Franklin Pierce lecturer gives her take on the films

The 2010 Sundance Film Festival, held in Park City, Utah, from Jan. 21-31, took on the chanticleer’s role this year with a particularly strong wake-up call for new perspectives in cinema.

The festival is recognized as the premiere U.S. showcase and market for the global production of dramatic and documentary, feature-length and short independent films currently pushing the envelope.

In streaming text across screens, festival trailers proclaim: “This is the renewed rebellion. This is the charged fight against the establishment of the expected. This is the rebirth of the battle for brave new ideas. This is Sundance, reminded.”

Actor/director Robert Redford, Sundance founder and inspiration for more than 25 years, emphasized the value of going back to the festival’s raw roots at the opening press conference: “Over the last few years, we’ve flat-lined, and we needed to get fresh again and re-create the separation between independent film and the mainstream.”

The opening-night dramatic film, “Howl,” elegantly reflected this intention. Written and directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, this unusual bio-pic fluidly integrates live-action drama, interview and animation as it recounts the obscenity case against Allen Ginsberg’s 1956 controversial poem of the same title.

While the “genre-bending hybrid” battles with questions such as what is art and what are its parameters, the filmmakers create one of the most artful films of the festival. James Franco’s young Ginsberg brings to mind the depth of soul he reveals in his 2001 TNT portrayal of James Dean.

David Strathairn, articulate star of the 2006 Peterborough production “Sense of Sight,” deserves kudos for his amusing portrayal of “Howl’s” prosecuting attorney. Hearing a reporter from the Monadnock Region was present at “Howl’s” press conference, Strathairn lit up, conversed at length about his fond memories of the area and happily signed a copy of the poetry book for Harlow’s Pub, where some scenes were shot.

Several movies vied for the kind of cinematic intensity that you may wish you hadn’t seen.

“The Killer Inside Me,” featuring Bostonian Casey Affleck and Kate Hudson, is about as sexually violent a film as one can imagine.

However, some of the eight students from the pilot Sundance course at Franklin Pierce University’s Mass Communications Department – Natalya Waye, Logan Mack, Jill McElroy, Evan Goyette, Erica Tomasewski, Ian McGinnes, Stephanie Lewis and Adam Stahl, along with second faculty member Ukumbwa Sauti – reported that Adriana Maggs’ “Grown Up Movie Star” and Gasper Noe’s “Enter the Void” (which IFC will distribute in the U.S.) give it a run for its money.

Following the “Killer” screening, an audience member stood up, berated the festival for including inappropriate content and stormed out of the theater. She was both applauded and booed, while director Michael Winterbottom remained nonplussed.

While wonderful levity is present in several films, documentaries of a serious nature such as Nicole Holofcener’s “Please Give,” Louis C.K.’s “Louis C.K.: Hilarious” and Chris Morris’ “Four Lions” are Sundance’s traditional strong suit.

Issues of war and environment most often lead in urgency of subject matter, and this year’s selections were no exception. Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington’s “Restrepo,” the opening-night documentary and winner of the category’s Jury Prize, takes its audience to the trenches of Afghanistan with unprecedented access for up-close encounters with the dark side of war.

Michael Nash’s “Climate Refugees” reveals the massive population displacement that is the human consequence and No. 1 social tragedy of global warming. Director and producer Justin Hogan said the film was screened at the Copenhagen Climate Conference.

Nash emphasizes that we’re in the process of a global paradigm shift, that money is the biggest issue – affected countries of China and Bangladesh are counting on America’s financial support – and that, to quote a poignant line in the film, “The environment is not a spectator sport.”

Redford, who usually refrains from evaluating films publicly, said, “This film can be an agent for social change, and that’s really exciting to me.”

Mark Lewis’ “Cane Toads: The Conquest,” shot not without humor and partially in 3-D, becomes a near cult environmental classic; Amir Bar-Lev’s “I’m Pat Tillman” tells the story of the controversial aftermath of the casualty of war that is football star Pat Tillman. The military’s manipulation of media as a tool of propaganda is thwarted by the Tillman family’s attempt to reveal the truth about his death.

Other films that must be noted here and which complete my best-of-the-fest list are:

n Aaron Schneider’s “Get Low,” starring Robert Duval as an aging backwoodsman whose self-imposed cloistered lifestyle is upset when he decides to have a funeral for himself. Sissy Spacek and Bill Murray gloriously support.

n Leon Gast wins a directing award for his documentary “Smash His Camera” as he presents an endearing look at possibly the most obnoxious paparazzi in New York, Ron Galella. Famous for being punched in the mouth by Brando and stalking Redford, not to mention taking some of the most compelling and artistic celebrity snapshots of his time, Galella reveals himself to be as entertaining as the celebrities he photographs.

At the opening press conference, Redford told an uncharacteristically funny tale about his victorious circumvention of Galella while shooting “Three Days of the Condor,” which includes donning an Afro wig and walking right by the photographer.

n “Hesher,” directed and co-written by Spencer Susser and purchased by Newmarket, introduced the festival’s most surprising and quirky dramatic title character. Played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, “Hesher” becomes the unconventional conduit through which a grieving family heals. The final scene is not to be missed.

n Philip Seymour Hoffman makes his successful directorial debut with “Jack Goes Boating.” While the script is strong, much of the direction isn’t on the page and, thus, kudos to Hoffman.

Films that received rave reviews:

n “Mother and Child,” Rodrigo Garcia’s psychological drama featuring Annette Bening, Naomi Watts, Jimmy Smits and Samuel L. Jackson.

n Debra Granki’s “Winter’s Bone,” the big winner of the Jury Prize for Best Dramatic Film.

n Josh Radnor’s wryly humorous and audience award-winning “happythankyoumoreplease,” starring Kate Mara and Josh Radnor.

While last year’s internal restructuring of the festival leadership – former head programmer John Cooper slipped into the director’s chair after Geoffrey Gilmore’s departure for the Tribeca Film Festival – is purported to reflect the back-to-its-roots direction Redford intends, the overall experience of the festival continues to be a strong mix of Hollywood talent and independent production. For most of us, this means Sundance remains the best of both worlds.

Whether, as the industry continues to debate, independent films will remain a financially viable and distributable commodity … well, that might just take a revolution.

Blake Wood is a lecturer of film studies in the Mass Communications Department at Franklin Pierce University. She visited Sundance with a group of students this year.