Day Three

Friends: The first program each day of the Midnight Sun Film Festival is a discussion between Peter Van Bagh and one of the tributees. Yesterday it was with Freddie Francis, a little known titan of the industry, an 84-year old English director/cinematographer who has worked with many true titans including Michael Powell, Joseph Cotton, Joseph Losey and David Lynch. He had a lively, self-deprecating sense of humor, perfectly matching that of Van Bagh, one of the founders of the festival and the only director the festival has had in its sixteen years. Frances has won two Oscars, one for "Sons and Lovers" and the other for "Glory," both for his cinematography. When Van Bagh introduced him, he apologized that the festival program said he had won only one Oscar and not two. "We would have had twice as many people here," he said, "if I had gotten it right."

The two-hour conversation was interspersed with clips from "Time Without Pity," "Moby Dick," "The Evil of Frankenstein," "The Elephant Man" and "The Straight Story." He was accompanied by his daughter. She too worked in the industry, including a ten-year stint with David Lean. Van Bagh, the obsessed film scholar, was thrilled to meet her and brought her up on stage so he could pick her brain along with her father's. He commented that he will most remember this festival for meeting her.

I am filing this report from the festival press room at its sole computer at 9:45 a.m. Next up is Van Bagh's interrogation of Jerry Schatzberg in fifteen minutes. That ought to be sensational too. Schatzberg has minced no words when he has introduced his films, talking about the people he has worked with and the difficulty of making movies. Tomorrow's tributee will be Agnes Jaouri, the 37-year old French actress/director whose latest film, "It Takes All Kinds," was nominated for a best foreign picture Oscar this year and already played at the Landmark Theater in Chicago.

Last night the circus tent was filled to capacity with 500 people for the presentation of D. W. Griffith's "Broken Blossoms" from 1919 starring Lillian Gish. It was accompanied by a twelve-piece orchestra. It earned a sustained standing ovation, the first of the festival, though the Finnish audiences have applauded every movie so far, sometimes immediately afterward, and sometimes a little later at the end of the credits.

Tonight's featured event under the Big Top will be "Jewish Happiness," a Russian movie from 1925. It will be introduced by Village Voice critic J. Hoberman. It will also have music accompaniment. The movie was directed by Aleksander Granowski. His cinematographer followed it up with the masterpiece "Battleship Potemkin," a film many critics consider one of the top ten movies of all time. Along with this rare event, my day will include four or five other movies and the Schatzberg interview. One more day of movies, and then I'm back on the bike, either to the far north, or west to the fjords of Norway, depending on the weather. There is a misty cold rain this morning here in the Arctic, a perfect day for movie-watching.

Later, George

Cyclomania

Friends: My 700 bicycle ride to The Midnight Sun Film Festival was rewarded by a bicycle messenger/bicycle racing movie. It was a Finnish feature called "Cyclomania,” and was the story of two young messengers who are nearly national caliber racers and their messenger girl friend. They spend at least a third of the movie on their bikes messengering, training and racing. It has already opened in Finland and has yet to hit the film festival circuit. 

It is easily the best of the six Finnish features I've seen so far, but probably not good enough to find interest beyond those of us devoted to the subject. I had my own private Q&A with the young director after the screening, as the public Q&A was conducted entirely in Finnish. I was hoping he could tell me about a whole set of European cycling movies I was unaware of. He knew of none. His two favorite bicycling movies were the same as mine--the classic "Breaking Away" and the recent French Canadian messenger movie "Two Seconds." He thought he had exceeded "Two Seconds." In some ways yes, in others no. That movie was strictly about messengering. Cyclomania is only marginally about the messengering and doesn't offer any insights nor insults into the profession as "Two Seconds" does. 

 I had more bicycling movies to offer him than he had for me, including a recent Italian movie on Coppi and the French movie, "The Training of a Champion" from about ten years ago about a racer nearing the end of his career. He said there was no famous Finnish bicycle racer though there have been a few who have ridden as domestiques in the Tour de France. I hope to talk to him again, as with all the Finns I've met, he was most affable and unpretentious and kindly and easy-going. 

 Yesterday morning's ten a.m. tribute to Sergio Sollima, an 80-year old Italian director who specialized in spaghetti westerns, was conducted only in Italian and Finnish. There was nowhere else to go, so I sat in the theater with about 150 Finns reading and with my ears perking at the occasional mention of John Wayne and Sergio Leone. 

This morning's tributee in half an hour will be Freddie Francis, an 84-year old English director-cinematographer who has worked on movies ranging from the "French Lieutenant's Wife" to John Houston's "Moulin Rouge" and "The Straight Story," all scheduled to be screened here. Last night I saw an old horror movie he directed called "Torture Garden." When he introduced it he said it had been so long since he'd seen it he'd have to wait until afterward to talk about it. 

Tonight D. W. Griffith's "Broken Blossoms" from 1919 with live accompaniment will be playing under the Big Top. It is predicted to be the first sell-out in the tent. Of the four or five screenings I've attended in the tent it has yet to be even half-filled. There are less than fifty seats with backs, the rest are just narrow, not even a foot-wide, benches, yet the crowds don't gather early to get the seats. The Finns are proud of their ability to suffer. If they weren't tough, they wouldn't live in this land, they say. 

 Only once have I been I relegated to the benches. That was only because I talked to the bicycling director so long. My hundreds of games in the bleachers of Wrigley Field must have conditioned me to such hard sitting, as the bench wasn't as uncomfortable as I feared, even past the midnight hour. But then I've been sitting on nothing more than a bicycle seat for the past week. 

The ticket prices are little more than four dollars, or a little less, if one buys a twelve pack. I'm still happy to have a press pass letting me in gratis. The campground I'm at is exactly a kilometer away on the other side of a river that bisects the town. There are only three showers, but never has more than one been in use when I've needed one. With it light 24 hours people tend to stay up late and not rise so early. The town is quite deserted even at 9:30 am. 

It was quite a novelty to walk out of the tent past midnight last night and see pink clouds illuminated by the sun. One doesn't get tired when it is always light. I could have seen Hitchcock's "Dial M for Murder" starting at 12.30 a.m. in 3D under the big top, and put my fatigue theory to a more extreme test, but there were too many programs I didn't wish to doze off in the next day, so I passed on it. I'm sorry to report there are no Kaurismaki films on the schedule from either Aki or Maki. Nor have I detected their influence in any of the Finnish films I've seen so far. 

 Later, George

Films

Friends: And the movies have begun. It would have been nice if I had made my first film of the festival the first film to screen in the old circus tent. I was most eager for that unique experience, but I couldn't resist seeing the first screening of the festival taking place in the town's actual movie theater at 4 p.m. Wednesday, even though I had already seen it. It was the American film "Fast Food, Fast Women" by Israeli director Amos Kollek starring Anna Thompson, who has starred in a couple of his earlier films, "Sue" and "Fiona." There were no Finnish subtitles and the sound system wasn't the best, but the Finns still got plenty of chuckles from this uncharacteristic feel-good movie from Kollek.

The first movie under the Big Top was a Finnish film "Bad Luck Love" at six p.m. I'd seen that one too, at Berlin, and didn't care for it as much as "Fast Food,"so I stayed at the town theater for the Chinese film "17 Years" by Zhang Yuan. He won the best director award for the film at Venice two years ago. It is among 23 films in the Pearls of New Cinema program, many of which I've seen--Yi Yi, Werckmeister Harmonies, Kippur, Smell of Camphor, Drunken Horses, The Gleaners and I, Rosetta, Clouds of May, and Fast Food. But this one was new to me and it was a gem. It is about a 16-year old girl who inadvertently murders her step sister and is sentenced to prison for 18 years. She is given a special New Year's furlough to visit her family for good behavior after 17 years. She is accompanied by a prison guard. It is unclear whether her parents know she is coming. Their meeting was great drama.

The official opening film of the festival was Jerry Schatzberg's 1973 Cannes Palm d'Or winner, "Scarecrow," at 7:45 in the main theater, not under the Big Top as I would have hoped. Schatzberg is one of four honorees. He talked briefly before the film. I didn't stay for the film, just the opening remarks and then zipped over to the Big Top for "Space Pigs" and another from Kurdistan with Finnish subtitles. My press pass lets me see whatever I want so I can go in and out of the three different venues at will. So far the only sell out was "Scarecrow."

It is now Thursday afternoon and I have fifteen minutes at the library before rushing to see Schatzberg's "Panic in Needle Park" from 1971 starring Al Pacino. There are 79 films and shorts, including five of those now legendary preludes commemorating last year's 25th Toronto film festival. Each is being shown once, except for Guy Maddin's, which will get one screening a day. There are 19 Finnish features. It is a fairly bare bones festival with not many directors accompanying their films. There is minimal sponsorship and no introductory short before each film acknowledging them. There are still some out of the ordinary programs to look forward to--a couple of 3D films, and two silent films under the tent with live accompaniment, one by D.W. Griffith and another from Russia.

Today the sun is out and its shirt sleeve weather. There are piles of blankets in the tent though if it gets cold. Its crusty old burlap ceiling is as beguiling to gaze upon as the winking stars of Chicago's Music Box Theater.

Later, George

Arctic Circle

Friends: The sun shines in The Arctic. For two hours this morning after crossing the Arctic Circle I got to ride with a shadow for the first time in four days, but then the clouds rolled in. At least these were high and light-colored, not the thick, billowing, ever-threatening, low-lying clusters that could turn dark and nasty. These did start spewing a mist, though not serious enough to force me to dig out my poncho. If I'd had intermittent wipers I would have set them on their least frequent use. I couldn't stop for more than fifteen or twenty minutes on my two breaks during the seventy miles I biked today, as I'd start cooling off too much. But I could demand a little extra from my legs, as they will have six days of rest. They did fine, 700 miles in eight days. My final eighty miles were the first time I had ridden a main artery since leaving Helsinki. But this far north that didn't mean much. I still had the road pretty much to myself. I am now in an area that attracts travelers and tourists, so I can start paying attention to whether cars have an emblem other than FIN on them. So far I've also seen cars with a D, NL and DK. I had to remind myself to glance at the oncoming traffic to see if they were giving me a wave or a thumbs up or, as happened frequently in Guatemala, clapping hands. It was startling to see drivers take their hands off their steering wheel, as my girl friend Crissy and I struggled up the steep roads of Guatemala. But it was more welcome than a friendly blast of their horn. No such reaction from these reserved Finns, however. Not a one has asked me where I'm coming from or where I'm going. Partial explanation could be that they don't know what language I speak, but it's mostly their notorious, natural reserve, as the Kaurismaki's often portray in their films. I'm 75 miles into the Arctic and the trees are as thick as ever. I had two reindeer spottings today. One a lone reindeer ambling down the bicycle path in one small town and then two groups of three in a field. Even this main highway was unmarked by kilometer posts. I welcome them at times to let me know my progress, but it is also nice not to be jarred back to the temporal world every two or three minutes with an alert of my progress while my thought is wandering. Every ten kilometers though is a sign counting down the distance to the next big town, a perfectly suitable distance. Sodankyla has a surrounding population of about 10,000, large enough to have a couple of stop lights, the first I have encountered since leaving Helsinki. Before I saw anything else, I was most eager to check out the circus tent where some of the movies will be shown. In the middle of the dark and dank tent is a 30-foot high screen. Five rows of ten molded plastic seats are up front. Behind them are narrow wooden benches that look like they could date from medieval times, enough to seat another 450 people. They look less comfortable than the bleachers of Wrigley. The other two venues are the town's movie theater and the high school gymnasium, both seating about 250. I tried to get my credentials but was told the woman I've been in contact with won't arrive from Helsinki until tomorrow. 

 Later, George

Ranua, Finland

Friends: I'm closing in on the Arctic Circle. It is just 75 miles away. I have reached the northern extremity of the Baltic Sea, just below the 66th parallel. I have bicycled over 500 miles since I left Helsinki six days ago. It is just 150 miles to Sodankyla and the Midnight Sun Film Festival.

The skies were bright and sunny my first three days out of Helsinki. The past three have been heavily overcast, and it has been raining off and on. I've avoided a drenching from the few hard downpours, as I've always had the good fortune of being near some shelter when they have hit. The drizzle has often been just a bare mist, not even requiring my poncho. I'm almost getting used to it. If it doesn't get any worse than this, I ought to be able to push on to the northern most point in Europe, about 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

Last night I had my first challenge finding a place to camp, as the terrain has turned boggy, like the tundra of Alaska. Up until then, it was a snap to find a place anytime I wanted in these unfenced forests that predominate along the roads. Few people live outside the occasional small towns I pass through. And by virtue of "the right of common access," anyone can camp anywhere he pleases as long as he's 150 meters from anyone's domicile. The non-stop daylight takes away the pressure of finding a place to camp before it gets dark, as it doesn't get dark.

Even when I discovered the ground was squishy, making the camping a challenge for the first time, I was still able to find a suitable spot just minutes after I decided to curtail my cycling at 8:30. I saw a radio tower on a side road that I figured had to have solid ground around it. But just barely. I pitched my tent right up against its adjoining shed, right on the fringe of mushy ground. I entered the tent with one foot soggy from having sunk into the muck as I was setting up. Fortunately there was no hum from this tower. It was also the first night it was too cold for mosquitoes.

I saw my first reindeer yesterday morning, a cluster of three not far off the road. They showed no concern of me whatsoever. I feared the first reindeer I might spot would be roadkill, as so happens with deer in the US, but there has been no road kill at all along the road, partially because there is so little traffic and also thanks to the 24 hours of daylight. With no night time, animals aren't blinded by and frozen in their tracks by headlights. I've been able to stick to secondary roads with minimal traffic--no more than five or six cars per hour. This is logging country. I see stacks of fifteen-foot lengths of logs piled up along the road every few miles, but I encounter no more than two or three logging trucks a day. Pick-up trucks are also rare. This is terrain similar to the north woods of Minnesota or Alaska. But unlike the United States, none of the signs warning of moose and reindeer are riddled with bullet holes.

I had my first shower two days ago. Until then I had been bathing in the plentiful lakes. But with the thick cloud cover the past few days there has been no sun to warm myself or the surface waters, making the coldness of the water beyond my tolerance. It was also my first night at a campground, though I didn't camp. The owner offered me a cabin for the same price as setting up my tent, as he had many empties and he was concerned that my tent might not be adequate to withstand an impending storm. Shortly after I was showered and had hung my clothes to dry, we were pelted by a hard downpour for about half an hour. It was six dollars to camp, pushing my daily expenses over ten dollars for the first time.

The occasional cafe I find in the small towns I've been passing through offer various varieties of hamburgers for a little more than two dollars. Most of my eating has been from the supermarket--sandwiches and such. Just as in the US, my most frequent meal has been a pound of potato salad mixed with a can of baked beans. I've barely made a dent in my peanut butter, as most of my sandwiches have consisted of cheese and some sort of sausage or sliced meat. One of my sandwich options is onions and eggs squeezed out of a tube. As I head north and the temperatures become colder, I won't be inclined to be eating outdoors so much. I'll need the warmth of whatever cafes come along.

For the first time I had to zip up my sleeping bag last night. If it gets much colder, I can always resort to my wool hat and extra clothes for added warmth. I am hoping to camp during the film festival. There is a 150-site campground less than a mile from the festival. It could well be the place to be.

I met a guy yesterday while I sat under an overhang at a gas station waiting out the rain who proudly mentioned that he attended high school with Peter Van Bagh, the director of the film festival, and a much-respected cinephile. Van Bagh was a film fanatic even then. I asked if the tourist literature was correct that the average Finn only sees 1.5 movies a year. He thought that figure low, but as an indicator of the popularity of movies in Finland, we couldn't find any advertisements for movies playing in the nearby city and university town of Oulu in the Sunday paper or Saturday's or Friday's either. The TV listings, though,  showed plenty of movies, new and old, even some Chaplin.

I saw no theaters in my wanderings around Helsinki nor any in the small towns I've passed through. I was surprised that the tourist literature did not include the premier Finnish film directors, the Kaurismaki brothers, in its list of 25 famous Finns. These are all questions to be pursued at the film festival. Two more days and I will have five days of nothing to do but to watch movies. Since it never gets dark, movies are scheduled around the clock in three different venues. I can see as many as a dozen movies in any 24-hour period. The opening film is "Fast Food, Fast Woman," which played at Cannes and Toronto a year ago. No word if its star Anna Thompson or its director Amos Kolleck will be in attendance.

The cycling has been superb, but I have yet to encounter another touring cyclist since the gnome on my second day. There is a special film festival train from Helsinki. Maybe there will be a cluster of cyclists bringing their bicycles aboard it.

Later, George

Kiuruvesi, Finland

Friends: Greeting from the heart of Finland.  I am 300 miles into the first leg of my travels in Scandinavia that will take me first to Sodankyla and the Midnight Sun Film Festival, just north of the Arctic Circle.  Then it is on to the Nordkapp, the northernmost point in Europe in Norway.  I'll then cycle back down the coast of Norway through all the fjords before cutting over to Sweden and my flight home from Stockholm in better than a month form now.

It was no easy task finding the library where I'm presently composing this post, as contrary to the tourist literature promises, not too many people speak English in the hinterlands of Finland. I was in need of an English-speaker again this morning when I came to a series of intersections on the poorly marked back roads I've been taking. I could only get marginal, if questionable, assistance. But by now I know most of these roads don't dead end and eventually will lead me to where I need to go, though not necessarily by the most direct route. A little extra meandering isn't too painful right now. I accept detours as opportunities that take me to places I might otherwise not see--all part of the experience. 

Plus I can rest assured, after my assistance from a mysterious gnome a couple days ago, that this journey may well have the blessing of whatever benevolent being there might be who looks after touring cyclists. It was a virtual miracle when, out of nowhere, a gnome appeared at a moment when I was in desperate need of help. I was perplexed and frustrated that the significant paved artery I had been riding suddenly degenerated into a rough and narrow dirt road. I continued on, thinking it just an aberration, but the road only continued to deteriorate. I was in a semi-panic. There was no traffic to wave down.  I thought I was in luck when I saw ahead a gray-haired woman at her mailbox along the road fetching her mail.  I sped up to reach her.  I had to chase her a bit up her driveway but caught her before she disappeared into her house.  I quickly blurted, "I'm not sure I'm on the right road.  Can you help me."  She vigorously shook her head without saying a word, scurrying away as if I bore the plague.

I continued on, but after two more miles, as the road continued to degenerate into a road to nowhere, I knew this couldn't be the right way and turned back in defeat, something I am always loathe to do. Less than two minutes later a little old man wearing emerald green bicycling shorts and long black socks was just emerging over a steep hill, pushing a fully loaded one-speed woman's bike. I couldn't expect any English from this quirky little creature. But I recognized him as a brother of the bike, who might at least give a nodded "yes" or shake of "no" to the mention of the town I wanted to go to up the road.

It worked. He immediately unleashed a torrent of speech in an indecipherable gibberish that could have been Finnish or some forest dialect, but seemed to affirm I was headed in the right direction. He eagerly waved ahead, indicating I ought to follow him. But first he wanted me to look at the highly detailed map strapped to his handlebar bag. He waved a finger over it, following one line then another. It could have gotten me to Hansel and Gretel's house, if that's where I wanted to go. He seemed to be as happy to have met me as I was to meet him. It was hard to believe that this energetic little fellow had suddenly materialized, so I couldn't help but to entrust my fate to him.

Any bike trip of thousands of miles, as this would be, is an act of faith, faith that a mere bicycle could go such a distance and faith that one has the strength and stamina to power it and to persevere in the face of adversity. All along the way, and even before I start a trip, I am showered with incredulity that I am attempting such a thing. The most common response is amazement, if not disbelief. Before my first trip I had doubts myself, even though I knew others had accomplished similar feats. I knew it was possible, but knew too that it would be a challenge. How much of a challenge I didn't realize. After that first one, a coast-to-coast ride across the U.S., I knew I had the capabiity to do it, but I still needed faith. So it was easy to lend some to this savior and present riding companion.

We pedaled together for better than an hour, he pushing his bike up the hills, but bombing down their descents much faster than I dared, gleefully catching up to me. I was a bit restrained on these rough, unpaved roads, as my front wheel had been slightly pretzeled on my flight over. I had trued it to within a bare blip, but I was still wary of hitting a hole or rock and collapsing it, sending me tumbling. I suppose I shouldn't have been concerned about any mishap while I was in the care of my gnome. When we parted I copied all the essentials from his map. He let me take his picture, though whether it will come out remains to be seen. I don't even know if he had a name. With 68 per cent of Finland forested, there's no telling how many such creatures lurk here. I'm on alert.

I have yet to have a sauna, a Finnish passion, though I nearly had a chance this morning. At about eight a.m. I came to an intersection in the road that led to a bird-watching area and campground and sauna. It was a couple of kilometers out of the way, but it had been two days since I had taken a dip in a lake, so I took the detour. It was down the roughest of roads I had encountered. I didn't expect to find any one there and I didn't. The sauna was locked. It was just as well, as I didn't care to take the time to build a fire to heat it up. There was a nearby pond to leap into after baking in the sauna.  It was the swimming hole I was looking for, even though the temperature, air and water, wasn't even 60. I had been on my bike for an hour, so I was fully and deeply warmed. My body offered little protest as I slowly slipped into the cool water to perform my ablutions. I even washed my clothes while I was at it.

Later, George

Film Center Folly

Letter-to-the-editor published by The Reader Film Center Folly By George Christensen 

 Thanks to Patrick McGavin and the Reader for at least raising an eyebrow over the folly of attaching Gene Siskel's name to the Film Center [July 14]. Aghast would have been a more appropriate response, especially from the paper and the very Hot Type column McGavin was writing for that once maintained a "Siskel Watch" exposing the blunders and buffooneries that regularly peppered Siskel's Chicago Tribune reviews until he was demoted and replaced by the Reader's David Kehr. It was a shame that McGavin didn't resurrect any of those columns. Siskel was no cinephile as any cinephile knows. Memorializing him as such is a travesty and an insult to those who seek out and truly care for films that attempt to do more than entertain. I won't be able to attend the Film Center again without a sour taste in my mouth. Sincerely, George Christensen