After all that nuts-and-bolts talk this week about finishing his film on time, Brooklynite James Ponsoldt’s feature debut Off the Black enjoyed its world premiere this afternoon at Sundance. After a turbulent period waiting for admission outside the Eccles Theater–with none other than Reeler MVP Roger Friedman stomping through the cold, loudly asking anyone who would listen “where are the fucking tickets”–everybody found a seat and settled in for Ponsoldt’s story of a lonely high school baseball umpire’s who befriends a troubled young pitcher.

Black magicians (L-R) Nick Nolte, Timothy Hutton, Trevor Morgan (over Hutton’s shoulder), Rosemarie DeWitt, Sonia Feigelson and filmmaker James Ponsoldt onstage at the Eccles (Photo: STV)
Shot in upstate New York, Black features a sublime lead performance from Nick Nolte, whose fearless tear through umpire Ray Cook’s slow, alcoholic disintegration will no doubt condemn him to at least a few more months of “playing against type” jokes. In reality, Nolte offers his least self-conscious work in years. Opposite Trevor Morgan, Nolte loses himself in a swamp of good intentions and suffers an outgrown paternal despair that recalls his filial anguish in Paul Schrader’s Affliction. His line-straddling between humanity and sociopathy–especially in Black‘s second act–ties with Tim Orr’s typically gorgeous lens work as the film’s most rewarding commodity.
And after he joined Ponsoldt and about 90 percent of Black‘s other cast and crew onstage for a post-screening discussion, Nolte credited the young filmmaker with writing the type of meaty, natural part he had been looking for. And he discredited any reservations about working with a rookie like Ponsoldt. “I don’t put much stock in that ‘first-time director’ thing,” Nolte told the crowd. “Usually, when you meet these people–the ‘first-time directors’–they’re not first-time directors. They’ve done shorts, they’ve done film, they’ve been shooting and shooting. They just haven’t done a major feature. And usually they come with such passion and such great ideas because they’ve thought it through so well. … I’ve worked with many, and it’s always been a good experience.”
For his part, Ponsoldt shared the backstory behind writing Off the Black. Part of his inspiration had come from a trip to see the Atlanta Braves in spring training, but he noted a more striking influence stemming from a long-lost school chum in his hometwon of Athens, Ga. “When we got to hgh school,” Ponsoldt said, “he ran into some trouble with drugs and he dropped out of school. When I went off to college, I remember coming home for Christmas break and I ran into his father at a grocery store. His father was a high school baseball umpire. And his father was so excited to see me; he was asking me how life was up north, was I making short films, all these such things. And nowhere in the conversation did we talk about his son, who was addicted to crack cocaine. And later on I felt awful–like a complete coward–for not asking this guy about this son.
“The guy kept being an umpire. I thought about how he would go to games every day for other people’s children, and no one would know really his own private life and love and pain. And it sort of inspired me to start writing.”
Which he said he did in while locked away in a cabin near Asheville, N.C., finishing the script in about one week. And now look at him, putting the Eccles back in Ecclesiastes: Maybe the race is always to the swift.

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