The Telluride Film Festival may start off shrouded in secrecy, but once the lineup is unveiled, the buzz becomes deafening.
And no sound was louder on the first day of the festival than the drumbeat for the Best Actor contenders. The first film to unspool is traditionally the “patron screening” — festival director Julie Huntsinger’s handpicked choice for premium badgeholders to kick off the festivities. This year’s selection was Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine, an acting showcase for lead actor John Malkovich and supporting actor Sam Rockwell, who have positioned themselves as contenders in their respective Oscar races.
It was standing room only in the Werner Herzog Theater, and the applause as the credits rolled was beyond boisterous. There are no standing ovations in Telluride, no clocks timing the length of the applause — but it was clear the film had truly won over the 650-plus audience, as it had in Venice.
The team from Wild Horse Nine had made the transcontinental trek from Italy to Telluride in a matter of days — no easy feat, even with private jets — but it was clear the reception made the travel worth it. The film set the bar high for all that would follow.
Malkovich’s Best Actor competition revealed itself later that night with the world premiere of Focus Features’ Elsinore, Simon Stone’s film starring Andrew Scott as the actor Ian Charleston, who performed Hamlet at the National Theater as he battled AIDS. “Shattering,” “powerfully moving,” “heartbreakingly great” read some of the early reviews. Again, no one records applause times in Telluride, but it was thunderous for star and EP Scott.
Introducing the film alongside Stone, Scott said, “It was one of the happiest days of my life” when he got the news that Elsinore had been accepted at the Telluride Film Festival. “I think the main theme of this film is the most valuable thing we have, which is our time — and [Charleston] spent it so easily. So laugh at us, and cry with us too. But this is a total dream come true.”
Despite the raves rolling in for Malkovich and Scott, don’t count out Jack O’Connell, who stars in Danny Boyle’s Ink. “Ink is not about tattoos,” joked Boyle, who also made the schlep from Venice, when introducing the film. “It’s set in the year that you lot went to the moon. But we’re British, and we didn’t make a film about that. We made the launch of a newspaper in London instead.” Boyle credited O’Connell — his recent 28 Years Later collaborator, who plays The Sun editor Larry Lamb in Ink — As the reason he made the film.
Of course, it wouldn’t be Telluride without its secrets, and speculation abounds about the still-to-be unveiled “TBA” screening with a four-block on Sunday night. It’s become something of a sport among the assembled press trying to guess what the film will be — but all fest director Huntsinger will say is that it’s a true “TBA” and that we won’t know what it is until we walk into the theater Sunday night.
