THE RETURN OF JUDAS: Bob Dylan hasn’t been back to the Newport Folk Festival since his infamous electric performance of 1965, when he plugged in and was verbally crucified by an audience of folk Nazis. He was 24. Next week he turns 61, and the big news from the Apple & Eve Newport Folk Festival (as it is now called) — perhaps the biggest news since ’65 — is that Dylan is coming back. The festival, which runs August 2 through 4 at Fort Adams State Park in Newport, Rhode Island, will also feature performances by Shawn Colvin, Dar Williams, Arlo Guthrie, Jonatha Brooke, Bruce Cockburn, John Gorka, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Melissa Ferrick, Rosie Ledet, and a slew more on three stages. Tickets are $55 for Saturday (Dylan day) and $45 for Sunday, with a limited number of two-day $90 tickets. A Friday-night show at Newport’s Hotel Viking with Kate and Anna McGarrigle is $25; call (866) 468-7619.
JAZZ FESTIVALS: Fort Adams State Park is, of course, also home to the grandaddy of all jazz festivals, now known as JVC Jazz Festival — Newport. This year’s edition, running August 9 through 11, will feature Tony Bennett, the Dave Holland Quintet, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Greg Osby with Jason Moran, Sex Mob, Isaac Hayes (?!), Nicholas Payton, Arturo Sandoval, Karl Denson, David S. Ware, Antibalas, the Holmes Brothers, and more. Tickets are $48 in advance. Call (866) 468-7619. Meanwhile, the most massive jazz-specific festival in North America, the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, kicks into gear June 27 through July 6, taking over the whole city with a line-up that’ll have Brad Mehldau, Jane Monheit, Daniel Lanois, a week of guitar nights with Bill Frisell, John Scofield, Larry Coryell, Jim Hall, Charlie Hunter, Marc Ribot, and many more, and a week of Cuban piano with Gonzalo Rubalcaba and Chucho Valdés. Best part: the Montreal fest boasts 350 free concerts on its 10 outdoor stages, with many of these same artists. Call (888) 515-0515.
NEXT WEEKEND:
Insomnia
Don’t try to get cute with film director Christopher Nolan by flashing references to his cult hit Memento. He’s seen them all. Interviewers who begin with the last question and then repeat themselves until they get to the first. Interviewers who snap his picture with a Polaroid. Interviewers with questions written on their skin. A variation on this last one turned up at last year’s Oscars. The film’s editor, Dody Dorn, had been nominated, and she had her acceptance speech imprinted on her body. "It was in the same style that we had done in the movie; same typefaces and everything," Nolan recalls. "It was so beautifully done. I think it would have been amazing."
Dorn lost (as did Nolan for best adapted screenplay), and the world lost a classic moment in Oscar history. But Nolan had already established himself as a viable Hollywood player. Even before Memento had been released, he already had Insomnia, no doubt because he seemed the go-to guy for films about mental disorders. It’s a remake of Norwegian director Erik Skjoldbjærg’s film about a detective drawn into covering up his own misdeed while investigating a murder. Compounding his troubles is the perpetual daylight of the Arctic Circle summer, hence the title. Nolan sets his version in Alaska, and he enjoys an all-Oscar trio of Al Pacino as the detective, Robin Williams as his quarry, and Hillary Swank as an eager police novice.
Impressive. But maybe dismaying to fans of Memento and his first film, Following, who might be expecting something less conventional than a remake. "If they see the film and watch it intelligently," he says, "I think the sincerity in it comes through, and to me that’s the only judge really of whether someone’s doing what they should be." It is, he thinks, an inversion of his previous film. "Memento is about a guy who is cursed by the fact that he can’t retain knowledge, and loses everything. This is very much the opposite: he is plagued by the things he has done, consciously, that he can’t put out of his mind and probably would quite like to."
Nolan himself isn’t losing any sleep about entering the Hollywood mainstream, or graduating from budgets of about $6000 to those of $50 million and more. Neither should he. His next project is a bio-pic of Howard Hughes with Jim Carrey in the lead. And he’s getting the best kind of support: one of the producers of Insomnia is Steven Soderbergh, the ultimate role model for indie filmmakers who want to hit the big time with their souls intact.
"I’m sure I’m being corrupted, but that’s the process, really. Maybe I’m just a mindless optimist, but my experience of Hollywood is that there’s an acknowledgment of the business value of an original voice making films within their system — always bearing in mind the phrase ‘within their system,’ because it’s a very controlling environment. With Insomnia, all I felt was everybody wants to make the best film possible.
"When I first came into the project, the ending was different. Steven Soderbergh suggested that — [here Nolan reveals the ending of the movie]. When I talked to Hillary [Seitz, the screenwriter] about it, we decided to go for that, even though she thought she would never get away with it in the studio system. We went ahead and put it on the page and then made it, and everybody supported it as the ending."
At least the ending is at the end of the film, not at the beginning, as with Memento. Whether Nolan will get away with tricks like that at the big-budget level remains to be seen. He is hopeful. "I couldn’t imagine while writing Memento that it would fit into anyone’s perceived ideas of how you write a script. But it’s been instantly absorbed into the film-school lexicon. The studios are like that too: as soon as it succeeds in the marketplace, instantly the studios want to know why. And yet very often it’s the exceptions that succeed."
Insomnia opens next Friday, May 24, at movie theaters to be announced.
BY PETER KEOUGH
