TCM Festival celebrates film legacies

Thousands flocked this past weekend to arguably the biggest festival of the year: the Turner Classic Movies (TCM) Classic Film Festival. (There was also some small music festival happening in the desert, but don’t worry about that). Entering its 14th year, the TCM Film Festival is a four-day celebration of classic movies at the famous TCL Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard packed with more than 100 screenings of films from the 1920s to the early 21st century. 

While many people today might recognize Turner Classic Movies from its HBO Max tab, TCM has been a television channel airing classic films for the past 29 years. Before each showing, one of its notable hosts, such as Ben Mankiewicz, film historian and nephew of famous screenwriter Joseph Mankiewicz, provides historical and cultural commentary to enhance the audience’s interaction with the film. 

“Your appreciation is so enriched when you understand where [influences on movies today] come from,” said Jacqueline Stewart, TCM host and president of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. “I remember in the early days of hip-hop, it was really exciting to hear something and want to know what that sample came from. [Younger generations] can do that for contemporary media.” 

TCM has garnered an enthusiastic fan base of movie lovers over the years. One of the festival workers, Yanio Alfonso, said that his love for the channel and classic films encouraged him to work for the festival for the second year in a row.

“I grew up with the channel. And I watched classic movies as a kid. So, [when] a couple of friends that were part of the festival … mentioned that they were looking for extra hands, I got very excited,” Alfonso said. “The cool thing about [the festival] is that we present a lot of original 35mm films.”

The festival collaborates with Hollywood studios and film archives to bring beloved classics, as well as lesser known movies, onto the big screen. Pairing screenings with introductions from TCM hosts and interviews with filmmakers, such as “The Exorcist” (1973)  director William Friedkin, and critics, such as USC’s own Leonard Maltin, the festival aims to shed light on films that have shaped the motion picture industry and left their mark on popular culture. 

“A classic movie is timeless by nature,” said Alicia Malone, TCM host since 2018. “You can still find things to enjoy about them even if they were made almost 100 years ago.” 

This year’s theme for the festival, “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet: Celebrating Film Legacies,” placed a special focus on the “timeless” nature of films from Warner Bros., celebrating the studio’s 100th anniversary. Highlighting films from the studio dating back to as early as 1933, such as “Footlight Parade,” to films from only 21 years ago, such as Steven Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s Eleven” (2001),  the festival honored Warner Bros.’ monumental legacy.  

Starting off with a bang on Thursday evening, the festival opened with a restored screening of the 1959 Western “Rio Bravo,” starring the legendary actress Angie Dickinson. A conversation with Steven Spielberg, a director who has been nominated for an Academy Award in six different decades, and Paul Thomas Anderson, an acclaimed filmmaker most notably known for his films “There Will Be Blood” (2007) and “Boogie Nights” (1997), followed the screening, and the iconic filmmakers discussed the importance of film preservation and bringing these classics back to the big screen. 

“[Films] are memories of our life. It’s the preservation of our work, but it’s also preserving our memories … so that when we want to revisit that moment [in our lives we] can,” Anderson said. “[For example], where was I when I saw ‘E.T?’ I remember the friends I was with, and I remember who I took to see that film as much as I remember the film.” 

The fans at the festival took every opportunity to make the screenings as memorable as possible. It’s not everyday when audiences clap and cheer when their favorite filmmakers’ names appear in the credits, or when iconic movie moments play on the screen — such as when Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn blow up a WWI warship in “The African Queen” (1951). After the coronavirus pandemic paused the festival for two years, fans and workers were excited to return in full swing for another year. 

“Some of the people actually dressed up as characters, which is pretty awesome,” Alfonso said. “[The fans] tell us what they feel about the films and what brings them to the theater. [Each] movie has a different meaning for them.”

The fans and the festival workers were not the only ones eager to watch their favorite classics. The TCM hosts also expressed their excitement to attend screenings and moderate conversations with their biggest inspirations.

Stewart, who focused her research and teachings on Black cinema and culture as a professor at The University of Chicago, noted how she anticipated seeing legendary film historian and author Donald Bogle receive the annual Robert Osborne Award before the screening of “Carmen Jones” (1954).   The Robert Osborne Award is given to individuals who work to preserve the “cultural heritage of classic films for future generations.” 

“His work has been very influential on my research,” Stewart said. “His book ‘Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks’ is the foundation for Black film studies, so he’s the perfect person to [celebrate] here.” 

While fans will have to wait until next year to come back to the Chinese Theatre, TCM will continue highlighting its endless archive of classic films all year long on their channel as well as on HBO Max and the Watch TCM app. As represented by their  tagline “When Then Meets Now,” TCM continues to highlight the cultural relevance of classic films to modern audiences today. 

 “[These classic films] speak so much to what was happening at that time, societal ways of dressing, even ways of talking.” Malone said. “They encapsulate a part of American history and a part of film history. And definitely, there’s problematic material, but it’s important to have conversations about that.”