George Clooney bounces to Telluride, photographers

Telluride is a friendly, informal, remote place where movie stars shed some of their glamor and mingle with the friendly crowds. George Clooney strolled into the patron’s brunch on Friday — an al fresco, invitation-only event held on the first morning of the film festival at a mountainside ranch with stunning views — and suddenly everyone seemed to be plotting a route to the beverage tent that would allow for an accidental elbow-brush and an impromptu chat. Eventually Mr. Clooney found his way to a table, and later to a semi-secret screening of “The Descendants,” Alexander Payne’s new film, his first feature since “Sideways” in 2004.




At a post-screening Q. and A., director and star engaged in a genial tournament of self-deprecation. “I pay myself very few compliments as a filmmaker,” Mr. Payne said. “But one thing I think I’m good at is casting.” Mr. Clooney, for his part, insisted that his own performance owed everything to Mr. Payne’s writing and direction. When asked how he managed to cry in a particularly emotional scene, he said he recalled how Mr. Payne had turned him down for a part in “Sideways” “and the tears just flowed.”




Joining Mr. Payne and Mr. Clooney on stage was Shailene Woodley, the 19-year-old actress (familiar to fans of “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” on ABC) who plays Mr. Clooney’s older daughter in “The Descendants.” At the very least, her performance confirms Mr. Payne’s self-paid compliment, since it one of the most insightful and unaffected depictions of a real American teenager in recent memory.




Mr. Clooney, playing the scion of a Hawaiian land-owning family beset by trouble both tragic and farcical (though it is not always easy to tell which is which), undergoes an effective deglamorization. The actor described his character, Matt King, as a “shlub,” and while this seems a bit harsh, Matt is certainly the kind of middle-aged guy — a doughy, distracted dad — that middle-aged guys who are not George Clooney may be able to relate to.




And the movie — well, I suspect you will be hearing a lot more about it soon. It will close the New York Film Festival in October and then, if cosmic justice and the marketing department of Fox Searchlight combine forces properly, make a good run at the Oscars.




Ttwo events couldn't be more different. While the Venice Film Festival is full of glitz, glamour, red carpets and photo ops, Telluride is much more low-key. So much so that the Los Angeles Times reports that Telluride organizers sent out an email instructing, "that there will be no photography allowed inside the theaters at any of the George Clooney events. This includes the tribute and screenings, intros and Q&As of 'The Descendants.'"




This was quickly followed by a second email clarifying that "this is not a request made by Clooney or his publicists. It was a decision made by festival organizers to try and keep things sane inside the theaters and focused on the event. Clooney is still very much, as one journalist put it, a 'man of the people!'"




In "The Descendants," Clooney plays Matt King, a man who has to find a way to reconnect with his two young daughters after his wife falls into a coma following a boating accident. It's director Alexander Payne's first feature film since his Oscar-winning "Sideways" in 2004.