PORT TOWNSEND — Independent filmmaker John Sayles is attracted to compelling stories that are outside the obvious, he told some 300 people on the opening day of the 15th annual Port Townsend Film Festival.
Sayles and producer Maggie Renzi, both 63, are the festival special guests this year.
They appeared Friday afternoon in the Port Townsend High School auditorium before a capacity audience, a combination of students, festival attendees and the general public.
The festival, which closes today, features 80 films in six venues, many movies that the average moviegoer would never have the opportunity to see.
Sayles talked about films he would like to do.
For instance, while reading a historical volume about the old West, he realized he’d seen the story told in a movie starring John Wayne and Charles Bronson — but it didn’t tell the whole story.
“I get interested in a historical story that I haven’t seen on a big screen,” he said.
“Usually, the Hollywood version is very shallow, because it’s not all black-and-white. It’s not all heroes and anti-heroes. It’s people trying to get through the world.”
Sayles has written a script focusing on Robert and Michael Meeropol, brothers whose parents, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, were convicted and executed for conspiracy to commit espionage and specifically for passing secrets of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union in 1953.
Unless the money becomes available, Sayles isn’t likely to make that or any other movie.
“I have a bunch of movies that I’d love to make, but I don’t think we’ll make anything,” he said.
“If we do, we’ll just get lucky, but it’s not something that is very likely right now.
“But you never know.”
Renzi — who has collaborated with Sayles on all his movies, most recently as producer — said the business has changed since they began their careers.
“Some of our early movies did really well, but at some point, it got harder to make movies,” she told the crowd at the high school Friday.
“Movies were a major counter-cultural force in the 1970s. There was a kind of irreverence that was coming from movies, which is different from how it is now.
“There wasn’t a youth culture, and there was no such thing as home video.”
When home video began, it was a time “when people would watch anything,” she said.
At that time, people took more risks.
“You didn’t have to hit a home run. You only needed to do well enough to get into a video store,” she said.
“Now, they are more interested in the largest-grossing movies, so movies don’t get made if they aren’t going to be blockbusters.
“Imagine what baseball would be like if you weren’t allowed to advance a base if you didn’t hit a home run.”
The two felt at home in Port Townsend, Renzi said that evening during the opening ceremony for the three-day festival.
“This is a great place,” she said.
“As soon as we crossed the [Hood Canal] Bridge, it was clear that we have fallen in with our tribe.”
A plethora of fans, filmmakers and onlookers filled the area around Haller Fountain for the opening celebration.
The parade included 60 filmmakers emerging from vintage vehicles supplied by the Rakers Car Club, with drivers discharging the notables a few at a time and then looping around to pick up another group.
“We are the only town in America that has gotten two looks at a peach-colored Edsel,” said Janette Force, film festival director.
The Marilyn Monroes Lawn Chair Rhythm Planet Drill Team featured 16 women in blond wigs and white shirts doing a synchronized dance using lawn chairs.
They finished with a breathy “Happy Birthday to You” directed at the Port Townsend Film Festival, sung in a way that evoked Monroe’s tribute to John F. Kennedy.
Sayles and Renzi “hit the ground running” Friday, according to Force.
Since the beginning, special festival guests have appeared in small, informal gatherings with students in the high school library.
This year, a greater interest in the festival because of Sayles led to expanding into a new format, Force said.
Sayles is the “father of the independent film movement,” according to film festival founder and board member Rocky Friedman, who owns The Rose Theatre and Rosebud Cinema, both at 235 Taylor St.
Sayles has written, directed and edited 18 films, including “Return of the Secaucus 7” (1979), “The Brother from Another Planet,” (1984) “The Secret of Roan Inish” (1994) and “Lone Star” (1996), the latter two of which screened during the festival.
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
