American Independent Cinema

indie, indiewood and beyond

Geoff King, Claire Molloy, Yannis Tzioumakis, Geoff King, Claire Molloy, Yannis Tzioumakis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780415684293
• eBook ISBN: 9781136501326
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Scienze della comunicazione

The American independent sector has attracted much attention in recent years, an upsurge of academic work on the subject being accompanied by wider public debate. But many questions remain about how exactly independence should be defined and how its relationship might be understood with other parts of the cinematic landscape, most notably the Hollywood studios. Edited and written by leading authors in the field, American Independent Cinema: indie, indiewood and beyond offers an examination of the field through four sections that range in focus from broad definitions to close focus on particular manifestations of independence. A wide variety of examples are included but within a framework that offers insights into how these are related to one another.

More specifically this collection offers:

• an account of recent developments as well as reviewing, reassessing and revising a number of central positions, approaches and arguments relating to various parts of the independent and/or indie sector.
• Individual case studies that range from the distinctive qualities of the work of established 'quality' filmmakers such as Wes Anderson, Steven Soderbergh and Rebecca Miller to studies of horror genre production at the more 'disreputable' end of the independent spectrum.
• Examples of the limits of independence available in some cases within Hollywood, including studies of the work of Stanley Kubrick and Hal Ashby.
• Case studies of under-researched areas in the margins of American independent cinema, including the Disney nature films and Christian evangelical filmmaking.
• A number of wider overview chapters that examine contemporary American independent cinema from a number of perspectives.

Together, the chapters in the collection offer a unique contribution to the study of independent film in the United States.

Contributors: Warren Buckland, Philip Drake, Mark Gallagher, Geoff King, Peter Krämer, Novotny Lawrence, James MacDowell, Claire Molloy, Michael Z. Newman, Alisa Perren, James Russell, Thomas Schatz, Michele Schreiber, Janet Staiger, Yannis Tzioumakis, Sarah Wharton

PART I

Approaching independence

INTRODUCTION

Geoff King

How exactly independence should be defined is, unsurprisingly, the first topic to be tackled in this collection, both generally and in debates about differences that might be marked by the use of particular terms such as ‘independent’, ‘indie’ or ‘Indiewood’. In the first two contributions, Janet Staiger begins by offering a basis on which to establish distinctions between more general and more specific uses of these terms, while Yannis Tzioumakis suggests an historical movement from independent to indie and subsequently to Indiewood.

In the opening chapter, ‘Independent of What? Sorting out Differences from Hollywood’, Staiger tackles what must surely be the most vexed question in the study of independent film: the extent to which independence should be defined purely in industrial terms or to which other factors, including textual qualities, should also be included. Her answer is to suggest a separation between use of the term ‘independent’, to refer to the mode of financing and/or distributing films, and ‘indie’, used to characterise a particular variety of film practice with its own specific historical context, the definition of which includes a number of textual dimensions.

The starting point for this argument is an examination of the longer history of relationships between Hollywood and a number of instances of independent production, the conclusion of which is that independence in the realm of finance is far from always any guarantor of any difference in the type of production that results. The notion of distinct film practices, drawn from David Bordwell's account of art cinema (1979) and Staiger's earlier work on Hollywood (1985), offers a useful basis on which to clarify the issue. A film practice, in this view, is constituted at three levels, by: a specific historical context; distinct conventions in form and content; and a distinct set of implicit viewing procedures.

Indie cinema, for Staiger, qualifies on all three counts, in a definition the specific historical context of which runs from the 1960s in this case to the increased momentum created by a number of developments from the 1980s. As for distinct conventions at the textual level, Staiger suggests the following: the prevalence of dialogue for purposes other than the advancement of plot; the use of ‘quirky’/odd characters; an emphasis on certain forms of verisimilitude; and ambiguity and intertextuality at the level of narrative. An implicit viewing procedure is also suggested, in which the viewer seeks an intellectual as well as an emotional form of engagement with the text (one point of distinction between these formulations of indie cinema and art film, with which it has some features in common, Staiger suggests, is the balance between these two dimensions, indie cinema being marked by a relatively greater emphasis on the emotional component in the mix).

As Staiger suggests, a model of this kind provides an academic tool with which to resolve some of the key differences between one variety of independent or indie practice and another, even if plenty of room might remain for debate about the precise terms in which any particular strand is defined. The indie conventions and viewing practices identified here fit quite closely with those suggested in a number of other accounts, including Pribram (2002), King (2005) and Newman (2011). Some other forms of independence might stand the test of constituting a distinct film practice while some might not, or might do so only on limited grounds. Independent as a single category defined on the basis of finance/distribution clearly does not, which is why it is insufficient on its own fully to characterise any particular variety and is thus so frequently a source of debate and confusion.

The terms ‘indie’ and ‘independent’ have often been used interchangeably, although the former has tended to be associated with the variety of independence that gained prominence in recent decades, particularly in its broader cultural presence from the 1990s. ‘Indie’ might simply be a contraction, but has also been used in some cases in a diminutive sense, to imply something that falls short of the demands that might be placed on the more resolute-seeming ‘independent’. This is particularly the case where it has been used to designate what some would see as the negative consequences of the growth and partial incorporation by Hollywood of the independent sector during the 1990s.

The latter approach is taken, although without any value judgement, by Yannis Tzioumakis in the second chapter of this collection, ‘“Independent”, “Indie” and “Indiewood”: Towards a Periodisation of Contemporary (post-1980) American Independent Cinema’, in which ‘indie’ is used more narrowly to demark a particular phase in the recent history. Tzioumakis identifies three periods within what he terms ‘contemporary’ American independent cinema, dating from the late 1970s or early 1980s: ‘the ‘independent years’, from the start of this era to the end of the 1980s, particularly the release of sex, lies, and videotape in 1989; ‘the indie years’, from 1989 to a less clearly marked period around 1996–98; and ‘Indiewood’ from these dates until the current period.

A key factor in this periodisation is the evolution of different generations of studio ‘classics’ or speciality divisions and the subsequent blurring of distinctions in some cases between the products of Hollywood and this part of the independent sector. A number of significant trends are thus identified, although there is room for debate about the manner in which Tzioumakis labels each of these phases and acknowledgement is made of the fact that any such schema can run the risk of oversimplifying territory that can be constituted by multiple overlapping tendencies. Tzioumakis also acknowledges here that many films in the indie phase retained aspects of the ‘challenging, esoteric and often difficult material’ associated more strongly with its predecessor. It remains open to debate whether or not the term indie is best used to signify a particular sub-period in this manner, rather than to designate the more inclusive film practice identified by Staiger that would be applicable to the whole of the period covered by Tzioumakis.

The wider resonances of ‘indie’ are also considered in my contribution, ‘Thriving or in Permanent Crisis? Discourses on the state of indie cinema’, including its links with other areas of cultural production such as indie music. The aim of this chapter is to use an analysis of the debate about the state of indie cinema's fortunes in the wake of the economic downturn of the late 2000s as a point of departure from which to examine some of the underlying terms of key discourses relating to notions of independence, particularly the articulation by some commentators of a ‘true indie’ that might stand in opposition to the kinds of trends identified by Tzioumakis in the latter of his two periods. The conclusion, perhaps somewhat uncomfortably, is that these are rooted to a significant extent in the influence of secularised versions of Puritan thought on this and other areas of American culture.

A connection with wider cultural trends, although in a more specific realm, is also made in chapter 4, ‘Quirky: Buzzword or Sensibility’, in which James MacDowell moves us away from broader definitions and towards analysis of a particular strand that he associates primarily with the Indiewood end of the spectrum in its particular mix of more and less mainstream/conventional ingredients (this chapters offers, in this respect, something of a link between the rest of this section and the particular indie manifestations explored in section 2). MacDowell's aim is to pin down a particular understanding of the ‘quirky’, a term often used loosely and vaguely in relation to indie film (often but far from always in relation to the more diminutive connotations of ‘indie’ as opposed to ‘independent’).

In this account, the term is associated primarily with a variety of Indiewood comedy or comedy-drama and defined at the level of tone, suggesting, for MacDowell, a particular balance between ironic distance and what is presented as a more sincere level of emotional engagement. The main emphasis here, however, is less on the particular industrial situation of this strand and more on its location in relation to what is identified as a wider cultural sensibility. Quirky films, MacDowell suggests, can be situated as part of a structure of feeling prevalent in other dimensions of contemporary American culture, particularly in relation to tensions between notions of postmodern detachment and political or moral engagement.

Bibliography

Bordwell, D. (1979) ‘The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice’, Film Criticism Vol. 4, no. 1 (Fall), 56–63.

King, G. (2005) American Independent Cinema, London: I. B.Tauris.

Newman, M. Z. (2011) Indie: an American film culture, New York: Columbia University Press.

Pribram, E. D. (2002) Cinema and Culture: independent film in the United States, 1980–2001, New York: Peter Lang.

Staiger, J. (1985) ‘The Hollywood mode of production, 1930-60’ in D. Bordwell, J. Staiger and K. Thompson The Classical Hollywood Cinema: film style and mode of production to 1960, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 309–329.

1

INDEPENDENT OF WHAT?

Sorting out differences from Hollywood

Janet Staiger

The opening of Baghead, the 2008 ‘mumblecore’ film written and directed by two Austin, Texas-based filmmakers, Jay and Mark Duplass, who previously made the indie-success The Puffy Chair (2007), shows two couples in a small theatre watching the ending of a film. In the grainy, black-and-white film, the male protagonist pleads with the female that he is now willing to open up himself to her. To prove his point, he strips naked, and the film ends with the couple's embrace. As the lights come up in the theatre, it is obvious the two male audience members are quite excited by the movie, and their approval displays itself during the question-and-answer period with the director who is embarrassed to have spent $5,000 on the movie and who touts its realism.

As the opening indicates, Baghead gestures toward parody of the indie scene, particularly the sort of subgenre in which the Duplasses work, described by one reviewer as ‘the undercurrents of contemporary relationships [of] shallow, crabby characters’ shot in ‘semi-improvised performances, which seem so natural that it is tempting to confuse the actors with their characters’ (Holden 2008: B14). Although the parody opening begins the film, Baghead settles into becoming another relationship film, focused on four characters whose varying feelings toward each other are exacerbated by the potential threat of a slasher killer in the woods near their weekend cabin.

Baghead also typifies one strand of the current indie scene through its somewhat novel platforming distribution. Sony Pictures Classics, which set up the marketing campaign, premiered the film in Austin and then moved the film to other ‘indie’-centric towns such as Portland, Oregon, hoping to pick up Internet buzz before screening it in the normal first-run cities of New York City and Los Angeles (Cieply 2008: B1, B5). The Austin Film Society, begun by indie-filmmaker Rick Linklater and thriving despite competition from DVD-rentals and Netflix-on-demand, sponsored Baghead's premiere using another Austin-centric screen practice: the premiere occurred at a Hill Country ranch, with a $75-benefit dinner, the menu of which included smoked rainbow trout with a leek mousse and pork tenderloin grilled with a garlic-blackberry glaze alongside goat-cheese grits (Austin Film Society 2008). Baghead achieved decent reviews from the New York Times (Holden 2008: B14), but its overall box office was a weak domestic gross of $140,106 after 23 weeks and its widest release of 18 theatres (Box Office Mojo n.d.).

The question is, is this an ‘independent film’? And if so, what makes it independent? The reason this matters is that implicitly declarations are being made that this sort of film is ideologically better or more worthwhile than what it is not: a classical Hollywood film. Yet its subject matter and trappings are directed toward a very elite class: the young middle-class cinéphile. Although the outright condemnation of Hollywood cinema has been tempered in the past twenty years as the small potential for progressive movies within Hollywood cinema has been realized, still claims can be put forward that even if Hollywood's content occasionally can be politically left, the form and style of the classical Hollywood film are complicit with capitalism and/or white patriarchy. I will not rehearse those claims, but their strength still exists in the notions that any alternative provides fresh visions for people seeking to break out of the arms of blockbuster cinema. It is just that assumption that I want to explore in this discussion of the notion of ‘independent’.

This is also a reflection upon my early 1980s work on Hollywood's mode of production and industrial structure. As I shall indicate, what I wrote at that time occurs just as a new wave of ‘independent’ filmmaking takes off, so I find this opportunity valuable to reflect on that scholarship as well as to ask whether and how I might revise that work as I look at the last twenty-five years. As I shall suggest, I stand by what I wrote at that time, but in this essay I would like to offer some new thoughts about writing the history of both the classical Hollywood cinema and films viewed by some as escaping its embrace.

The Criteria for ‘Independence’

In both The Classical Hollywood Cinema and a 1983 essay in Screen, I laid out a list of criteria by which scholars might think about ‘independent’ cinema (Staiger 1983; Staiger 1985: 317–19). As I noted, ‘used loosely, the term [independent] applies to David O. Selznick, Samuel Goldwyn, and Charles Chaplin in United Artists as well as to Monogram, Maya Deren, and Pare Lorentz’ although in general through the 1960s, independent referred to the circumstances of financing and producing narrative fictional films for theatrical release. In the studio era through about 1960, ‘an independent production firm was a small company with no corporate relationship to a distribution firm. An independent producer might have a contract with a distributor or participate in a distribution alliance, but it neither owned nor was owned by a distributing company’(Staiger 1985: 317). This is still a very common way to describe what is an independent, and scholars using this definition include Jim Hillier (1992: 20) and Greg Merritt (2000).

Throughout the studio era, from 1917 through the 1950s, these sorts of firms made one or only a few films each year, but since the majors filled up only part of US screen time, a theatrical space existed for them. Government statistics for 1925–26 indicated that ‘states-rights distributors’—the major method for distributing independent product—‘handled 248 of the 696 releases’ that year, or about 37 percent of the product, and First National and United Artists, two firms that were not majors but were important distributors, dealt with another 9 percent, making a total of about 46 percent of films ‘independent’ in the sense of how they were financed and distributed (Staiger 1985: 317).

So the first and often still defining criterion for being an independent is based on the movie's economic relation to major producer-distributors. However, I argued that just as I had analyzed the classical Hollywood cinema, I would propose that independent cinema ought to be examined similarly on the basis of five structural, industrial terms. These are: ‘the relations ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I Approaching independence
• Part II Indie manifestations
• Part III Independence and Hollywood
• Part IV Beyond indie
• Index