Ex-Prodigies Make Park City Home

PARK CITY, Utah — In some corners of this country, the names Alex Gibney, Ryan Fleck, and Anna Boden might not ring any bells. But around Park City this time of year, they might as well be Brad Pitt, George Clooney, and Gwyneth Paltrow.

It's a rare thing to witness a true breakout moment, to be there at the premiere of a film that will go on to launch careers and perhaps even make a lasting imprint on the art form. This is the allure of Sundance for so many critics and audiences, the promise of discovering that new talent. And that's precisely what occurred three years ago, when Mr. Gibney unveiled his first feature-length documentary, "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," here to instant critical acclaim, and then again a year later, when Mr. Fleck and Ms. Boden introduced "Half Nelson."

This year, all three New York filmmakers are back at Sundance with vastly different projects. Crowds around town have been talking eagerly about "Sugar," Mr. Fleck and Ms. Boden's newest character study, describing it in short as "that baseball movie." But "Sugar" is no more about baseball than "Half Nelson" — which told the story of a junior high school teacher with a drug habit who forms an unlikely bond with a student after she discovers his secret — was about teaching.

Jumping between cities and languages, "Sugar" is the story of a Dominican baseball player who is recruited into a local baseball academy — effectively a boot camp that American baseball teams maintain in hopes of discovering young foreign talent on the cheap — and is celebrated by his town when he earns the coveted invite to spring training in America. Once overseas, as he starts earning a regular American paycheck and is singled out by coaches for promotion, Sugar (played with an earnest, anxious desperation by Algenis Perez Soto) experiences the wild ups and downs of going from hot prospect to has-been.

In the process, the patient and poignant "Sugar" offers an array of thoughts on the many variations of the American dream, the struggle of immigrants hoping to assimilate into American culture, the pressures facing professional athletes, and the allure of performance enhancing drugs.

"I certainly hope it's bigger than just baseball," Mr. Fleck said on the night of the Sundance world premiere. "It's about a lot of things: self-discovery, a guy who realizes the thing he's been chasing after his whole life isn't necessarily what he wants, and he isn't even good enough to do. It's a coming-of-age story, which is kind of generic, but baseball is a vessel to explore those other ideas."

Reacting to what can only be called gushing compliments during the post-film question-and-answer session, Mr. Fleck said the story of "Sugar" really began when he learned about these baseball academies and came to understand the way so many Dominicans are brought to America with the lure of fame and fortune before being cut and set adrift, fleeing to the major cities as their visas expire.

"HBO Films, they funded a lot of our research, not just the casting process, but the research process that involved retired players and released players in the Dominican Republic and players in the academies and players who fled to New York when they were released here," Mr. Fleck said. "This character, and this movie, is a combination of a very common experience that we've learned about."

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As a documentary filmmaker, Mr. Gibney — whose latest Academy Award-nominated film, "Taxi to the Dark Side," is currently showing at the Angelika Film Center — has always been attracted to stories of men at the moral brink. In 2005's "Enron," he found that inner conflict occurring within the boardroom, as unchecked greed led executives to break the law and rip off their employees. In 2007's "Taxi to the Dark Side," he found that inner turmoil in the minds of interrogators working in America's armed forces.

But if those films were darker explorations of the human soul in conflict, then his new work, "Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson," is a more humorous and celebratory look at a man who discovered both success and failure through life on the edge, beyond the bounds of conventional society or decorum.

"Gonzo" hits all the marks that Thompson's fans will be expecting, aggressively navigating through his "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" days, as well as his immersion in the world of the Hells Angels and his suicide in 2005 (which was followed by an elaborate funeral during which his ashes were shot out of a cannon). But what may surprise those who cheer and jeer Thompson's drug-infused, insane, and inspirational writings is how seriously Mr. Gibney remembers the man not just for pushing the boundaries of literary journalism but for standing tall as a resolute, unblinking challenger to authority and the status quo.

"His work on that election is probably his greatest moment," Mr. Gibney said, pointing to the coverage of the 1972 presidential election, in which Thompson both passionately championed and then vehemently derided George McGovern's campaign in the pages of Rolling Stone. "Many point to his work as a key factor in McGovern's surge of support, and Thompson reached a wider audience than some realize. He was a man who thrived on being an outsider, in his own anonymity, and it allowed him to take chances that others may not have taken. It's when he started to lose that barrier, when he started to become sort of his own cartoon, that he started to lose that edge he thrived on."

Re-creating the high points of Thompson's career, from his political coverage to his ill-fated campaign for sheriff of Aspen, Colo., Mr. Gibney also uncovers unseen home videos and recordings that offer added insight into Thompson's drug binges and dark impulses. Thompson may not have been an Enron executive or a soldier, but there was that familiar turf war, between ecstasy and agony, inside his teetering mind that clearly stokes Mr. Gibney's interest.

ssnyder@nysun.com