Sundance headed for chaos?

Robert Redford told Newsweek last year that he thought his Sundance Film Festival was close to being "out of control."

I've got two words in agreement: Bourbon Street.

Before Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans' Bourbon Street was a stretch of 24/7 riotous good times and digestible chaos. It was a wonderful maelstrom of different smells and people and music pouring out of every other building.

I've been to New Orleans three times, but I haven't been back to Bourbon Street since Katrina hit. I've read how it's not the same since the hurricane. Very sad.

But I may not have to long for the old Bourbon Street if, to achieve that flavor, all I have to do is visit Park City's Main Street during the Sundance Film Festival. I give you examples.

Now, I'm not sure what sitting outside in the cold at night, screaming at the top of your lungs and holding up a plastic cup of beer like a trophy has to do with independent films, but I'm sure someone can tell me. That was a not-so-isolated incident on Main Street one evening. No doubt the over-served young man didn't have a ticket into the likes of one of the more exclusive parties going on that night and every night during the festival.

Ah, but there are other things to focus on during Sundance.

As a general-assignment reporter and amateur photographer, I found it irresistible to aim my Nikon at the stars when I wasn't looking for interesting stories. I can tell you honestly, it never crossed my mind which independent films Teri Hatcher or Tom Arnold might be starring in as they passed in front of my lens.

At one point, I was walking up Main Street with my computer bag slung over one shoulder and my camera over the other. A group of what looked like 12-year-olds spilled out of a shop with bags in hand when a precocious girl (no, it wasn't Dakota Fanning) stepped in front of me and asked, "Are you paparazzi?" Did she not see the computer bag?

As I continued on my startled way, a woman in front of me informed me with a laugh that the paparazzi are the "new celebrities" of Sundance. Silly, I thought, until a tall, blond, not-so-famous female co-worker of mine told me how cameras were actually aimed at her, despite her declaration, "I'm not famous!" It seems those people had seen me take a photo of the statuesque reporter and assumed that she must be "somebody."

Inside the Sundance press headquarters, maybe I looked like some crazed stargazer