Will the next ‘Curse of Sundance’ please stand up?

The Utah/US Film Festival.

Besides Robert Redford, we really have only one man to thank for putting the Sundance Film Festival on the map, and his name is Steven Soderbergh. Though the Coen Brothers won the Grand Jury prize way back in 1985 with Blood Simple, 1989’s Audience Award-winner, sex, lies and videotape, (the first year they gave that award) really created Sundance as we know it today. Hell, back then the festival wasn’t even called “Sundance”; it was the “Utah/US Film Festival.” Woo-hoo. I won the “Utah/US Film Festival.” Great. I’ll just put that trophy in the closet where my “Southern Florida Seasonal Film Festival” and my “Central Kansas Tumbleweeds Film Festival” and my “Nobody Gives a Crap About This Film Festival Film Festival” trophies are collecting the dust of my rapidly deteriorating dreams. But that’s exactly what Soderbergh won and, though I jest, it obviously worked for him. Despite the clunky name, a win in Utah was a big deal, even back then. The prize actually came with a couple wives attached. It had yet to become THE big deal, the festival of festivals, at least if you were indie, anyway. But it was getting there. And the fact that they official renamed it “The Sundance Film Festival” (and stopped handing out wives) in 1991 didn’t hurt. Branding is everything these days, as readers of Closely Watched® certainly understand. But with that growing success came a puzzling trend: Sundance winners weren’t doing very well at the box office (or, often, even with critics). Before long, people came up with a term for what was happening to filmmakers like Victor Nuñez (whose Ruby in Paradise won in ‘93) or Shane Carruth (whose low budget sci-fi mind-bender Primer won in ‘04). “The Curse of Sundance” they called it, and it’s still going strong. With the 2010 Sundance Fest in full snowy swing right now, here’s a look at the legacy of the curse that most indie hopefuls can only dream comes their way.

Cover of Ruby in Paradise

Victor Nuñez, Ruby in Paradise. 1993. Ruby actually did all right, and it brought us the lovely Ashley Judd, which was really nice for a while there. Nuñez followed it up with Ulee’s Gold, a decent picture that coincided with Peter Fonda’s brief revival, and which nobody went to see. Despite having Josh Brolin and Timothy Olyphant in 2002’s Coastlines, the film made only seven thousand bucks. Sheesh, I could make seven thousand bucks if I tried hard enough (ah, there’s the rub: it takes effort!). I’m not even sure that his 2007 film, Spoken Word, about a poet returning to New Mexico, got a theatrical release. Nuñez is among the hard-working filmmakers who keep on fighting the fight, making good, solid movies about real people (i.e. “working class”) in real situations (i.e. “working class America”), despite every indication that this sort of reality, the true American experience (i.e. depressing), is far from what today’s film-going public wants to see (i.e. Avatar). Good for Nuñez, but I hope it keeps his kids in school clothes.

Cover of Signs & Wonders

Jonathan Nossiter, Sunday. 1997. In a recent post I talked about this former sommelier, who followed up his little-seen winner with the little-seen Signs & Wonders, and followed that with a virtually unseen documentary about wine. Though the French, of course, loved it! Ah-Oui! It probably plays on a loop in the Paris equivalent of Times Square. How gouache of me to suggest that Paris has an equivalent to Time Square! Stupeed Americaaan! After not working in film for over half a decade, Nossiter will be back this year with a new film, Rio Sex Comedy, which makes me think that The Curse taught him at least one valuable lesson: how to name his movies. Sunday? Boring. Sleepy. Church. Nobody wants that. But, Rio? Hot women in tiny bikinis! Sex? We like sex! Comedy? Who doesn’t want to laugh once in a while? Lesson learned.

Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sánchez, The Blair Witch Project. 1999. Though Myrick & Sánchez didn’t win Sundance with their phenomenally successful popcorn flick, what’s happened to them since has “Curse” written all over it. After the quick-snap sequel, the two stopped collaborating and have both pretty much disappeared equally into obscure B-movie land (actually, make that C-movie land). But hey, it beats digging ditches. That’s what the grips are for.

Cover of The Believer

Henry Bean, The Believer. 2001. Bean’s winning film, about an anti-Semitic Jew, lost money at the box office. Bean was foolish enough to cast Tim Robbins (two curses at once! Ee-gads!) in his follow-up, Noise, a misguided effort about another Manhattan vigilante (he goes ape-shit on all the noise in town; it probably would have been easier to just, you know, move to Connecticut). But Bean’s a resilient auteur. He’s got several projects in development, including one with Nicholas Cage called Crazy Dog, about an unhinged New York cop on a self-destructive rampage… er… didn’t they already make that movie?

Cover of Personal Velocity

Rebecca Miller, Personal Velocity. 2002. Miller is one of few winners of Sundance who seems to be Teflon coated. Despite her debut film’s dismal earnings, she went on to make The Ballad of Jack and Rose, with choosy husband Daniel Day Lewis, and last year’s The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (based on her own novel, the hard-working hyphen). Neither film did particularly well, but Miller’s got personal pedigree on her side. When dad Arthur wasn’t keeping Marilyn Monroe entertained (a full-time job that mostly involved finger puppets and Miracle Whip), he was writing some of the most important American plays of the 20th Century. Okay fine, but what have you done for me lately?

Primer.

Shane Carruth, Primer. 2004. Primer generated enormous buzz, but it was “Sundance buzz,” and it didn’t cross the border into Nevada, let alone Californ-eye-ay. It made only a quarter of a million bucks at the box office (not bad, since it only cost seven grand to make). But Carruth hasn’t worked since. It was that year’s festival looser, Napoleon Dynamite that broke out, establishing its husband-wife auteurs of oddness (at least for another picture).

Ira Sachs, Forty Shades of Blue. 2005. That year’s breakout was Hustle & Flow, establishing Terrance Howard as an actor to watch. Few people saw Blue when it was released in 2005, and Sachs followed it up with Married Life, a good, small movie with an interesting cast which, you guessed it, few people saw.

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Richard Glatzer & Wash Westmorland, Quinceañera. 2006. Glatzer had made waves with The Fluffer, set in the world of deep dark porn, a world co-director Westmorland knew all too well, having made several deep dark porn flicks himself, some of which won awards at the Gay VN Awards (for Dr. Jerkoff  & Mr. Hard which, for the record, I have not seen, at least… not yet, but which, I’m sure, is delightful). Their Sundance winner did poorly and was completely eclipsed by festival breakout Little Miss Sunshine, which had nothing to do with deep dark porn, and which won nothing at the fest (though certainly picked up its share of other awards).

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Christopher Zalla, Padre Nuestro. 2007. It’s only been a couple years since Zalla took home the cursed award, but since then he’s only directed a few episodes of Law & Order. Almost no one saw his debut film and he’s got no other features in development. But don’t cry for him, Argentina (he speaks Spanish, get it!?), because directing for television is probably a pretty good gig. Maybe the guy is – gasp – happy…?