Patricia Clarkson

Late last night in the front room of O’Neals Restaurant at West 64th Street and Broadway, director Ira Sachs was explaining the importance of the New York Film Festival.

“A commitment to cinema—over a long period of time—as an art form,” the 42-year-old director said, was the hallmark of the festival, which for the first time was presenting his work, the film Married Life, starring Pierce Brosnan, Patricia Clarkson, Chris Cooper and Rachel McAdams.

“To me, that’s something that’s been lost in the independent movement, which is something that I came out of, which is to think of film in the same context as a painting, or a photograph, or a ballet, or the Met, or whatever else it may be that is artful in cinema that is significant in itself,” Mr. Sachs said.  read more »