Contemporary American Independent Film: From the Margins to the Mainstream

Edited by Chris Holmlund and Justin Wyatt
London and New York: Routledge, 2005

From Easy Rider to The Blair Witch Project, Contemporary American Independent Film is a comprehensive examination of the independent film scene consisting of seventeen essays from numerous film studies professors through out the country. Exploring the uneasy relationship between independent films and the major studios, the contributors trace the changing ideas and definitions of independent cinema, and the diversity of independent film practices.

They consider the ways in which indie films are marketed and distributed, and how new technologies such as video, cable and the internet, offered new opportunities for filmmakers to produce and market independent films.

Turning to the work of key auteurs such as John Sayles and Haile Gerima, contributors ask whether independent filmmakers can also be stars, and consider how indie features like Boys Don't Cry and Shopping for Fangs address issues of gender, sexuality and ethnicity normally avoided by Hollywood.

The collection of essays offers an unprecedented look at the scope of indie options and the field of indie controversies. Though each author is different in their approach, they seem to all feel passionately that how indies are defined, made, and shown makes a difference. They show great interest in the interface of economics, technology, aesthetics and ideology. The contributors, as well as the editor, Chris Holmlund, recognize that in a world dominated by Hollywood products, independents are necessarily in positions of dependence. Yet still, they write how creative imagination, determination and courage among filmmakers continue to be present.

Several of the contributors measure contemporary American indie features in light of indie traditions of early American features, experimental shorts, documentaries and foreign films. Several explore emerging new media or marketing. Others look at more mainstream work, although they mostly avoid analysis of films produced and released by mini-major studios. A number of the essays examine audiences, distinguishing them by gender, generation, sexual preference, ethnicity and race. Always concerned with audiences, as well as attitudes, all of the contributors weave together reflections on history with assessments of the present and speculations of the future.

Cinema of Outsiders: The Rise of American Independent Film

By Emanuel Levy
New York and London: New York University Press, 1999

Given American independent cinema’s rise to prominence over the past several decades, it is very fortunate to read a comprehensive account of the catalysts behind that rise, as well as an assessment of indie cinema’s effect on American film culture and its relationship to the mainstream Hollywood industry. Emanuel Levy’s Cinema of Outsiders can serve as a handy viewing guide for whoever aims to write such an account. Consisting primarily of critical reviews of independent films, Cinema of Outsiders engagingly assesses the extensive range of work in American independent cinema since the late 1970s. Unfortunately, this text covers a lot of critical ground without digging very deeply into it, leaving crucial questions unexplored, but giving a sturdy stepping stone for film fanatics looking to answer those crucial questions on their own.

The introduction, conclusion and first two chapters are the most satisfying sections of the book. The introduction opens in a logical place by addressing how difficult it is to establish a clear definition for contemporary independent cinema. Here Levy identifies the two main factors he feels are essential to such a definition: financing and artistic vision. In Levy’s view, as the book title indicates, independent cinema is founded upon the films of “outsiders,” nonconforming writers and directors not willing to compromise their personal visions in exchange for mainstream studio financing.

The first chapter extends Levy’s attempts at definition by exploring ten forces that have affected the development of independent cinema. This chapter is therefore a useful sketch of methods within both the indie scene and the world of Hollywood have shaped independent cinema. Throughout these opening sections and in the conclusion, Levy repeatedly considers the difficulties in determining the industrial and aesthetic dividing lines between mainstream Hollywood and the independent film world. Yet all Levy does here is indeed “observe” these issues, rarely analyzing them in any detail, and largely not returning to them until the conclusion.

Primarily the book consists of critical assessments of individual films and filmmakers, and Levy provides little sense of how each filmmaker relates to the issues raised in the opening sections of the book. Such editorial comments provide the main attraction of these chapters, as Levy copiously exercises the skills that served him as a film critic for Variety Magazine.

In sum, readers looking for a sharply written abridgment of independent film reviews will be well served by Cinema of Outsiders. But for those looking for more, the book too frequently raises intriguing issues that it then neglects. For instance, Levy opens the “Female/Feminist Sensibility” chapter with the following questions: “Is there a distinctly female sensibility in indie narratives written and directed by women? Are new meanings established? Do women-directed indies address their audiences in different ways?” (348-349). Unfortunately, he never approaches solid answers to these questions in the chapter’s subsequent film reviews. As such, while the reader gains a good sense of the artistic merits and drawbacks of many independent films through reading the book, Levy never satisfactorily makes clear what all of these films add up to, however, he does leave the questions open to the astute film savvy reader for answering.

The Funny Celluloids

Next to noir, comedy is the genre that most excites new indie directors. As in other genres, indie comedy and satire has built upon the work of influential directors: Robert Altman, George Lucas, and Barry Levinson. Quintessential films, such as Altman’s M.A.S.H., Lucas’s American Graffiti, and Levinson’s Diner, have all left a particularly strong mark on indie comedies on the past several decades.


Indie comedies have differed radically from those produced by Hollywood. Mainstream comedies of the 1980s were largely defined by Ivan Reitman, who has shown a knack for commercially viable material. After scoring box-office hits as the co producer of National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978), and the director of Meatballs (1979), Reitman launched a spectacular Hollywood career, capped by the quirky blockbuster, Ghostbusters (1984). When Reitman made Legal Eagles (1986), critics praised his foray into adult comedy, yet the film was still a teenage comedy in feeling, although one populated by adult characters.


American comedies of recent years have been mechanical retreads of old formulas. Filmmakers seem unable to recognize that it’s hard to make screwball comedy these days when the social norms and manners that gave rise to those cinematic conventions no longer exist.

Most American comedies are so broad they are about nothing- take for example a couple of Jim Carrey’s films, Ace Ventura...and its sequel. The distinct sensibility that that permeated American comedy of the 1970s, in the works of Woody Allen, Mike Nichols, and Paul Mazursky, no longer exists. Woody Allen has retained his strength as an inventive comedy director, but he has lost his broad base and now works as a niche filmmaker supported by a small audience.


The work of gifted indie directors has tapped into the zeitgeist, armed with topicality and point of view that defy the mass-marketing approach. Christopher Guest’s style of mockumentary and improvisation, Kevin Smith’s verbal gyrations among the twentysomethings, David O. Russell’s neo-Woody Allen, neurotic tinged comedies, and Alexander Payne’s political satire are all examples of this. Successfully pitching comedies to studios seems like it must be harder than ever, because the conglomerate nature of studios. Studies seem seduced by expensive projects to the point where it sounds like a disgrace to make a movie for only $2 million.

Let’s get back to the character based comedies of the 1970s please.

….and thank you.


Woody Allen

The Brothers Noir

Arguably no indie filmmaker has benefited or exploited the noir tradition more effectively and thoroughly than Joel and Ethan Coen. The Coen brothers are one of the most creative pairings on the contemporary scene. Unconventional and arcane, they have maintained artistic control through writing, directing, producing, and even some times editing their movies. They form a unified team, with their individual contributions so intertwined that no one can say precisely who did what (Usually Joel directs, Ethan produces and they both write.). With fourteen films to their credit, including Blood Simple (1985), Miller’s Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), and the Oscar winning No Country for Old Men (2007), the Coens have created a world that doesn’t look like anybody else’s.


The Coen’s commercial successes, Raising Arizona (1987), and Fargo (1996), are set in recognizable worlds inhabited by more or less ordinary characters. The rest take place in the stylized noir tradition (Blood Simple), remote gangster lands (Miller’s Crossing), or abstract studio sets (The Hudsucker Proxy). As formalist filmmakers, the Coens have pushed Hollywood conventions to the point of absurdity. Like those of many filmmakers, their ideas were formed by pop culture, which means that their work is self conscious. Each of their films pay homage to a classic Hollywood genre, with a knowingness born of numerous hours spent in the dark. Simply, the Coens are clever directors who know too much about movies.


The only shallowness of their work is a result of their creating sealed universes that have few references outside the world of cinema. It would appear that the Coens believe linking form and content is irrelevant, that brilliant style will somehow lure viewers into uncritical acceptance of their schemes (Which works). Their films are both unique and derivative, displaying dazzling camera techniques, meticulously conceived scenes, elaborate set pieces, brilliant production design and smart dialogue.


The Coens, not their characters or the actors who play them, are the stars of their movies. Unlike Tarantino, who puts his performers center stage, the Coens pull the audience away from the actors and showcase their talent.


From the beginning it was the Coen’s self knowingness that endeared them to high-brow critics and sophisticated audiences. Box-office failures like Miller’s Crossing and Barton Fink would have ruined most filmmakers, but in the Coen’s case, they have managed to increase their stature as supreme filmmakers.


The Coen’s work, like the arty Miller’s Crossing, or the desolate styled Barton Fink, feels sealed off and motionless. But this doesn’t mean their work is devoid of serious themes or ideas: Hysterical individualism, often translating into greed, runs through most of their films, creating underlining premises often overlooked.


MILLER'S CROSSING TRAILER

The Smithonian Universe

Kevin Smith has been called “The King of Gen-X Cinema," a label he surely embraces with joy. A satirist who writes skillfully but lacks any sense of visual style, Smith has made a strong case for attending film school, if only to acquire some technical skills. Clerks (1994), a savage assault of convenience-store culture, put on screen the loves and ambitions of two cash register hockey nuts. Raggedy and vulgar, a studio made Mall Rats (1995), which takes aim at the shopping mall “subculture.” It was a sophomore jinx, flat and not very funny. The sex-comedy Chasing Amy (1997) represented a return to form but again showed that Smith is a rough filmmaker with limited understanding of the medium’s possibilities.


The son of a postal clerk in Highlands New Jersey, Smith set his sights on becoming a screenwriter after dropping out of college. He switched gears and headed to Vancouver to where he would spend four months in film school until deciding to invest the rest of his tuition into making a movie. Shot after business hours in three weeks at the Quick Stop where Smith used to work, Clerks was made for a mere $27,575.


The anti-hero, Dante Hicks, plans to sleep late, play hockey, and enjoy his day off, but, instead he gets called in to the Quick Stop and is stranded when his boss never shows up to relieve him. He’s forced to listen to tales of lung cancer from customers and is later devastated by the wedding announcement of Caitlin, the high school sweetheart he can’t forget. Shocked by the sexual revelations of his girlfriend, Veronica, he blusters, “You sucked thirty-six dicks? Does that include me?” “Thirty-seven,” she calmly responds.


Dante quips that his job would be great if “it wasn’t for all the customers.” Randal, Dante’s reckless counterpart at the adjoining video store also insults customers. Together they philosophize the Star Wars Trilogy. They theorize that The Empire Strikes Back ended on a down note, and that’s all that life is, a series of down notes.


Shot in grainy black and white, Clerks is cast with beginners and the script dogpiles absurdity and obscenity on top of each other. The dullness of dead-end jobs is brightened with odd bits- a fat guy asks for softer toilet paper and then dies on the toilet. When Dante and Randall run out to attend the funereal, Randall tips over the casket. By the end of the day the Quick Stop lies in ruins.


After premiering at Sundance, where Clerks won the Filmmakers Trophy, Smith barnstormed around the global film circuit, gathering acclaim for the film and quickly getting picked up by Miramax.


Although still somewhat considered a new filmmaker, Smith hails more mainstream aspirations. Mainstream hopes don’t sound too surprising from someone who avoids drugs, attends church and loves the family life. Smith grew up “talking about sex, but not having it,” which explains why his movies are raunchy, anticlerical, and sexually glitzy.


Politics

Indies From Venus

In the winter of 2000, another “Year of the Woman” was proclaimed in the independent film scene. Reporters had either forgotten or had never known that the Sundance Film Festival had already celebrated the year of the woman in 1989, 1991 and 1993. So for trade journalists, Sundance had hit a major milestone with its notable jump in female participants, 40 percent of the candidates in the festival’s dramatic competition were female, up from 20 percent in the previous eight years. And a woman, Karyn Kusama won the Grand Jury Prize for her film, Girlfight (2000), a feminist version of Rocky, which featured a working-class teenage girl’s entrance into the amateur boxing ring. Kusama, who had financed the $1 million film through her previous employer John Sayles and the Independent Film Channel, sold Girlfight to Sony for $3 million.


Around that same time, Kimberly Peirce enjoyed the success of Boys Don’t Cry (1999). A dramatic treatment of the rape and murder of Brandon Teena, a teenaged girl passing as a boy in Falls City, Iowa. This debut film gathered critical acclaim at festivals in Toronto, Venice, London and New York just to name a few. Boys Don’t Cry won several highly coveted Independent Spirit Awards as well as an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award for Hilary Swank’s performance as Brandon. A $2 million film, it eventually made $11.5 million in domestic box office.


The success of Kusama and Peirce’s indie debuts had a good deal to do with casting, which is not to devalue their writing and screen direction, but for Girfight a publicity campaign was developed around newcomer actress Michelle Rodriguez who possessed little experience in either acting or boxing. For Boys Don’t Cry, Hilary Swank’s status as a Beverly Hills 90210 starlet turned method actor provided immediate attention. In addition to casting, these films generated a high-concept type of ‘hook’ that heightened their marketability.

The visibility of Kusama and Peirce’s debuts would seem to set them up for enduring careers in independent film. The experiences of women directors who came before them indicate, however, that the odds would not favor Peirce or Kusama.


The problem is that women who attempt to establish careers in an independent world now dominated by mini-major studios often hit a plateau after their first film. Since Girlfight Kusama has director one major flop, Aeon Flux, and a couple Episodes of Showtime’s The L Word. Peirce also has struggled post Boys Don’t Cry and in a decade has directed only one film, Stoploss, and like Kusama worked on an episode of The L Word.


Studios have squeezed out avant-garde film and documentaries, but what of women who decide to direct the narrative features so valued by major film festivals? What precisely are the hurdles for women filmmakers? What strategies of empowerment are indie women directors crafting in the narrowly circumscribed business of cinema?

Zowie Bowie

A small, personal story wrapped in the trappings of classic Sci-Fi epic, Moon manages to be both derivative (most notably, of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001(1968), but with only a touch of that film’s monumental pessimism) and deliberately rebellious in its treatment of Sci-Fi euphemisms. Moving through familiar territory and yet sparked with a spirit all its own, like any great work of genre cinema Moon’s future-world scenario and super-slick techno-artistry are put to the service of a story that ultimately downplays the traumas wrought by technological possibility in order to dig deep into the traumas of people being people.


The film, directed by first time director Duncan Jones (once known as Zowie Bowie, son of Sir David Bowie), begins with a pitch-perfect advertisement for the company that contracts an astronaut named Sam (Sam Rockwell) to live and work on a space station on the Earth’s Moon for a three year stretch, accompanied only by a HAL-meets-Johnny Five (2001 and Short Circuit [1986]) robot named Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey), and able to communicate with his wife and child on Earth only via taped video message.


Shot within a grueling 33 days on a fair budget in regards to indie films ($5 million), but on an incredibly low budget in reference to mass market Sci-Fi pictures (Independence Day (1996) -$75 million), Moon relies on a major twist that would be criminal to reveal. Suffice it to say that Sam is at once not as alone as he thought he was, and as fundamentally lonely as anyone could ever be. This dramatization of Sam’s sudden, tragic self-awareness gives Rockwell a platform for a terrifically exciting dual performance which, thanks to over 450 seamless, non-showy effects, and a magic of chemistry, works magnificently.


What marks Moon as a potential Sci-Fi game changer is the complexity of its philosophy on The Future, one which allows for both limitless faith in human feeling and skepticism over the human cost of innovation, particularly in regards to Saving the Planet. 2001 predicts that the more human-like machines become, the more they’ll take on the worst of humanity and, as an added bonus, that humans will lose the passion and compassion that makes them human in direct proportion to the degree to which they engineer machines to become more human-like. Moon approaches a similar scenario from a very different angle, imagining that the artificial intelligence that humans create will embody the best of what humanity can be, but will probably be used to the ends of, if not evil, than at least the individual-indifferent banality that keeps a capitalist society ticking along.


“I took common Sci-Fi illusions and assumptions that people make and changed that in the course of the film” said director Duncan Jones at the San Francisco International Film Festival, detailing his film’s “inverted common trend of technological mistrust in Sci-fi.” He described in a question answer session after his film was shown that the all encompassing aspect of Sci-Fi film is “telling human stories but having the world be Sci-Fi, because then the environment makes us see the characters in different ways we wouldn’t look at before. In other words, Sci-Fi can be intelligent and smart, but also very simple; the stories are the baggage that humans bring to create trauma.



Moon Trailer