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Controversial director hits themes head-on

'Storytelling' at Sundance with Todd Solondz

John Goodman and Julie Hagerty star in Todd Solondz's latest film, "Storytelling," which the director describes as "two stories of exploitation."

By Anne Hubbell
Special to CNN

(CNN) -- In 1996 New Jersey native Todd Solondz took home the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury prize for his subversive feature "Welcome to the Dollhouse." The film introduced audiences to the determined, heartbreaking outsider Dawn Wiener and Solondz' itchy brand of black comedy.

Solondz followed "Dollhouse" with 1998's "Happiness," an ensemble piece about contemporary suburbanites grappling to recognize and accept their personal needs.

"Happiness" garnered substantial media attention when it failed to receive theatrical distribution due to strong, graphic subject matter. (Among other adult issues, one storyline focused on a pedophile who preyed on his young son's classmates.) "Happiness" was eventually released uncut and unrated by a specially formed distribution arm of Good Machine, the production company that made the film.

Screening in the Premieres section of the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, Solondz' latest effort, "Storytelling," is being billed as a film about race, sex, and the power of celebrity.

The writer/director describes it more pointedly as "two stories of exploitation."

"Storytelling's" unusual narrative structure is broken up into two sections, "Fiction" and "Nonfiction." Besides their themes, the stories are unrelated.

The first part of "Storytelling" examines Selma Blair's character and her relationship to her black creative writing professor.

The first section, "Fiction," takes on the complicated relationships between white college students and their middle-aged black creative writing professor. In "Non-fiction," a loser documentary filmmaker follows the upper middle class existence of a high school pothead named Scooby.

From the beginning, "Storytelling" drew controversy. In the final film, a graphic sex scene between a student and her teacher has been covered with a computer- generated red rectangle. Solondz was clear that he did not want to cut the scene, nor did he want to be subject to the kind of editing that Stanley Kubrick endured for some of the sexually graphic elements in "Eyes Wide Shut."

Some may consider the film's modification to be a compromise, or Solondz to have sold out to studio concerns. Solondz disagrees.

"I see it as a victory," he says. "I knew I couldn't make the film without New Line. It would be too expensive. So I negotiated the red box in advance in order to procure an R rating."

Solondz knows the importance getting the R. "With 'Happiness,' we did not edit any scenes. So we lost money on video release because Blockbuster would not carry the film," he asserts.

With "Storytelling," Solondz builds on his previous themes of identity and isolation. "I had never really looked at race before," he muses.

Solondz first gained recognition for "Welcome to the Dollhouse," the grand jury prize winner of the 1996 Sundance festival.

At the question-and-answer session following the film's premiere at the New York Film Festival last fall, he was surprised at the lack of feedback on the racial issues portrayed. "We got no questions about it," he says. "Race was the elephant in the room that no one would acknowledge."

The provocative "Storytelling" will give audiences plenty to discuss whether they do it in front of the filmmaker or not -- though the "Fiction" section's final scene, which depicts a class critique of a short story that basically recounts the film's narrative, is an effective way for Solondz to cut critics off at the pass.

"I didn't set it up that way, but I can see how it would be pre-emptive," he says.

Because his material is shocking, it's easy to overlook the considerable comic aspects of Solondz' work. His writing is smart and observant, utilizing subtle ironic barbs and brilliantly grounded sight gags. He keeps audiences on edge by making them laugh while they simultaneously feel sad or disgusted.

Solondz acknowledges that his work is not for everyone. He says when he is writing, he doesn't "target anyone in particular. I only hope that some people will find the work entertaining and come to my films with an open mind."