Film and philosphy mark Port Townsend Film Festival
Port Townsend Film Festival special guest Elliott Gould signs a copy of Thursday's Peninsula Daily News front page, which included a story and picture of Gould, for Seattle resident Karen Choyce, right. -- Photo by Evan Cael/Peninsula Daily News
By Jeff Chew, Peninsula Daily News
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Its outdoor venues threatened by high winds and rain on Saturday - the outdoor movie was canceled because of the weather - the film festival will continue today.
Elliott Gould, 69, whose most recent work can be seen in his role of Reuben Tishkoff in Steven Soderbergh's "Ocean's Thirteen," waxed philosophical during his visit as the eighth annual Port Townsend Film Festival's special guest.
During his "West Coast Live" interview on Saturday morning with San Francisco radio personality Sedge Thomson, Gould recalled the anti-war message expressed in the 1970 film, M*A*S*H, in which he played Capt. John Francis Xavier "Trapper John" McIntyre.
Describing director Robert Altman as a "genius," Gould said, "We're making mistakes that empires made before us.
"There is no future in war. We have no future in it," he said to an roaring applause.
On Friday, he urged Port Townsend High School theater students "not to be repressed by reality."
He spoke to them about the importance of education, and told them to take the time to understand its value.
"Conforming is difficult, but there is a reason to be able to conform," he said. "Students, everybody, must have the courage to fail, must have the courage to be honest."
While Gould said he would not recommend a career in acting to anyone, he called acting an art that is a true form of communication.
He urged actors who fall on hard times to express art by teaching, "and life will find a way to get there."
Gould said he found a sense of community during his visit with the high school youths in Port Townsend.
"That's the most important thing," he said.
Gould said he is in good health, but that he suffers from arthritis, which has slowed his stride.
"I don't think old. I don't feel old. But I have to admit that I am old," he said Saturday while eating lunch at the Silverwater Cafe in downtown Port Townsend.
Asked how he hoped to be remembered, he replied, "I want to be remembered as one of us. What else is there?"
Films screened today
Today, among the movies to be shown will be the 1971 film "The Touch," the first and last English language production directed by Ingmar Bergman, in which Gould performed.
Gould, who owns the only print of the film, will present it at 12:05 p.m. at the Rosebud Cinema.
This weekend, Gould reunited with featured film festival director, Charles Burnett, who directed the 1994 cops thriller, "The Glass Shield."
Gould played the role of Greenspan in the film.
Burnett will present four short films at 6:15 p.m. today in the Rose Theatre.
Charles Burnett's original black-and-white 1972 film, "Killer of Sheep," is a masterpiece, Gould said.
Burnett, who created the film as a UCLA film student, presented the work as the festival's opening night film on Friday.
Burnett said that as a college film student in Los Angeles, "The thing was to make a film that nobody had ever seen."
"Killer of Sheep" traces the ordinary daily life of a family living in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. The head of household kills sheep in a slaughterhouse.
Burnett said Los Angeles still has dirty air that blocks his view of the mountains and is rife with crime.
He said he hopes to move to a smaller community, such as Port Townsend.
Black comedy
In introducing the black comedy, "Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb," which was screened Saturday afternoon at the Uptown Theater, poet, author and former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins told a nearly packed house: "I like dark movies."
"I like movies with grim endings," he said "and this one ends with global annihilation. So check that one off."
Collins, in a radio interview earlier on Saturday, said "Dr. Strangelove" was originally intended to premiere the day that John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in Dallas - Nov. 22, 1963.
The release was delayed because of the assassination.
"It was surely a perilous time in U.S. history," Collins said.
He recall joining a friend to see the black-and-white film, which stars Peter Sellers in three roles, including Dr. Strangelove.
"We smoked a couple of Js, and it was the funniest movie I ever saw," Collins said.
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Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
Last modified: September 29. 2007 9:00PM