by Steve Rosen

Now that the Sundance Film Festival is all but over, with just today’s screenings of award winners and a few other titles left, people are trying to sum up what kind of year it was.

A common opinion is that, in loyal opposition to the cultural (and political) conservatism that seemed to triumph with last year’s reelection of President Bush, many of this year’s films tried to be fearless in going places that such conservatives consider taboo. Examples: “Inside Deep Throat,” the extremely dirty jokes told by famous comedians in “The Aristocrats,” the teen sex discreetly depicted or talked about in “Pretty Persuasion,” “Thumbsucker” and “Me and You and Everyone We Know.”

It was interesting, then, that one visitor to this year’s festival was the son of a man credited with doing much to loosen up pop culture in the first place, the late Terry Southern. He co-wrote the satirical, explicit novel “Candy,” contributed to the screenplays of “Dr. Strangelove” and “Easy Rider,” and was known for his outrageous humor.

I talked to Nile Southern, who is a co-trustee of the Terry Southern Literary Trust and has written “The Candy Men” about the literary and legal battles fought to get the best-selling “Candy” published in the first place. (I know Nile, who lives in Boulder, from when I lived in Denver.)

He was partly here to see movies – eagerly hoping to get into a screening of “The Aristocrats,” a film his father presumably would have loved. He was also networking about a documentary he would like to make about his relationship to his father, a la “My Architect.” He would call it “Dad Strangelove.”

In his 1970 novel “Blue Movie,” Terry Southern wrote a blisteringly satirical story about Hollywood’s fears and fascinations with confronting the last great taboo on screen – making a hard-core film with A-list stars. He chronicled a hilariously disastrous attempt to produce such a film.

In a conversation, Nile told me there is actual interest in adapting “Blue Movie” to the screen now that studios are beginning to distribute NC-17 films. “It’s the most hotly pursued property of Terry’s,” he said. “The big question is, ‘Will the top stars come through?’” He also said “Blue Movie” could itself be filmed without being hard-core.

Terry Southern wrote “Blue Movie” with Stanley Kubrick in mind – it was inspired by conversations they had. Nile said that, for a time in the permissive 1970s, there was Hollywood interest with such names bandied about as producer John Calley, director Mike Nichols, actress Julie Andrews, and financial backer Ringo Starr. (Ringo starred in an adaptation of Southern’s “Magic Christian.”)

But that fell through and times changed. However, Terry Southern kept trying. “That was his swan song, trying to get ‘Blue Movie’ made,” his son said.