It’s normally not my policy to piss off drunk people, but at Sundance everyone is drunk so it’s not like I could help it. That, coupled with the fact that I’m a former waitress myself, which makes me think I can relate to the labors of the Park City service industry during the insufferable invasion of “film-industry types” that personifies this film festival for many who live here, made me think I was in my place to defend a restaurant hostess who, according to some martini-swilling studio executives, was taking way too long to seat them.
“Obviously she has no idea who you are,” the one said to the other.
“Obviously,” the other said to the one.
“Give her a break,” I intervened. “She’s working hard.”
And this right here was my mistake, because who am I to interrupt their conversation, even though they were having it loud enough to heard from the ski lift passing overhead
“Really, who the fuck are you?” one or the other asked me.
And I tried to think of something that would justify their respect and dissipate the heavy air of anger that flowed toward me like a redirected evacuation plan. I’m somebody, aren’t I? I’m a writer whose book got bought by Paramount and who just entered into a partnership with a movie star to produce it for film or television. I’m a radio commentator and a syndicated columnist, that makes me important, right?
“I used to wait tables, is all,” I said. “Give her a break.”
And with that, astoundingly, they did. Because here at Sundance people pride themselves on their imperviousness to who you are. They replace the calculated cache of being unimpressed with importance with the calculated cache of being quite impressed with authenticity. The waitstaff at the very authentic Morning Ray Café, for example, used to wear T-shirts during the festival, the fronts of which blared, “Do You Have Any Idea Who I Am?” while the backs answered, “Good, We’re Even.” But now even those are passé, as the film-industry types all flocked to the place to prove their imperviousness to people who are unimpressed with them.
When I first started coming to Sundance 10 years ago, I was afflicted with “celebrity blindness” and couldn’t recognize a famous person if he walked right next to me for three straight blocks, as was the case with John Turturro in 1996. I didn’t see him because I was too busy seeing other things, like the Rice Crispie treats as big as bicycle seats in the window display of the candy shop on Main Street.
Now I’m a little better. Now I am at least able to recognize someone who is famous for some reason or another, though their actual name may never make it to my brain. Yesterday I was standing at the entrance of Park City’s Holiday Cinema with my friend Julie Bookman, who runs the Margaret Mitchell House, one of the most venerated literary institutions in the country. But Julie was not here to impress these people with who she was. She was here to don a headset and hold the door and work the festival like any other authentic art plebe who loves film would love to do. And about five times while I was talking to her, I would point out a famous face as it passed by and say, “That’s that guy! You know, the guy, who was in the thing!” and she would know.
At the end of her shift she roped me into trying to crash the very controversial movie Hounddog, a dark story of abuse, violence and Elvis Presley obsession in the rural South. It was filmed in North Carolina and stars America’s most darling of all Southern natives, the 12-year-old Dakota Fanning, whose character is violently raped in the course of the story. Even for Sundance it was a shocker, to have a 12-year-old play a graphic rape scene, and not just any 12-year-old, but Dakota Fanning. On the streets it was referred to as “The Dakota Fanning Rape Movie.”
“You have to see this movie,” Julie insisted.
“I have to see this movie,” I insisted at the door when we got there, because the fact is I didn’t have a ticket and the showing was sold out. Julie, now, she had a ticket. As a volunteer at the festival, she got to go stand in the special roped-off section reserved for important people. Me, on the other hand, with my measly press pass and my measly syndicated column and my measly book deal and my measly film deal, I was still standing there at the door when Julie breezed by me on her way inside. “I’ll save you a seat if I can,” she promised.
Desperate, I turned to the Sundance volunteer working the door and resorted to the only tactic I had left.
“Do you have any idea who I am?” I pleaded. At that the volunteer smiled, shook her head, and quietly closed the door.
This article appears in Jan 31 – Feb 6, 2007.
