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Jan 18 2008

Old Friends and New Faces

By Doreen Ringer Ross

It was a beautiful day in Park City, chilly and brisk with light snow flurries.  I know this from the drive over to the Eccles.  Otherwise, I spent most of the day inside a movie theater.  The first thing we saw was The Yellow Handkerchief…a lovely humanistic film about trust and letting people in.  Great performances, especially William Hurt whose face always says so much more than could ever be written into a script.  I always fall in love with his characters.  The film was richly musical, brilliantly music supervised by Sue Jacobs and scored by Eef Barzeley (from Clem Snide) and Jack Livesey (who scored SherryBaby).

The Yellow Handkerchief may be an independent film but it has three veteran Academy Award winners attached to it…producer Arthur Cohn, actor William Hurt, and cinematographer Chris Menges.  It seems that indie films are not just a point of departure into the mainstream, they are the coveted domain of those prominent in the mainstream too.  Why?  As Arthur Cohn said from the stage “A film should add something to your conception of your life.”

photo Pictured (l-r): BMI’s Linda Livingston, Agent Seth Kaplan, Composer of Yellow Handkerchief Jack Livesey, Composer of Yellow Handerchief Eef Barzeley, Doreen Ringer Ross, Manager Ed Gerard, Music supervisor of Yellow Handkerchief Sue Jacobs

One of the films I was most eager to see at Sundance this year was “The Guitar” directed by the beautiful Amy Redford.  David Mansfield did the score including all the behind the scenes guitar work. He kept telling me about his journey working on this film over the past year.  He was on it for a long time because of production delays and all the on camera guitar performances.  My dear friend, Tracy McKnight, music supervised it and I got the feeling that this film was an inspired labor of love by all involved. 

 

photo Director Amy Redford (“The Guitar) and BMI’s Doreen Ringer Ross

One would think that Robert Redford’s daughter would enjoy all the benefits that nepotism provides but Amy really made this film on her own and she did a fantastic job.  It was nice to see her legendary dad slip into the theater in the role of supportive parent.  He must have been so proud. The film was very well received.  After the screening, Tracy McKnight, Linda Livingston, and I went over to “The Guitar” party on Main Street to congratulate Amy.  Tracy discovered a box of yummy looking candy there and popped a piece into her mouth only to discover that it was stuffed full of Hennessy cognac (one of the party sponsors.)  There was nowhere to spit it out so she had to chew and swallow it and I wish you could have seen her face.

From there we went walking up Main Street which was packed.  I ran into a bunch of old friends and marveled at all the new faces in town. We stopped in at a pre-premiere party for Michael Keaton’s film The Merry Gentleman, another film that Tracy music supervised.  Since the film was shot in Chicago the party was hosted by the Illinois film commission…very nice people.  From there, we went on to the premiere of the film…which was Keaton’s directorial debut in addition to starring in it as a suicidal hit man.

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