Peachy the Magazine January / February 2014 | Page 54

SUNDANCE

WRITTEN BY

Kitty Garner

How a film festival in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah rose like
a phoenix out of the ashes of American New Wave Cinema.

J

January is a month of bliss for film
aficionados, particularly for those
who also enjoy donning mufflers,
mittens and puffer coats—and even
better for those who want to strap on
the K2s and take a run down Jupiter
Bowl. A mishmash of Hollywood
A-listers, film devotees, aspirational
young filmmakers, celebrities, attendant hangers-on and the ubiquitous
paparazzi descend upon the snowy
hamlet of Park City,
Utah, each January
to attend the SunHow did
dance Film Festival.
America’s
Eleven months out
premier film
of the year Park City
festival land in
could be described
as a quaint alpine
a tiny boho town
village, but in Janua thousand miles
ary it morphs into a
and 50 degrees
surreal nordic take
farenheit from
on a mini-LA. Query:
glitzy, balmy
How did America’s
premier film festival
Hollywood?
land in a tiny boho
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PEACHY

town in the Wasatch mountain range,
a thousand miles and 50 degrees fahrenheit from glitzy, balmy Hollywood?
Examining the roots of Sundance is
critical to understanding the ethos of
the festival and how it could land in
such a counter-cultural venue. The
initial iteration of Sundance came into
being in the late ’70s in reaction to the
demise of American New Wave cinema. Also coined “new Hollywood”
or “post-classical Hollywood”, American New Wave was a movement in
film that reflected the generational
shift in American society that occurred
in the late ’60s through the mid-’70s.
Up until then, mainstream film served
primarily as a mode of entertainment
for the masses but a crop of young
film-school educated directors began
making films with forays into formerly
unchartered territory. The films were
well received by cinema audiences that
were increasingly well-educated and
somewhat inured to disturbing, provocative material. Surprisingly, these