Seems to be a bit of a flurry out in media-land about a piece that Rex Reed wrote in the NY Observer this week [I'll add the link when I get a chance] bemoaning the fact that TIFF has become too big, too loud and too "populist" for its own good.
The piece generated a fair bit of knee-jerk rebuttal (as is somewhat typical, I learned about the piece through the responses to it). I had a bit of time this morning and was able to give it a read.
Although it's full of bile, some of what he wrote are sentiments that I've heard from people "on the ground" over the past few years.
Certainly there are frustrations with a festival that has grown over the years, although the growth is more a geographic shift than an increase in the number of films. As I wrote earlier, TIFF used to be a creature of the Bloor-Yorkville neighbourhood and now stretches from there to Roy Thomson Hall in the south.
Although Reed makes a remark about "unwashed masses with empty wallets" in reference to the folks who took advantage of free outdoor screenings at Yonge-Dundas Square, the complaint most often heard in lines is not that the festival is going down-market, but that the increasing cost and number of restricted access venues are threatening to eliminate the character of TIFF as a festival for the public. The change this year of the Elgin Theatre to a pseudo-Gala location (ie removing the Elgin from the list of theatres which are accessible to passholders and increasing the single ticket price there to $40) is a sign for many of the creeping elitism of the event.
On the plus side, many films now have three screenings, rather than two. And the addition of many free public events like the outdoor screenings is a great way to connect the city to the festival that shares its name.
Perhaps the days of chatting with Clint Eastwood at Bistro 990 are gone (I wouldn't know, he never returns my calls), but TIFF still provides a wealth of opportunities to see great films that would otherwise not be available. It's been a regular feature of my fall for over 20 years now and I see no reason to end the ritual.
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