception is Cannes, which is the entry to the lucrative international market and therefore in a class by itself. To be in competition at Cannes, a film cannot have been shown at another film festival, which means that USA regularly loses out on top releases like An Unmarried Woman, Turning Point, and The Deer Hunter. So do other festivals, but they generally screen so many more films, foreign as well as American, that the losses aren’t fatal. With a more flexible, less exclusive format, the USA Film Festival might have avoided the debacle of 1978, when Cannes left it with only second- and third-rate choices.

The week after this column appears, the festival board will meet to plan next year’s festival and to consider modifying the present format. What follows might be an agenda for the meeting. The proposals are so clear-headed and practical that I can’t imagine their not being adopted by acclamation. For skeptics, I have added a few explanatory notes.

●Open the festival to foreign films as well as to the kinds of satellite screenings and special programs found in New York, Filmex, and elsewhere, all of which celebrate the richness of contemporary cinema. The work of the new German, Czech, and South American directors is only a rumor in Dallas; the festival can, should, change that. In good years, the festival could still be predominantly American; in lean years it would have a large field to draw from. This will, of course, take money and careful planning. But it ought to be a goal of the festival instead of a possibility. Some of that money might come from eliminating the midyear “Great Actor Retrospective.” Charl-ton Heston is a nice fellow, but we can catch Khartoum and Ben Hur on the tube.

●Continue to solicit work from independent filmmakers, including those who work primarily for television. No one knows how much independent talent exists, though the programs at this year’s Chicago and Denver festivals suggest that the pool is far deeper than we suspect.

●Having said it before, I’ll say it again:Change the critics more often. We’ve hadCrist, Alpert, Knight, et al. for eight years.All critics have their biases and blindspots; it would be nice to be exposed tosome new ones. Suggestions: Kael, Kauff-mann, Simon, Sarris.

●Critics should be prohibited, underthreat of physical violence, from bringingfilms they’ve not seen to the festival.Regardless of the circumstances, the practice makes nonsense of the critic’s-choiceformat, not to mention what it says aboutthe festival’s national image.

●Expand the board of directors to include more film professionals (filmmakers, technicians, film historians, critics). The board is top-heavy with business people and socialites. While no one should underestimate the contributions of an active, well-connected board, it’s foolish to neglect the potential contributions from people who are currently working regularly in the film industry.

●Set aside general-admission tickets for each screening, instead of encouraging, almost requiring, that everyone purchase a week’s pass. As comforting as it may be to sell out the house a month in advance, it is also important to have the diverse audience that a more flexible ticket policy makes possible. In any case, not one program in this year’s festival was a sellout, and most afternoons the Bob Hope was barely half full.

●If the festival continues to be exclusively American, at least consider moving it from the spring to the fall in order to take advantage of the pre-Christmas releases. Sure, that would mean competing with opera season, symphony season, Cowboys season, and debutante season. It might also be an opportunity to cultivate a different audience.

After 10 years, the USA Festival has become a Dallas (some would say North Dallas) institution. Barring disaster, it is not going to go away. Nor should anyone want it to. It has a definite role to play in the cultural life of Dallas. Speaking as someone who’s attended every festival and nearly every film, I say the time has come to play that role more creatively.