Just call him Mr. Sundance.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is attending his sixth Sundance Film Festival, this time as writer and star of his directorial debut and host of the festival’s closing awards ceremony.
The 31-year-old premiered “Don Jon’s Addiction” Friday at the independent-film showcase. He plays the title character, a man who prefers pornography to real sex, even though he brings home a different woman every weekend. Scarlett Johansson, Tony Danza and Julianne Moore also star.
“I wanted to tell a love story, and in my observations, what gets in the way of love often times is the way the people objectify each other,” Gordon-Levitt said in an interview Saturday. “The story centers on a relationship between a boy and a girl, and the boy watches too much pornography, and the girl watches too many romantic Hollywood movies, and they’re both sort of objectifying each other.”
He brought the film to Sundance because of its community of artists that love storytelling.
“It’s a community that reassures each other that there’s more to movies than glitz and glamor and box office,” he said. “And look, that stuff’s all fine. But stories predate Hollywood. Stories predate the English language, and the reason that I love working in movies is because I love stories … and I love being a part of this community here at Sundance that embraces that more than some of the other things that tend to take prominence in other parts of the movie industry.”
He said his film “would never get made within the studio system, but it’s a mainstream comedy.”
“It doesn’t follow the formula, but it’s going to get out there and be in front of mainstream audiences,” he said. “Sundance makes that possible for movies that don’t follow the same old formula to get out there and find audiences.”
Gordon-Levitt said he plans to spend the week seeing films before hosting the awards ceremony on Jan. 26.
Directing and Editing “Conclave”; Insights From Edward Berger and Nick Emerson
It’s been a bruising election year but this time we’re referring to a ballot box struggle that’s more adult than the one you’d typically first think of in 2024. Rather, on the industry awards front, the election being cited is that of the Pope which takes front and center stage in director Edward Berger’s Conclave (Focus Features), based on the 2016 novel of the same title by Robert Harris. Adapted by screenwriter Peter Straugham, Conclave stars Ralph Fiennes as the cardinal leading the conclave that has convened to select the next Pope. While part political thriller, full of backstabbing and behind-closed-door machinations, Conclave also registers as a thoughtful adult drama dealing with themes such as a crisis of faith, weighing the greater good, and engaging in a struggle that’s as much about spirituality as the attainment of power.
Conclave is Berger’s first feature after his heralded All Quiet on the Western Front, winner of four Oscars in 2023, including for Best International Feature Film. And while Conclave would on the surface seem to be quite a departure from that World War I drama, there’s a shared bond of humanity which courses through both films.
For Berger, the heightened awareness of humanity hit home for him by virtue of where he was--in Rome, primarily at the famed Cinecittà studio--to shoot Conclave, sans any involvement from the Vatican. He recalled waking up in Rome to “soak up” the city. While having his morning espresso, Berger recollected looking out a window and seeing a priest walking about with a cigarette in his mouth, a nun having a cup of coffee, an archbishop carrying a briefcase. It dawned on Berger that these were just people going to... Read More