Music matters at Sundance

Fest boasts healthy collection of rock docs

By KATHY A. MCDONALD

Music matters at Sundance. Both the Sundance Institute and Sundance Film Festival have long supported the cross-pollination between music and film, whether by the fest's popular ASCAP Music Cafe and wide-ranging BMI composers' panel, various Sundance Lab initiatives -- such as pairing composers with documentary filmmakers -- or by showcasing music-rich indie films like Spike Lee's "Passing Strange," Alexis Dos Santos' "Unmade Beds" and "Once," 2008's Oscar winner for original song.

Music docs and performance films add star power to the fest: 2008 saw famed rockers at the premieres of "U2 3D" and "CSNY Deja Vu." The buzz-o-meter is already off the dial for Davis Guggenheim's guitar-hero doc "It Might Get Loud" and Tom DiCillo's Doors saga "When You're Strange." Axmen like U2's the Edge, Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page and the White Stripes' Jack White as well as surviving Doors members Ray Manzarek, John Densmore and Robby Krieger are expected to attend.

"All year long, the institute's film music program identifies and nurtures emerging composers who have original musical voices," notes composer Peter Golub ("Frozen River"), director of the Sundance Institute's film music program, which spotlights the role of music in film. "The festival films offer a lively snapshot of music in indie film today."

Think of the composer's lab as incubator and the festival as breeding ground. "The indie film culture is the artists' development forum for this business: It's where 'new' comes from," says Doreen Ringer Ross, BMI's vice president film/TV relations.

Ringer Ross points to several examples of composers she has signed out of Sundance: John Ottman ("Public Access," "Valkyrie"), Cliff Martinez ("sex, lies, and videotape") and Clint Mansell ("The Wrestler"), whose career launched at Sundance with "Pi." Rolfe Kent, who will provide the interactive sonic entertainment at BMI's Sundance party, also linked up with Ringer Ross and BMI at Sundance.

"The world of film composing is not just classically trained, commercial composers," Ringer Ross explains. "There's lots of crossover now."

Among the genre-bending composers behind the score at 2009's Sundance are "Dare's" Duncan Sheik (pop artist and Tony Award winner for "Spring Awakening") and "Over the Hill and Far Away's" Lili Haydn (the violinist and L.A.-based recording artist). "Sundance has a pure and intact mission statement: They've always been true to films and creative expression, and we love to attach ourselves to that," Ringer Ross says.

Festival senior programmer Caroline Libresco finds harmony between the sonic and visual aspects of film, one that Sundance's documentary films have repeatedly explored. "Musicians are a fruitful and potent topic for documentarians," Libresco says. "Music is a very rich and powerful subject matter that often reflects the zeitgeist."

"When You're Strange," DiCillo's seventh film and first doc at Sundance, is a "psychedelic, emotional trip" that chronicles the Doors by utilizing only archival footage from 1966 to 1971. Few have achieved the band's level of artistic and commercial success, DiCillo argues, or matched their unwillingness to compromise. "Sundance to me is the perfect place to premiere," the filmmaker says. "Sundance embraces all aspects of film, art and music, which is a rare event in America."

Legendary Pictures CEO Thomas Tull, one of the producers on "It Might Get Loud" (just picked up by by Sony Classics), lauds Sundance as a festival where music-themed films can launch and "break through the clutter."

"The festival is important for creating a buzz -- a sort of halo and hip factor," Tull says. "If your film is at Sundance, that adds a certain edginess to it. It's cool."

In addition to onscreen performances and pop music source cues, festgoers can look forward to the annual ASCAP Music Cafe, slated for a new venue on Park City's lower Main Street. According to ASCAP's Loretta Munoz, the lounge-like club feel (and alcohol sales) will be the same, though now in a very visible, central location.

Among the wide range of artists scheduled for this year are Wynona, John Rzeznik (of the Goo Goo Dolls) and Sara Watkins.

Munoz books artists throughout the year for the popular showcase that puts ASCAP artists in front of filmmakers. "Throughout the years, the role of music has grown at the festival," Munoz says. "We try to bring together an eclectic roster of songwriters. It always works and you never know what's going to happen."