Conclusion Successful or Safe?: The Strengths and Weaknesses of the Film Festival Network

Summary

Three of my four case studies began with a film-related anecdote. Thomas Vinterberg's IT's ALL ABOUT LOVE, Michael Moore's FAHRENHEIT 9/11 and the Coen Brothers’ INTOLERABLE CRUELTY. None of these films were chosen for their artistic qualities or because they had made a particularly deep impression on me. The choice was less cinephilic, and more circumstantial; the specific circumstances surrounding the screenings of these films at the film festivals in Berlin, Cannes, and Venice provided me with the appropriate examples to introduce my case studies.

In retrospect, it is telling that I intuitively selected films that touched upon the more ambiguous sides of the various festivals: the borderline between success and failure in the case of Vinterberg; the intertwining of political and economic interests in the case of Moore; and the Janus-faced nature of the media in the case of the Coen Brothers. Their ambiguity illustrates the fact that festivals are, to paraphrase Vinterberg, not all about a love for cinema. Of course these examples are not representative of all festival films. There were numerous films with outstanding artistic credentials that premièred within the festival circuit. Let me therefore balance this un-cinephile image that has thus far been presented by beginning this conclusion with an analysis of a great festival success, a cinematic masterpiece and my personal festival favorite. The example will also allow me to introduce the topic that will be central to this conclusion.

I was a cinephile by the time I attended the première of Todd Haynes's SAFE (UK/USA: 1995) at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 1996 and I had devoured substantial number of film classics that had further refined my taste. Yet this particular film “blew me away” like none of the classics had done before. It conveyed suspense, psychological depth, and contemporary social criticism. The cinematography and mise-en-scène were in complete harmony with the protagonist's alienation, transforming the well-known imagery of American suburbs – the geometrical grid of the streets, the well-kept lawns and lavish mansions – into a disconcerting setting, forecasting depravation instead of enduring comfort.