Will Park City kill Sundance?
As the post mortems flow in on the Sundance Film Festival from around the world, the scores on the quality of the films has been mixed. But one signal is coming through digitally clear, Park City bites.
John Anderson of Newsday pulled no punches:
Sundance has its problems. It has seldom been as apparent as it was this year how much the 16-year-old event has outgrown tiny Park City, a place whose townwide operating ethos is unbridled greed. Restaurants print special, extortionary menus just for the festival; anyone with a few square feet of space rents it for parking (there is virtually no free parking in Park City). Drafty hotel rooms go for exorbitant amounts, and the general tenor is of loathing for the attendees. ... Between the town and the festival's lack of influence on it, the entire event has been skewed toward people for whom price is no object, and away from the needy artists whom the festival is supposed to support.
Anderson says the fest-closing anti-war concert film, CSNY/Deja Vu, by Neil Young (above) was a "finger in the eye to conservative Utah. Whose inhabitants, this year, more than deserved it."
2 Comments:
Glen your insight on Sundance shows that your research is lacking. It seems your relying only Mr. Anderson anti Park City retoric!
Did you even take the time to visit the people on the streets in Park City? Did you talk to the festival goers? I wonder if you met the 80 year old lady from Turin, Italy that comes year after year, by herself - just to watch the films?
I was lucky enough to drive a taxi during the festival and I must tell you the people I drove around enjoyed the festival and the people of Park City! Though much angst was heaped on the greedy cab companies from SALT LAKE CITY who came up the mountain and clearly were just in it for the dollar!!! A forty dollar cab fee to go a couple of blocks??? (this happened more often the not). I wonder how the Outdoor Retailers felt when they found themselves without rides in the valley while greedy SALT LAKE cabs were chasing the Sundance dollar??
You might also want to reevaluate your preconceived ideas that UTAH is completly conservative ---- if you have ever ventured out of the Valley you might notice that Park City is a little more liberal than you think.
Yes this years festival was a challange - record snow fell through out the 10 days and yet you fail to point out that Park City, the gov't and people worked night and day to pull off the most successful festival to date!
Hats off to Park City!!! And Glen next year you might just want to interview someone that actually went to the festival, just make sure they didn't just step out of a Salt Lake CAB!!
Wow, I liked Mike's response better than Glen's article.
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