N.Y. FILM FESTIVAL GETS GOOD REVIEWS

With the premiere at Lincoln Center on Sunday night of Francis Coppola’s “Peggy Sue Got Married,” the curtain rang down on what many considered the most exciting New York Film Festival in recent memory.

One festival official cited “good vibes” from the usually finicky festival filmgoers, but more tangible evidence could be found in larger festival audiences and more consistently favorable reviews in the daily local press, especially for the unusually large number of American and English-language films. Perhaps most significantly, 22 films in the noncompetitive, international festival have been picked up for distribution, more than ever before in the festival’s 24-year history. All but two fiction and two documentary films in the lineup of 26 films were picked up, according to festival officials.

“Frankly, I think we just lucked out,” said festival director Richard Roud. “There was a better selection of films available to us this year, and we got just about every film we wanted.”

Roud, director and guiding light of the festival since its inception, suggested that “things are getting better on the American and international film scene.”

The most exuberant response this year was for the American films, from Jim Jarmusch’s “Down by Law,” which opened the festival Sept. 19, to Coppola’s closing-night film. While Coppola was not in attendance at Avery Fisher Hall on Sunday night, his wife, Eleanor, and two of his children, Sofia and Roman, were seated in the director’s box to acknowledge the audience’s warm response.

There was the usual predominance of films from abroad this year, especially from France. Among the most well-received were “Marlene,” Maximilian Schell’s documentary portrait of the legendary actress Marlene Dietrich; Bertrand Blier’s “Menage”; Andre Techine’s “Scene of the Crime”; Andrei Tarkovsky’s “Sacrifice,” and from Canada, Denys Arcand’s “The Decline of the American Empire.”

“I’ve never seen such response from our audiences,” said Joanne Koch, executive director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, sponsor of the annual festival. She cited “a record” four-minute standing ovation at last week’s festival screening of Bertrand Tavernier’s first American-made film, “Round Midnight.”

Koch said that a total of 48,250 tickets to public screenings were sold, which represents 96% of capacity. The average festival fan attends eight programs, said Koch. Last year, ticket sales of 47,500 amounted to 94.5% capacity.

“Maybe the films this year were especially welcomed by our audiences because it was a bad summer for films, or maybe our program simply appealed to people,” Koch said. “But in the 15 years that I have been associated with the festival, this has been the most exciting.”