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From Independent to ‘Indie’ Cinema

Yannis Tzioumakis

in The Spanish Prisoner

The chapter reviews a number of debates and arguments about contemporary American independent cinema. One of these arguments involves an examination of independent cinema as an institutional ... More

The chapter reviews a number of debates and arguments about contemporary American independent cinema. One of these arguments involves an examination of independent cinema as an institutional apparatus exemplified by the huge number of film festivals (with the massively popular Sundance Film Festival at the forefront), specialized theatre circuits, distributors’ associations, and even an Independent Spirit Award body, which have created a significant marketplace for low-budget films that differ from the blockbuster films and star vehicles of the major studios. Furthermore, it presents arguments about American independent cinema from an industrial-economic perspective focusing in particular on the ‘problem’ of the studios’ classics divisions and specialty film labels. As these companies traded heavily in the American independent film market, especially since the 1990s, it became extremely difficult to distinguish between ‘truly’ independent films (i.e. made by companies without affiliations with the majors) and films made with an ‘independent style’ by companies with corporate links with the majors. For those reasons, the chapter argues, critics, industry and audiences started using the label ‘indie’ instead of ‘independent’, which suggests a qualitative difference between the two.Less

American Independent Cinema in the Age of the Conglomerates

Yannis Tzioumakis

in American Independent Cinema: An Introduction

As the majors became one by one parts of multinational conglomerates in the late 1960s and 1970s, they gradually turned their attention to the production of fewer but considerably more expensive ... More

As the majors became one by one parts of multinational conglomerates in the late 1960s and 1970s, they gradually turned their attention to the production of fewer but considerably more expensive films with the potential to do spectacularly well at the box office. However, this trend created gaps in the film market which were exploited by independent distributors such as American International Pictures and the Samuel Goldwyn Company, which managed to carve a small niche, mainly for sensational /exploitation films and art-house films, respectively. The first part of the chapter discusses the effects of conglomeration on the independent film sector and cites a number of examples of exploitation and art film companies that benefited from these effects. The chapter then focuses on the development of new distribution outlets (cable television and home video in particular) and examines how they created a new demand for films in the late 1970s and early 1980s that created the conditions for the beginning of what has become known as contemporary American independent cinema. Case studies: Foxy Brown (Hill, 1974), Return of the Secaucus Seven (Sayles, 1980).Less

Introduction

Anna Backman Rogers

in American Independent Cinema: Rites of Passage and the Crisis Image

American independent cinema is certainly a cinema in crisis, but it is also a cinema of crisis. A great deal of useful scholarship has been carried out on the notion of independence and the ... More

American independent cinema is certainly a cinema in crisis, but it is also a cinema of crisis. A great deal of useful scholarship has been carried out on the notion of independence and the definition of indie cinema as a hybrid industry (‘indiewood’). This study partakes of that conversation, but from the perspective of the aesthetics and poetics of crisis that figure or visualise notions of ambiguity and the in-between. The cinema of crisis delineated here is one that explores the difficulty or impossibility of progression through extended moments of liminality and threshold. In a cinema of crisis, the concept of a plot is subservient to the investigation of what it means to exist in a moment of threshold within the context of a rite of passage; this moment may usher in transformation, or it may lead to stasis and not offer any form of resolution. What the viewer sees on screen are bodies that may halt, falter, freeze and become-surface, or evolve, mutate, dissolve and merge: these are bodies in crisis because they are either atrophying or becoming-other.Less

Authenticity and Independence:: Fruit Chan and Independent Filmmaking

M. K. Cheung

in Fruit Chan's Made in Hong Kong

This chapter discusses independent cinema and the practice of independent filmmaking. It discusses the revival of Hong Kong indie cinema in the 1990s and describes Fruit Chan as a role model for many ... More

This chapter discusses independent cinema and the practice of independent filmmaking. It discusses the revival of Hong Kong indie cinema in the 1990s and describes Fruit Chan as a role model for many filmmakers. After Made in Hong Kong, Chan has been circulated in Western and Asian cinematic discourses as an “indie filmmaker.” In public discourse, Chan's debut is referred to as “the Hong Kong independent legend.” His creative use of resources in the industry and his alternative way of gathering funding from friends and international film groups are regarded as ways in which he fights for access to and participatory equity within the commercial institution of film.Less

I Sinema Manifesto

Tilman Baumgärtel

in Southeast Asian Independent Cinema

A short manifesto by key Indonesian independent film makers

David Mamet and ‘Indie’ Cinema

Yannis Tzioumakis

in The Spanish Prisoner

The Chapter examines David Mamet’s position within the independent and indie cinema landscapes. It starts with an overview of Mamet’s work in American cinema and points to the problem that despite ... More

The Chapter examines David Mamet’s position within the independent and indie cinema landscapes. It starts with an overview of Mamet’s work in American cinema and points to the problem that despite the fact that the majority of his work has been for independent companies and studio specialty film divisions, he rarely has been examined as an independent filmmaker. This is despite the fact that as a filmmaker he has produced aesthetically distinctive films that differ considerably from mainstream Hollywood productions. Furthermore, the independent and indie film companies that have financed and distributed his films have increasingly utilised his name as an auteur brand name for the independent sector, which begs further the question of why David Mamet has rarely been discussed as an independent filmmaker. Through an examination of the trailers and other promotional material that surrounded the release of his films, the chapter explores the ways in which Mamet has been associated with American independent cinema.Less

Genre in the Margins: Kelly Reichardt’s Meek’s Cutoff

Katarzyna Paszkiewicz

in Genre, Authorship and Contemporary Women Filmmakers

In view of the historical co-implication of popular genres and the Hollywood film industry, it might be expected that the latter should be at the vanguard of women’s genre filmmaking. Yet women ... More

In view of the historical co-implication of popular genres and the Hollywood film industry, it might be expected that the latter should be at the vanguard of women’s genre filmmaking. Yet women directors who draw on genre cinema might, in fact, be proportionally more numerous in American independent cinema. One such director who builds in various ways on popular genres (in particular, the Western and the road movie) is Kelly Reichardt. This chapter asks, thus, what it means for a woman to use a popular genre in an independent filmmaking context. It shows how Reichardt’s authorship and biographical legend are constructed in close relation to the processes of legitimisation of independent cinema, conceptualised discursively in opposition to Hollywood (and genre). The second part of the chapter focuses specifically on Meek’s Cutoff (2010) – a Western film which was incorporated into the auteurist discourse of resistance towards genre and exceptional individual achievement. It will be argued that, while Meek’s Cutoff seems to be diametrically opposed to genre cinema, since it offers a radical revision of the Western genre conventions, it also draws on the productive potential of generic logic based on variation within reiteration (Neale 1980).Less

Imagined Communities, Imagined Worlds: Independent Film From Southeast Asia in the Global Mediascape

Tilman Baumgärtel

in Southeast Asian Independent Cinema

The article gives an overview of the recent upsurge of independent cinema in Southeast Asia. I argue that these films are examples of a new transnational cinema forthe lack of alternative: as the ... More

The article gives an overview of the recent upsurge of independent cinema in Southeast Asia. I argue that these films are examples of a new transnational cinema forthe lack of alternative: as the political and social situation in the countries where they have been made does not allow for their inclusion into the mainstream of the national cinema, they have turned to an international market to find an audience. I argue that a new generation of film-makers has been empowered by the easy and cheap access to digital video. Thanks to digital cinema technology, film-makersfrom South East Asia have the opportunity to produce their alternative and often very personal works. Using Arjun Appadurai's influential essay ‘Disjuncture and Difference’ (1996) as a theoretical framework, I discuss some of the specific traits of recent independent films from Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Singapore and the Philippines, and point out their genuinely transnational nature with regard to distribution and reception.Less

Four Manifestos

Khavn de la Cruz

in Southeast Asian Independent Cinema

Four Manifestos by Filipino Independent Director Khavn de la Cruz

Southeast Asian Independent Cinema: Independent of What?

John A. Lent

in Southeast Asian Independent Cinema

To discuss Southeast Asian Independent Cinema is to encounter problems of definition, first, in trying to delineate the region itself, and second, in setting the parameters of independent film. ... More

To discuss Southeast Asian Independent Cinema is to encounter problems of definition, first, in trying to delineate the region itself, and second, in setting the parameters of independent film. Southeast Asia is a diverse mixture of many languages, cultures, and beliefs pulled together for political convenience; it is a colonial, and later, Cold War construct of Western origins. The region and in turn, its film, are not entities unto themselves; they are inseparable from their Indian, Malay, Chinese, and other roots.Less

Introduction: ‘You don't know who anyone is’

Yannis Tzioumakis

in The Spanish Prisoner

The Introduction explains why The Spanish Prisoner is an important example of independent cinema and pays particular attention to the film’s generic specificity that has been misunderstood by ... More

The Introduction explains why The Spanish Prisoner is an important example of independent cinema and pays particular attention to the film’s generic specificity that has been misunderstood by critics. It also offers a brief overview of the four chapters that constitute it, with the first chapter examining key debates about the transition from an independent cinema to an indie cinema in the US, especially during the 1990s and the early 2000s; the second chapter looking at David Mamet’s place in the independent and indie cinema landscapes; the third one examining the film’s production and distribution history; and with the fourth and fifth scrutinising the film’s use of visual style and narrative, and of generic elements, respectively.Less

Locating Linklater

Rob Stone

in The Cinema of Richard Linklater: Walk, Don't Run

This chapter examines the role of the city of Austin in Richard Linklater's cinema. Locating Linklater in Austin is vital, for his films not only emerged from the slacker culture of the mid-1980s, ... More

This chapter examines the role of the city of Austin in Richard Linklater's cinema. Locating Linklater in Austin is vital, for his films not only emerged from the slacker culture of the mid-1980s, but enunciate the undermining of the ideologies of late capitalist materialism through the form, content, style, and themes of his filmmaking. Through this city, Linklater applied the techniques associated with representations of alienation in post-war European cinema to a specifically regional concept of American cinema that was also informed by existentialist and Marxist undercurrents. Consequently, his films associated slacker culture with the deliberate wider critical project of communal estrangement from political and national hegemonies, and reterritorialised a part of America that would find common identity and cause in the development of independent cinema.Less

The Downside of Digital: A German media critic plays devil's advocate

Tilman Baumgärtel

in Southeast Asian Independent Cinema

This article was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer in September 2006, and caused such uproar in the local film scene, that the newspaper felt obliged to print a number of statements by ... More

This article was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer in September 2006, and caused such uproar in the local film scene, that the newspaper felt obliged to print a number of statements by directors and producers in consecutive issues, that are documented in extracts here.Less

From Civil Rights to Black Nationalism: Hollywood V. Black America?

Trevor B. McCrisken and Andrew Pepper

in American History and Contemporary Hollywood Film

If contemporary filmmakers have felt compelled to do away with the explicit racism of pre-civil rights Hollywood movie-making and make African Americans the subjects rather than the objects of their ... More

If contemporary filmmakers have felt compelled to do away with the explicit racism of pre-civil rights Hollywood movie-making and make African Americans the subjects rather than the objects of their gaze, then the vexed question of how successfully their ambitions have been realised needs to be addressed. There has been a small but growing number of films made by African-American directors (that is, Spike Lee, Mario Van Peebles) whose focus is predominantly African-American subjects and which tend to privilege conflict and confrontation rather than reconciliation and assimilation. Examples of this type of film are Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X, Panther and Dead Presidents. Then there is Michael Mann's Ali (2001), a film about boxer Muhammad Ali. At stake is not only the question of how these black ‘independent’ films represent the struggle for racial equality and the emergence of black nationalism as a social, cultural and political force from the early 1960s onwards. Rather, it is also the viability of the distinction between Hollywood and this so-called black independent cinema in the first place.Less