American Independent Cinema: indie, indiewood and beyond [1 ed.] 2012013701, 9780415684286, 9780415684293, 9780203143704

Table of contents :
AMERICAN INDEPENDENT CINEMA Indie, Indiewood and Beyond
Copyright
Contents
List of Figures
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I Approaching independence
Introduction
1 Independent of what? sorting out differences from Hollywood
2 ‘Independent’, ‘Indie’ and ‘Indiewood’: towards a periodisation of contemporary (post-1980) American independent cinema
3 Thriving or in permanent crisis? discourses on the state of indie cinema
4 Quirky: buzzword or sensibility?
Part II Indie manifestations
Introduction
5 Movies for hipsters
6 Discerning independents: Steven Soderbergh and transhistorical taste cultures
7 Their own personal velocity: women directors and contemporary independent cinema
8 Last indie standing: the special case of Lions Gate in the new millennium
Part III Independence and Hollywood
Introduction
9 Conglomerate Hollywood and American independent film
10 Reputational capital, creative conflict and Hollywood independence: the case of Hal Ashby
11 The limits of autonomy: Stanley Kubrick, Hollywood and independent filmmaking, 1950-53
12 Independent nature: wildlife films between Hollywood and indiewood
Part IV Beyond indie
Introduction
13 In Hollywood, but not of Hollywood: independent Christian filmmaking
14 Welcome to the (neo) grindhouse! sex, violence and the indie film
15 Faux real? C.S.A. The Confederate States of America as the response to The Birth of a Nation
16 Measuring online word-of-mouth: the initial reception of Inland Empire (2006) on the web
Index

Citation preview

american independent cinema indie, indiewood and beyond

edited by

G e o f f K i n g , C l a i r e M o l l o y a n d Ya n n i s Tz i o u m a k i s

AMERICAN INDEPENDENT CINEMA

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 and Sarah Wharton. Geoff King is Professor of Film Studies at Brunel University and author of five books focused on the independent sector, including American Independent Cinema (2005), Indiewood, USA: Where Hollywood Meets Independent Cinema (2009) and Indie 2.0: Change and Continuity in Contemporary Indie Film (2012). Claire Molloy is Professor of Film, Television and Digital Media at Edge Hill University. She is the author and editor of three books, including Memento (2010), a volume in the ‘American Indies’ series, and has published a number of essays in journals and edited collections. Yannis Tzioumakis is Lecturer in Communication and Media at the University of Liverpool. He is the author of three books on independent filmmaking, including American Independent Cinema: An Introduction (2006) and Hollywood’s Indies: Classics Divisions, Specialty Labels and the American Film Market (2012). He also co-edits the series ‘American Indies’, which has published five volumes since 2009.

AMERICAN INDEPENDENT CINEMA Indie, Indiewood and beyond

Edited by Geoff King, Claire Molloy and Yannis Tzioumakis

First published 2013 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2013 Geoff King, Claire Molloy and Yannis Tzioumakis for selection and editorial matter; individual contributions, the contributors The right of Geoff King, Claire Molloy and Yannis Tzioumakis to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data American independent cinema : indie, indiewood and beyond / edited by Geoff King, Claire Molloy and Yannis Tzioumakis. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Independent films- -United States- -History and criticism. 2. Independent filmmakers- -United States. I. King, Geoff, 1960- II. Molloy, Claire. III. Tzioumakis, Yannis. PN1993.5.U6A87553 2012 791.43020 3092- -dc23 2012013701 ISBN: 978-0-415-68428-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-415-68429-3 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-14370-4 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Taylor & Francis Books

CONTENTS

List of Figures List of Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction Geoff King, Claire Molloy and Yannis Tzioumakis

viii ix xiii 1

PART I

Approaching independence Introduction Geoff King 1 Independent of what? sorting out differences from Hollywood Janet Staiger

9 11

15

2 ‘Independent’, ‘Indie’ and ‘Indiewood’: towards a periodisation of contemporary (post-1980) American independent cinema Yannis Tzioumakis

28

3 Thriving or in permanent crisis? discourses on the state of indie cinema Geoff King

41

4 Quirky: buzzword or sensibility? James MacDowell

53

vi

Contents

PART II

Indie manifestations Introduction Geoff King 5 Movies for hipsters Michael Z. Newman

65 67

71

6 Discerning independents: Steven Soderbergh and transhistorical taste cultures Mark Gallagher

83

7 Their own personal velocity: women directors and contemporary independent cinema Michele Schreiber

96

8 Last indie standing: the special case of Lions Gate in the new millennium Alisa Perren

108

PART III

Independence and Hollywood Introduction Yannis Tzioumakis 9 Conglomerate Hollywood and American independent film Thomas Schatz

121 123

127

10 Reputational capital, creative conflict and Hollywood independence: the case of Hal Ashby Philip Drake

140

11 The limits of autonomy: Stanley Kubrick, Hollywood and independent filmmaking, 1950–53 Peter Krämer

153

12 Independent nature: wildlife films between Hollywood and indiewood Claire Molloy

165

Contents vii

PART IV

Beyond indie Introduction Claire Molloy

179 181

13 In Hollywood, but not of Hollywood: independent Christian filmmaking James Russell

185

14 Welcome to the (neo) grindhouse! sex, violence and the indie film Sarah Wharton

198

15 Faux real? C.S.A. The Confederate States of America as the response to The Birth of a Nation Novotny Lawrence

210

16 Measuring online word-of-mouth: the initial reception of Inland Empire (2006) on the web Warren Buckland

224

Index

238

LIST OF FIGURES

16.1 Insights for Search graph for the search terms ‘Inland Empire’ and ‘Lynch’ from 2004 to 2009 16.2 The bottom half of the Insights for Search screen shown in Figure 16.1 – countries and popular search terms 16.3 A close-up of the beginnings of the graph in Figure 16.1, showing that searches for David Lynch’s Inland Empire suddenly start at the beginning of May 2005 16.4 Initial interest in Inland Empire came almost exclusively from the US 16.5 A fairly consistent interest in the film (with three small peaks) July–December 2005 16.6 A clear peak in May 2006 16.7 The largest volume of searches came from France during the period January–June 2006 16.8 A peak of interest in September 2006, the time of the Venice film festival, where Inland Empire received its premiere 16.9 Interest gradually spread to other European countries (July–December 2006) 16.10 Interest in Inland Empire begins to wane (January–June 2007) 16.11 Comparative Insights for Search graph representing search volume for the Hollywood blockbuster ‘Night at the Museum’ (top graph) and ‘Inland Empire’ plus ‘Lynch’ (bottom graph)

228 229

230 230 231 231 232

232 233 233

235

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Warren Buckland is Reader in Film Studies at Oxford Brookes University. He teaches and writes on film theory, contemporary Hollywood cinema, and film narratology. He is the author of Film Theory: Rational Reconstructions (Routledge, 2012); Directed by Steven Spielberg: Poetics of the Contemporary Hollywood Blockbuster (Continuum, 2006); Studying Contemporary American Film: A Guide to Movie Analysis (Arnold 2002 – with Thomas Elsaesser); The Cognitive Semiotics of Film (Cambridge, 2000); and has edited several volumes, including Puzzle Films: Complex Storytelling in Contemporary Cinema (WileyBlackwell, 2009). He also edits the journal the New Review of Film and Television Studies. Philip Drake lectures in film and media at the University of Stirling, UK and is a member of the Stirling Media Research Institute. He has published numerous articles on Hollywood cinema, including on marketing and distribution in The Contemporary Hollywood Film Industry (Blackwell-Wiley, 2008), on screen performance in the Journal of Film and Video and in several books, as well as written on television and deregulation, the politics of celebrity, image rights, and film and memory. He is currently writing a book on screen talent and performance in Hollywood cinema, as well as co-editing a book on Hollywood and the law. Mark Gallagher is Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at the University of Nottingham and co-editor of Scope: An Online Journal of Film and Television Studies. He is the author of Another Steven Soderbergh Experience: Authorship and Contemporary Hollywood (University of Texas Press, 2013) and Action Figures: Men, Action Films and Contemporary Adventure Narratives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). He has published widely as well in journals such as Velvet Light Trap, Jump Cut, Feminist Media Studies and the Journal of Popular Film and Television, and in many other journal and collections.

x List of Contributors

Geoff King is Professor of Film Studies at Brunel University. His research is primarily on recent/contemporary American cinema, including five books focused on the independent sector: American Independent Cinema (I.B. Tauris, 2005), Indiewood, USA: Where Hollywood Meets Independent Cinema (I.B. Tauris, 2009), Indie 2.0: Change and Continuity In Contemporary American Indie Film (I.B. Tauris, 2012), Lost in Translation (EUP, 2010) and Donnie Darko (Wallflower Press, 2007). He has also published books on subjects including Hollywood cinema, film comedy, science fiction cinema and videogames. Peter Krämer is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of East Anglia. He is the author of The New Hollywood: From Bonnie and Clyde to Star Wars (Wallflower Press, 2005), 2001: A Space Odyssey (BFI, 2010) and A Clockwork Orange (Palgrave, 2011) as well as the co-editor of Screen Acting (Routledge, 1999) and The Silent Cinema Reader (Routledge, 2004). Novotny Lawrence is an Associate Professor of Race, Media, and Popular Culture at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale where he teaches courses such as Understanding Electronic Media and History of African-American Images in Film. He is the author of Blaxploitation Films of the 1970s: Blackness and Genre (Routledge Press, 2007) and he has also published work on The Jeffersons, the comedy of Dave Chappelle, and gay and lesbian representation in blaxploitation cinema. He is currently editing a collection of essays focusing on documentaries that chronicle African-American experiences. James MacDowell sits on the editorial board of Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism (www.warwick.ac.uk/go/moviejournal), edits Alternate Takes (www.alternatetakes.co. uk), and has published several articles in academic collections and peer-reviewed journals. His research examines conventions of American filmmaking for their aesthetic, rhetorical, and cultural significance. He is currently writing a monograph for Edinburgh University Press about the Hollywood ‘happy ending’. Claire Molloy is Professor of Film, Television and Digital Media at Edge Hill University. Prior to this she held posts at University of Brighton, Liverpool Hope University and Liverpool John Moores University. Her research focuses on media industries, entertainment media, nature, environment and animal ethics. She is a co-founder of the Cultural Disability Studies Research Network and a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. She is the author of Popular Media and Animals (Routledge, 2012) and Memento (EUP, 2010), a book in the American Indie series, and co-editor of Beyond Human: From Animality to Transhumanism (Continuum, 2012). Michael Z. Newman is an assistant professor at the University of WisconsinMilwaukee. He is the author of Indie: An American Film Culture (Columbia UP, 2011), and co-author of Legitimating Television: Media Convergence and Cultural Status (Routledge, 2012). His writing on film, television, and new media has appeared in

List of Contributors xi

Film Criticism, Cinema Journal, Velvet Light Trap, Media Culture & Society, Television & New Media, Flow, First Monday, and in his blog, Zigzigger. He is working on a cultural history of early video games. Alisa Perren is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Georgia State University. She is co-editor of Media Industries: History, Theory, and Method (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009) and author of Indie, Inc.: Miramax and the Transformation of Hollywood in the 1990s (University of Texas Press, 2012). Her work has appeared in a range of publications, including Film Quarterly, Journal of Film and Video, Journal of Popular Film & Television, and Flow. She also serves as Coordinating Editor of In Media Res, an online project that experiments with collaborative, multi-modal forms of scholarship. James Russell is a Principal Lecturer in Film Studies at De Montfort University in Leicester. His research focuses on the history of the American film industry and the role of popular entertainment more generally in contemporary American society. He is the author of The Historical Epic and Contemporary Hollywood: From Dances With Wolves to Gladiator (Continuum, 2007), and he has published a number of articles, reviews and book chapters on other aspects of American film and TV history, as well as a series of essays on Christian audiences. James is currently working on a major co-authored historical monograph entitled Hollywood and the Baby Boom: A Social History. Thomas Schatz is Professor in the Radio-Television-Film Department at the University of Texas at Austin. He has written four books on American film (and edited many others), including The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era, and Boom and Bust: American Cinema in the 1940s. His writing on film has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Premiere, The Nation, Film Comment, Film Quarterly, and elsewhere. His recent scholarly works include lead essays in The Contemporary Hollywood Film Industry (2008), Film Theory and Contemporary Hollywood Movies (2009), and Volume IV: 1976 to the Present, in Blackwell's History of American Film (2010). He is currently writing a book-length study of conglomerate-era Hollywood. Michele Schreiber is Assistant Professor in the Department of Film Studies at Emory University. She has published essays in several anthologies, including Reclaiming the Archive: Feminism and Film History (Wayne State, 2010) and Feminism at the Movies: Understanding Gender in Contemporary Cinema (Routledge, 2011). She is in the process of completing two book projects, one on the prevalence of romance in the postfeminist mediascape, and the other on the films of David Fincher. Janet Staiger is the William P. Hobby Centennial Professor of Communication in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin where she teaches critical and cultural studies. She has published twelve books and over fifty essays. Her most recent books include: Media Reception Studies (New York University,

xii List of Contributors

2005); Authorship and Film (co-ed. with David Gerstner - Routledge, 2003); Perverse Spectators: The Practices of Film Reception (New York University Press, 2000); and Blockbuster TV: Must-See Sitcoms in the Network Era (New York University Press, 2000). Yannis Tzioumakis is Lecturer in Communication and Media at the University of Liverpool. His research specialises in American cinema and the business of media entertainment. He is the author of American Independent Cinema: An Introduction (2006) The Spanish Prisoner (2009), Hollywood's Indies: Classics Divisions, Specialty Labels and the American Film Market (2012), all for Edinburgh University Press, for which he also co-edits the “American Indies” series. Yannis is also co-editor of Greek Cinema: Texts, Forms, Identities (Intellect, 2011) and The Time of Our Lives: Dirty Dancing and Popular Culture (Wayne State University Press, 2013). Sarah Wharton is a PhD candidate at the University of Liverpool. Her research focuses on post-1996 American horror cinema, examining its place in the landscape of mainstream and independent cinema and the ways its industrial context impacts on its content and structure. She has presented numerous papers on the US horror film industry and intertextuality, remaking/reimagining, narrative structure, aesthetics, marketing and politics, and has published several film reviews for the Directory of World Cinema: American Independent Vols 1 and 2 (Intellect).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The genesis of this collection took place in May 2009, following the conference ‘American Independent Cinema: Past, Present, Future’ co-organised by Claire Molloy and Yannis Tzioumakis. The event brought together a number of scholars working on the subject from around the world, many of whom contribute to the collection. Following the event, the conference co-organisers and Geoff King, who was one of the keynote speakers, decided to join forces and edit a collection that would include a number of essays based on papers from the conference as well as essays from other leading scholars in the field who did not manage to attend. In this respect, our first thank you as editors must go to all the participants in the conference, for making the event a significant intervention in this particular field of film studies. We would then like to thank our contributors who accepted our invitation to participate in the collection. It was a great pleasure to work with all of you. Then we would like to thank Routledge for commissioning the volume. Natalie Foster, in particular, has been instrumental, as she supported the idea for this collection right from the start and guided the project in an assured manner. As editors it was a great pleasure working with her. We would also like to thank the team that oversaw the publication process, including Ruth Moody and Stacey Carter, as well as Tessa Carroll,who undertook the task of copyediting the collection. Also many thanks to Louise Wilks who helped with the production of the index. Yannis would like to thank his co-editors, Geoff King and Claire Molloy, for a constructive and enjoyable collaboration; Julia Hallam, Karen Ross and the rest of my colleagues at the Department of Communication and Media for always supporting my various research projects; and finally, my family, Siân Lincoln and Roman Tzioumakis, for all their love and patience. Much of the work on this book happened while Claire was working at the University of Brighton. Thanks to the many wonderful colleagues who supported me during my time in the School of Arts and Media there. Thanks to my co-editors,

xiv Acknowledgements

Yannis and Geoff, and to colleagues in the Department of History, Politics, Media and Communication at Liverpool Hope University. Special thanks to Andy Molloy and Louie. Geoff would also like to thank Yannis and Claire for organizing the conference from which this project began, for their support as co-editors and Yannis for putting together the initial proposal to Routledge and for taking on much of the less interesting ‘grunt’ work necessary for sorting out various details needed by the publisher.

INTRODUCTION Geoff King, Claire Molloy and Yannis Tzioumakis

This collection appears in a time of transition for the American independent film sector. Some aspects of the dominant model for this kind of production have been thrown into doubt by developments including the closure of a number of the ‘speciality’ film divisions operated by the Hollywood studios. At the same time, an increased use of digital tools for production and postproduction has combined with a range of online initiatives to create new potential, particularly for those operating at the lowest-cost end of the spectrum. Exactly what will result remains uncertain: how far the established model will continue to persist or to what extent new avenues such as do-it-yourself online distribution will prove commercially viable. Numerous other varieties of independent film also continue to coexist with the forms and institutions that have gained most attention to date in academic and other accounts. It is certainly the case that few topics in the field of film studies have attracted more scholarly attention in recent years than American independent film. Since 2000 alone, some twenty books and a large number of academic essays have been published on the subject, the majority focusing on a particular variety of contemporary American independent cinema – a particular body of work and institutional structures most often dated back to the early 1980s.1 This scholarly output has been supplemented by similar activity in the arena of more commercially focused publication, with a comparable number of popular histories, journalistic accounts, insider’s guides and reference books targeting an increasing general readership interested in American independent or ‘indie’ film, the latter being the term by which its dominant incarnation became known in everyday parlance from the early 1990s.2 Together, academic and other publications helped establish independent film as a concrete and distinct category of American cinema characterised by a number of specific traits, rather than as one simply defined negatively on the basis of existing outside the ‘mainstream’ represented by the output of the major studios. This, inevitably, also led to considerable risk of oversimplification and the privileging of some forms of independence over others.

2 Geoff King, Claire Molloy and Yannis Tzioumakis

Problems of definition remain, in this territory, and are probably inescapable. On the one hand, if the term independent is taken to mean any non-studio production in the history of American cinema, it runs the danger of becoming so inclusive as to be of little value as a specific analytical category (rather like the notion of ‘overseas cinema’ from an American perspective, which groups together a very wide range of cinemas, many of which might have nothing individually in common other than so broad a point of negative reference). On the other hand, it is important to be aware of the plurality of what has gone and continues to go by the term – as an operational category – and not to reduce this just to the confines of one model. All this work on the subject has taken place in a period during which the interest of the cinema-going public in independent filmmaking appears to have been high for a number of reasons. Following the growth of a relatively coherent independent film sector in the 1980s (located primarily outside the influence of the major studios at this time), characterised mainly by low-budget films that often represented an individual filmmaker’s artistic or political vision, the 1990s saw an increasing popularisation of independent cinema as a particular brand of ‘quality’ filmmaking. Supported by an expanding industrial and institutional apparatus and with the increasing participation of the major Hollywood studios, independent film found itself increasingly outside as well as within the art-house theatre circuit and embraced to a significant extent by popular media and culture. Dubbed in retrospect as the ‘Sundance-Miramax era’ (Newman 2011: 1), especially because it was driven by the high-profile institutional and industrial support provided by these two organisations, the twenty (or so) year period that extends from the mid-to-late 1980s to the mid-to-late 2000s was a period of prolific and high-profile production in American independent cinema. Films such as sex, lies, and videotape (1989), My Own Private Idaho (1991), Short Cuts (1993), Pulp Fiction (1994), Fargo (1996), Being John Malkovich (1999), Magnolia (2000), Lost in Translation (2003), Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), Juno (2007) and numerous others attracted critical plaudits, recorded often significant box office business and circulated in global popular culture with the kind of intensity and buzz in some cases that was normally associated with well-marketed major Hollywood studio titles. Given the level of success and the significance of this particular type of independent film in recent and contemporary popular culture, it was perhaps not surprising that most of the academic studies and popular accounts focused primarily on articulations of independence during the Sundance-Miramax era. With a large number of independent films of the time having ties to the Hollywood majors, primarily through their speciality labels, the majority of film scholars and popular critics had little trouble deciding that the label American independent cinema could be applied liberally, to production that takes place both away from the Hollywood studios and under their direct or indirect supervision. This issue often caused fierce debates among scholars who were driven by different interests and different kinds of investment in independent filmmaking, however (for instance, those supporting independent cinema’s potential for politically progressive representations found it difficult to accept that it could be financed, produced and distributed by the major studios and their subsidiaries;3 while, coming from a very different perspective, industry purists raised the same

Introduction 3

objection, finding it difficult to attach the label independent to films with ties to the Hollywood majors4). On the other hand, it was arguably this same characteristic that invited so much scholarly and popular attention to independent film; an attention that might not have been likely had ‘independence’ been located discursively entirely outside Hollywood cinema and the major studios or their speciality divisions. Indeed, its commercial elements, its points of contact with Hollywood cinema and its love–hate relationship with mainstream film (and) culture were among several appealing features for film scholars and popular critics in search of thought-provoking entertainment. Not surprisingly then, scholars gradually started introducing the study of independent film in university curricula, first as part of Hollywood and American culture courses and more recently as courses that examine exclusively this type of cinema,5 while widecirculation popular publications habitually started discussing independent films alongside mainstream releases. This level of inclusivity also encouraged research on the subject to move in a number of directions, including examination of aspects of largely underexplored pre-1980 independent film production.6 Most of the work, however, continued to concentrate on the particular brand of indie cinema associated with the Sundance-Miramax conjunction. By the mid-2000s, while indie cinema was going through one of its most commercial periods with the global success of examples such as Lost in Translation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2003 and 2004), Sideways (2004) and Brokeback Mountain (2005), academic and public interest in the subject hit critical mass. Within the space of a two-year period (2005–2006), no fewer than eight books – three academic studies (including individual works by two of the editors of the present collection [King 2005; Tzioumakis 2006]) and five commercially oriented publications – highlighted beyond any doubt the currency of the topic within academic and public film discourse.7 While King and Tzioumakis offered substantially different approaches to and conceptualisations of the subject, with the former focusing primarily on the more contemporary ‘indie’ cinema that emerged from the late 1980s onwards and the latter offering a more historical examination of numerous articulations of independent film production, the third study, a collection of essays edited by Chris Holmlund and Justin Wyatt (2005), sought to map the field of contemporary American independent cinema beyond the established brand of indie filmmaking. Placing their approach to the subject within a narrative that sees an increasing migration of independent filmmaking ‘from the margins to the mainstream’ (a phrase that also constitutes the subtitle of the collection), and including a mixture of already published essays and newly commissioned work, Holmlund and Wyatt demonstrated clearly something of the range of forms independent filmmaking had been taking since the 1970s. The volume included essays on such disparate subtopics as the avant-garde and its flirting with pornography; black independent film; exploitation filmmaking; alternative cinemas; queer identities; women filmmakers and independent film; diasporic cinema; stardom and independent film; distribution innovations in the 1970s; the filmmaking practices of key independent filmmaker John Sayles; the impact of digital technologies on independent film; and infrastructural concerns and distribution

4 Geoff King, Claire Molloy and Yannis Tzioumakis

platforms on cable television. Together with a small number of seminal reprinted essays from the 1970s and 1980s, these focal points showcased a rich variety of voices in contemporary American independent film, one that had nonetheless been increasingly regulated by commercial imperatives and the need of the sector to sustain itself. The price of such inclusivity, though, was perhaps a reduction in the overall cohesiveness of the collection: another example of the tension so often found in the field between centrifugal and centripetal tendencies. Holmlund and Wyatt’s implicit call for a more in-depth examination of all those lines of inquiry was not taken up by academic studies that followed. With the exception of Mann (2008), whose study focused on independent film production in the 1950s, Murphy (2007), Berra (2008), King (2009), Newman (2011) and the five volumes of the American Indies series (launched in 2009) all remained firmly within the borders of indie cinema established in the earlier studies (Pribram 2002, King 2005) and the more popular histories that preceded them (especially Levy 1999). These studies brought into focus different methodological tools for approaching indie film (with the work of Pierre Bourdieu in particular being utilised by several scholars) as well as new case studies that revealed the complexities of independence in the age of the studio speciality divisions (as is the case with the volumes of the American Indies series, the focus of which has been on high profile indie titles such as Memento [Molloy 2010], Lost in Translation [King 2010], Far from Heaven [Davis 2011], Brokeback Mountain [Needham 2010] and The Spanish Prisoner [Tzioumakis, 2009]). It is at this point in scholarship in the field that the present collection arrives, confronted with a sector undergoing yet another series of transformations. The space of four years from 2008 to 2011 witnessed the closure (or sale) of more than half of the studio speciality film divisions, which until that time were leaders in the production and distribution of indie titles. Among the victims was the former market leader Miramax Films, downsized and eventually sold by Disney in 2010 after the departure of the Weinstein brothers in 2005. This event, if nothing else, might suggest the end of the ‘Sundance-Miramax’ era, in name at least, even if this was always a convenient shorthand for the broader indie sector of its time rather than being restricted only to that which circulated around these two major institutions. American independent cinema in this period also began to experience the impact of social networking media and other web-based initiatives at various levels. These ranged from nascent attempts to use online crowdfunding to raise budgets to the use of such fora in areas such as marketing and establishment of non-traditional exhibition venues, the ‘holy grail’ of this period being the search for viable means of securing revenues via screenings online or by download, particularly for filmmakers seeking to evade the control of the bigger established players over traditional forms of distribution and exhibition (King 2012). Such initiatives included partnerships with existing institutions, however, particularly festivals such as Sundance and Tribeca, in the exploration of various on-demand models (Hernandez 2009). Finally, independent film was also trying to find its place in a constantly evolving media entertainment landscape, which, as Henry Jenkins (2006) has argued, has been characterised increasingly by industrial, technological and cultural convergence. In some respects the future of

Introduction 5

the sector appeared unclear, although the extent to which it was likely to face wholesale change was uncertain (King [2012] argues that, even in the employment of new online channels, the sector in the early years of the second decade of the twenty-first century continued also to be characterised by a strong vein of continuity with the past at both the textual and institutional level). A combination of the late 2000s discourse of transition and the continued emphasis of academic scholarship on the ‘quality’ indie brand of the post-1980s period has provided the main inspiration for this collection. Structured in four sections under the headings ‘Approaching Independence’, ‘Indie Manifestations’, ‘Independence and Hollywood’ and ‘Beyond Indie’, the collection aims, on the one hand, to consolidate the substantial research that has focused on questions of indie cinema, paying particular attention to its borders with other expressions of US cinema and to the ways in which it connects with other aspects of American culture. To that end, the present volume contains a number of essays that focus on the post-1980 era and that range from efforts towards its periodisation to examinations of its connections with wider cultural trends, to discussions of the ways it achieves legitimacy through a mobilisation of celebrated forms of filmmaking and to inquiries into the nature of its relationship with the global entertainment conglomerates that have controlled US cinema since the late 1980s. Placing indie cinema within larger critical and analytical frameworks is a major focus of the collection. On the other hand, and using directly or indirectly the discourse of transition and historical evolution as a springboard, the collection also aims to highlight a number of ways in which a variety of expressions of independent filmmaking have evolved in particular historical periods, which often renders problematic the concept of independence itself. For instance, the ‘Independence and Hollywood’ section (Part III) contains a number of case studies that highlight the complex relationships between filmmakers and Hollywood studios. These include the experiences at particular historical junctures of Stanley Kubrick and Hal Ashby and the wildlife filmmakers Martin and Osa Johnson and Fran Buck. Other contributors highlight the relationship between the ‘quality’ independent tradition and genre releases associated with exploitation cinema, with films from both these areas in many cases produced or distributed by the same companies. Christian evangelical cinema is examined in one chapter, including its move closer to the mainstream, while another focuses on the evolution of Lionsgate (formerly Lions Gate) from small ‘quality’ distributor to diversified mini-major. Another theme that emerges from the book, from these and other examples, is that American independent cinema has often been difficult to define as a result of its own evolution. The result of this can be that it ends up including apparently contradictory strains, each of which require careful elaboration in their own right as well as in relation to the broader spectrum within which they are located. The 16 essays that comprise this collection are introduced in brief passages that precede each of the four sections of the book. We recommend that the reader consults these before focusing on individual chapters, as they are designed to enhance the understanding provided by each contribution by situating them within the broader independent context, while also highlighting points of contact or difference among

6 Geoff King, Claire Molloy and Yannis Tzioumakis

the essays in each section. One of our aims has been to offer some sense of cohesive focus, more than is usually the case in edited collections of this kind, while also respecting the variety of material and approaches embraced by the contributors. One notable feature of this collection is that, while the chapters include points of focus away from the most heavily studied and familiar realms of ‘indie’ film, these in all cases situate their particular examples in relation to this sphere as well as considering them in their own right. The result, we hope, is to provide a mapping that, while far from being inclusive of everything that has gone under the name of independence (a task that would require several volumes to achieve), identifies some of the key points of connection as well as distinction between one part of the territory and another. As a final word here, we would like to highlight once again the level of debate that surrounds the subject of American independent cinema through brief reference to our experience of editing this collection. Given that prior to this volume the three editors had published on the subject no fewer than nine monographs in total,8 we each had our own, very specific, ideas about the direction of the collection, the ways in which the essays could contribute to debates, the place of individual essays within the overall structure, recommendations for revisions, and so on. Although we proceeded with a common voice, we also had some strong disagreements on how to understand particular points, including – inevitably – the fundamental questions of what exactly constitutes independence in American cinema. Many of these disagreements were extensions of the differing approaches to questions of independence that each of us had taken in our work prior to this volume, while others were raised during the editorial stage and as we were reading and debating the fine points of individual contributions, including our own. In the end, we made common decisions and recommendations and finalised the details of this collection but these were achieved after long discussions among the editors and with the individual authors. As editors, we might not necessarily agree with all the arguments and points raised in each of the 16 chapters in this collection. They certainly do not all agree with each other, in matters including exactly how key terms such as ‘independent’ and ‘indie’ are to be defined, and we have not sought to impose a single reading, even if we could agree one ourselves in all areas. We believe firmly, however, that these chapters – many of which are written by leading scholars on American cinema – will certainly enhance the debate on American independent cinema and inspire new scholars to undertake more in-depth work on questions and issues raised in the pages of this volume.

Notes 1 The books include: Aberdeen 2000; Bernstein 2000; Hillier 2001; Pribram 2002; Holmlund and Wyatt 2005; King 2005; Tzioumakis 2006; Murphy 2007; Berra 2008; Mann 2008; King 2009; Tzioumakis 2009; Needham 2010; King 2010; Molloy 2010; Davis 2011; Newman 2011; Murray 2011. 2 These more commercial publications include: Lowenstein 2000; Merritt 2000; Roman 2001; Pierson 2003; Wood 2004; Biskind 2005; Horsley 2005; Waxman 2005; Mottram 2006; Winter 2006; Fine 2007; Holm 2008; Turner 2008; Hall 2009; Wood 2009.

Introduction 7

3 See, for instance, a debate as part of the special issue of the Journal of Film and Video, vol. 38, no 1. (1986), entitled ‘Independent Film and Video’. 4 See for instance, the approach taken by Greg Merritt (2000) who labels independent only the films financed and produced away from the Hollywood majors and their speciality subsidiaries, an approach that excludes a large number of films that for many scholars are quintessential examples of American independent cinema. 5 In a survey of UK universities, the editors identified no fewer than 19 institutions (or one in every six) that have introduced modules focusing specifically on American independent or alternative cinema, which demonstrates once again beyond any doubt the level of interest in the topic. The institutions identified were: University of Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores University, Brunel University, University of Portsmouth, University of Glasgow, University of Glamorgan, University of Exeter, King’s College, University of Gloucestershire, University of Staffordshire, University of St Andrews, Canterbury Christ Church University, Aberystwyth University, University of Essex, University of Reading, York St John University, University of Wolverhampton, Oxford Brookes University and Liverpool Hope University. 6 For studies focusing primarily on discussing independent film before 1980, see Tzioumakis 2006 and Mann 2008. 7 The eight books were: Biskind 2005; Horsley 2005; Waxman 2005; King 2005; Holmlund and Wyatt 2005, Winter 2006; Mottram 2006; Tzioumakis 2006. 8 King 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2012; Molloy 2010; Tzioumakis 2006, 2009, and 2012.

Bibliography Aberdeen, J. A. (2000) Hollywood Renegades: the Society for Independent Hollywood Producers, New York: Cobblestone Enterprises. Berra, J. (2008) Declarations of Independence: American cinema and the partiality of independent production, Bristol: Intellect. Bernstein, M. (2000) Walter Wanger: Hollywood independent, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Biskind, P. (2005) Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance and the rise of independent film, London: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks. Davis, G. (2011) Far from Heaven, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Fine, M. (2007) Accidental Genius: how John Cassavetes invented the American independent film, New York: Miramax Books. Hall, P. (2009) The History of Independent Cinema, Duncan, OK: Bearmanor Media. Hernandez, E. (2009) ‘The future of festivals?’ Indiewire, 7 December. Available HTTP: (accessed on 6 February 2012). Hillier, J. (ed.) (2001) American Independent Cinema: a Sight and Sound reader, London: BFI. Holm, D. K. (2008) Independent Cinema, Harpenden, Herts: Kamera Books. Holmlund, C. and Wyatt, J. (eds) (2005) Contemporary American Independent Film: from the margins to the mainstream, London: Routledge. Horsley, J. (2005) Dogville vs Hollywood: the war between independent film and mainstream movies, London: Marion Boyars Publishers. Jenkins, H. (2006) Convergence Culture: where old and new media collide, New York: New York University Press. King, G. (2005) American Independent Cinema, London: I.B. Tauris. ——(2007) Donnie Darko, London: Wallflower Press. ——(2009) Indiewood, USA: where Hollywood meets independent cinema, London: I. B. Tauris. ——(2010) Lost in Translation, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ——(2012) Indie 2.0: change and continuity in contemporary American indie film, London: I. B. Tauris. Levy, E. (1999) Cinema of Outsiders: the rise of American independent film, New York: New York University Press.

8 Geoff King, Claire Molloy and Yannis Tzioumakis

Lowenstein, S. (ed.) (2000) My First Movie, London: Faber and Faber. Mann, D. (2008) Hollywood Independents: the postwar talent takes over, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Merritt, G. (2000) Celluloid Mavericks: a history of American independent film, New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press. Molloy, C. (2010) Memento, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Mottram, J. (2006) The Sundance Kids: how the mavericks took over Hollywood, London: Faber and Faber. Murphy, J. J. (2007) Me and You and Memento and Fargo: how independent screenplays work, New York: Continuum. Murray, R. (2011) Studying American Independent Cinema, Leighton Buzzard: Auteur. Needham G. (2010) Brokeback Mountain, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Newman, M. Z. (2011) Indie: an American film culture, New York: Columbia University Press. Pierson, J. (2003) Spike Mike Reloaded: a guided tour across a decade of American independent cinema, New York: Hyperion/Miramax. Pribram, E. D. (2002) Independent Film in the United States, 1980–2001, New York: Peter Lang. Roman, S. (2001) Digital Babylon: Hollywood, indiewood and dogme 95, Hollywood: Lone Eagle Publishing. Turner, P. (2008) Prancing Lavender Bunnies and Other Stuff from the Darkside of Independent Cinema, Lulu.com. Tzioumakis, Y. (2006) American Independent Cinema: an introduction, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ——(2009) The Spanish Prisoner, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ——(2012) Hollywood’s Indies: classics divisions, specialty labels and the American film market, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Waxman, S. (2005) Rebels on the Backlot: six maverick directors and how they conquered the studio system, London: HarperCollins. Winter, J. (2006) The Rough Guide to American Independent Film, London: Rough Guides. Wood, J. (2004) 100 American Independent Films, London: BFI Screen Guides. ——(2009) 100 American Independent Films, London: BFI Screen Guides.

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

12 Approaching independence

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

Approaching independence 13

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.

14 Approaching independence

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

16

Janet Staiger

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

Independent of what? 17

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 in its work process, its means of production, the financing of its films, its conception of quality films, and its system of consumption’ (Staiger 1985: 317). When doing this, it is fairly obvious that for four of the criteria, any film that would normally be called ‘independent’ differed very little from Hollywood cinema. Most independently produced films accept not only the divisions of labour roles into director, writer, cinematographer, and star (although individuals may fill a couple of roles) but also the hierarchy of labour: director on top and producer on top of that. The means of production are the same. During the studio era, even small firms used 35mm cameras; today, major companies have led the transition to HD and computer digital editing which have also had extensive economic advantages for small-budget productions. The conception of quality films is fairly much the same, although I shall have more to say about this criterion, and the preferred system of consumption is still securing theatrical venues, with DVD release to follow, although some projects are flirting with Internet and cable-on-demand release if theatrical release is not possible (Anon. 2009; Carr 2009). Even the industrial shift in conceptualizing the audience away from a mass to a targeted one did little to alter the distinctions between independent and major. Although workers benefited from leaving studio contracts to produce independently, the transition to the package-unit system of organizing labour retained the essential features of the work process. Leadership at major firms from the late 1920s had promoted a discourse of ‘individualism’—by which they rejected having a few people control all of the product because they believed that such a work system produced too many of the same sort of films and stifled variety, which was necessary for box office success. Of course, the conventions associated with the classical Hollywood cinema carefully controlled the bounds of that variety. Everyone was socialized within the norms of the quality film. Even small firms such as Monogram or Republic or B-film units in the majors strove toward the same outcome, and the differences we enjoy today from those films are borne out of crafty cost-cutting and experiments. Jokes about Hollywood’s superficial hopes for difference are common: see the plot for Robert Altman’s The Player (1992), in which the two screenwriters initially reject Hollywood conventions but are slowly brought back into the standard formula once they secure studio funding. Through the 1950s both majors and independents relied on ancillary companies for specialized technology, and independents either used the newly formed small

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Janet Staiger

distribution companies such as Allied Artists or AIP or contracts with (or purchase by) majors for putting films into theatres. Data from 1959 indicate that 70 percent of the films were independently produced; in 1956 ‘Of the 21 top-grossing films in the United States and Canada in 1956, eleven were independently produced’ (Staiger 1983: 78). So, through the end of the Hollywood studio era, the financing of the film defined independent, but independent did not particularly mean alternative work relations, means of production, conception of quality, or system of consumption. Moreover, by this definition of ‘independent’, post-1960 films such as Platoon (1986), Dirty Dancing (1987), Bob Roberts (1992), The English Patient (1996), Erin Brockovich (2000), and hundreds more of straightforward classical Hollywood-style films are independent movies—a point which has wreaked havoc for writers trying to discuss ‘American independent cinema’. The reason for this is simply that financing does not necessarily produce a difference in the film form and style. In my survey of scholarly studies of independent cinema for the next fifty years (1960 to now), somewhere in those years, it appears to me that the desire to make independent mean something other than the industrial structure has developed, as though financing is inadequate as the marker of ‘alternative’. I suspect the desire springs from discourses of authorship apparent throughout the studio era evident in that discourse of ‘individualism’ which supported the development of the package-unit mode of production from the 1940s on. So I want now to look at some shifts in representing ‘independent’ cinema over several periods post 1960. This will be a rather sketchy survey, one that other writers are developing in much more detail (Tzioumakis 2011).

Waves of Independent Cinema When people write histories of American cinema, they tend, reasonably so, to mark periods by seminal movies. For the 1960s, two films are often invoked: Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Easy Rider (1969). These two films stand as symbols for slightly different indications about changes from the traditional Hollywood Studio System. Bonnie and Clyde marks the arrival of what will be called ‘New Hollywood’ or the ‘Hollywood Renaissance’ era—a period when some filmmakers adopt European art film practices and seem to develop their own version of a new wave cinema. Easy Rider’s director, Dennis Hopper, certainly is included within the new American auteurs, but that film is especially turned to as a signpost that an inexpensively shot movie could reach a speciality audience and make big money (Hillier 1992: 38; Wyatt 1998b: 66–7). Particularly Easy Rider produces a visible image of the potential financial success of such independently produced films, and Hillier indicates that between 1969 and 1975 about two-thirds of films screened in the US were independents, although the six majors garnered about 70 percent of North American revenue (Hillier 1992: 7). Frederick Wasser’s data shows a large jump in independently produced films from 1970 (at about one-third of the total films distributed) to a peak in 1974–76 (at about two-thirds of the total) when changes in tax codes make write-offs on film investments less profitable. Thereafter, the balance returns to about 50 percent for majors and independents (Wasser 2001: 156, 105).

Independent of what? 19

Also part of the 1960s is another group of American films. As Jonas Mekas recalls in 1978, in the 1950s some filmmakers ceased describing their films as ‘avant-garde’ or ‘experimental’ and began labelling them ‘personal film, individual film, and independent film’ (Mekas 1978: 35, emphasis in original). Mekas states that these appellations change again in the 1960s because of the rise of auteur theory and because Hollywood directors such as Otto Preminger were describing themselves as independents. Hence, these filmmakers started referring to their work as ‘New American Cinema’ and ‘underground cinema’. Mekas is obviously remembering the New American Cinema Group statement signed by, as they put it in 1961, ‘independent film-makers’, including Peter Bogdanovich, Robert Frank, Emile de Antonio, Shirley Clarke, Mekas, and eighteen others. The manifesto begins by noting the work of the ‘Free Cinema in England, the Nouvelle Vague in France. [and] John Cassavetes’ (New American Cinema Group 1961: 80). The authors declare: ‘We believe that cinema is indivisibly a personal expression. We, therefore, reject the interference of producers, distributors, and investors until our work is ready to be projected on the screen’ (81). They also reject censorship, seek new forms of financing and methods to create lowbudget films, rebel against the current exhibition structure, and plan to create their own distribution cooperative and East Coast film festival. Their oppositional goal? ‘We don’t want false, polished, slick films—we prefer them rough, unpolished, but alive; we don’t want rosy films—we want them the color of blood’ (83). In 1962, the Film-Makers’ Cooperative formed to distribute any film submitted to it, and in the late 1960s and early 1970s, many noncommercial spaces appeared where film fans watched rented 16mm prints of these and other non-Hollywood filmmakers such as Eisenstein and Godard. I spend time on these events because in his 2008 book Declarations of Independence John Berra lumps together Easy Rider, Night of the Living Dead (1968), and Medium Cool (1969) with Cassavetes’s Faces (1968) and A Woman Under the Influence (1974) (40–2). Thus, in looking back, present-day scholars see historical linkage of what is now being called indie cinema with the 1961 New American Cinema Group’s project. In sum, then, in writing the history of post-1960 American film, 1967–72/3 is the period of ‘New’ or ‘Renaissance’ Hollywood with a minor strand of narrative fictional cinema that will later be re-labelled as the beginnings of American independent/indie cinema. What the scholars may be seeing that will produce this labelling may be obvious, but for now I want simply to note this dual-track history. Usually versions of periodizing the history of Hollywood film next look to the middle of the 1970s when the Hollywood majors catch up with changing demographics. As Thomas Elsaesser marks it, ‘New’ Hollywood cinema is the period of Bonnie and Clyde, Easy Rider, and The Wild Bunch (1969); ‘New New Hollywood’ starts with Jaws (1975) and Apocalypse Now (1979) (2000: 187; also Schatz 1993). I jokingly call the post-1975 return to blockbuster-driven films the ‘Re-New-ed Hollywood Studio System’ because I believe this period’s fundamental economic goals and structures, which are on-going, are simply intensifications of those operating in the traditional studio era. From the 1980s on, as Tino Balio succinctly describes it, the majors ‘expanded “horizontally” to tap emerging markets worldwide, formed “down-stream” alliances

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with independent producers to enlarge their rosters, and “partnered” with foreign investors to acquire new sources of financing’ (1996: 21; also Balio 1998). As these histories convincingly detail, while the tax advantages to finance independents decline, the introduction of home VCRs stimulates appearance of easy wealth from the home secondary market. Emerging are the mini-majors and independent production-only firms (Balio 1998: 58–9; Wyatt 1998a: 74; King 2005: 21–6; Wasser 2001: 121–4). Most of these companies are invested in the Hollywood-style film and blockbuster success, and filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg establish their own independent firms as quickly as possible although retaining ties (and distribution contracts) with majors (Balio 1998: 59; Scott 2003: 60–3). Of the five films grossing over $100 million in 1991, three of them—Terminator 2, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and City Slickers— were independent productions although distributed by majors (Hillier 1992: 19). In 1996, independent companies made four of the five nominees for the Oscar for Best Picture (Levy 1999: 15). At the end of the 1980s, the bubble of easy financing by pre-selling video rights bursts for independent companies, however, when video storeowners fail to carry films with no theatrical release and begin to stock hot titles in depth rather than broadly picking up any title available (Wasser 2001: 158–9; Wyatt 1998a: 75). But independent companies locate other financing systems. The dual-track history of the American independent cinema also moves next to the mid-1970s and what will be written as the glimmering notes of and causes for a flourishing output of films that look and sound different from Hollywood conventions, flourishing from the mid-1980s. Early dates in the history include 1978, when the Utah/U.S. Film Festival begins its progress toward becoming the Sundance Institute and Film Festival. Dave Kehr retrospectively looks at two 1978 films—The Whole Shootin’ Match (1978), directed by University of Texas drop-out Eagle Pennell, and Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends (1978)—as films that indicate something new is occurring again (2009: AR 22). But the movies marked as beneficiaries of the boom are later ones: Stranger than Paradise (1984) and, fittingly, sex, lies, and videotape (1989) (Pierson 1995/2003: 2; Thompson and Bordwell 2003: 697; Lewis 2008: 388; Merritt 2000: 310–12). Causes for this mid-1980s growth of smaller films different from the megaindependent productions include, besides the video revolution, changing labour union agreements to benefit small-budget productions and ‘new venues for this work, such as the Independent Feature Film Market’, a place to screen these films for the press (Thompson and Bordwell 2003: 695). For these smaller-budget, non-traditional independent films, the next landmark is Pulp Fiction (1994). This film’s financial, critical, and popular success is also usually used to mark the decision by major firms starting in 1992 either to buy very strong producers and distributors of independent films such as, obviously, Miramax but also New Line, Castle Rock, Merchant-Ivory, and Good Machine or to create their own speciality divisions, picking up the talented executives who know how to market and distribute these films and also to take these workers out of circulation as competitors (Perren 2001; Waxman 2006: xviv–xviii). This industrial structure exists until late 2008 when the recession resulted in trimming divisions at the majors.

Independent of what? 21

Now within this dual-track history, the representation of independents in the Re-new-ed Hollywood Studio era has had to make some tricky moves. Since some independently financed projects were able to secure strong financing, as Selznick did in the studio era, they produced large-budget Hollywood-style films. Indeed, in a 1999 ‘Rant’ by independent producer James Schamus, he points out that although ‘Spirit’ awards for independent films began in 1986, by 1999 the box office for the nominated films totalled $300 million, of which $299.98 million went into the coffers of ‘either major studios, their affiliates, or distributors backed by large-scale financial institutions’ (2001: 254). So the writing of the history of American independent film tries a couple of tactics. Wasser offers one: in his 2001 book, he declares that ‘independent’ will refer to films that an independent distributor distributes. He states that this would include companies such as Artisan, Roger Corman, Trimark, and Troma but not Miramax and October (16). The other solution, and the one I want to focus on below, is to concentrate not on the financing or distribution (e.g., industrial structure) but on a different conception of quality than the conventional classical Hollywood cinema.

The Arrival of the ‘Indies’ An early version of a new method of defining differences within American cinema appears in Annette Insdorf’s 1981 essay, ‘Ordinary People, European-Style: or How to Spot an Independent Feature’. Arguing that an American independent film should have differences from Hollywood in terms of its mode of production, subject matter, and formal and stylistic conventions, she outlines those alternative conventions as including an ‘abundance of dialogue—especially intelligent dialogue’ and thoughtful ‘preoccupations’ (1981: 30–1). Notice how Insdorf’s comments fit well with Berra’s 2008 list of these films: Easy Rider, Night of the Living Dead, Medium Cool, Faces, A Woman Under the Influence. Several more of these statements of difference based on the films’ subject matter, form, and style are: Emanuel Levy (1999: 3, 53): ‘fresh perspective, innovative spirit, and personal vision’ with ‘a gritty style and off-beat subject matter that expresses the film-maker’s personal vision’; ‘offbeat characterizations’ but ‘as a whole not artistically ground-breaking or politically provocative’; Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell (2003: 696–700): independents from 1985 onwards tend toward artifice and stylization, ‘low budgets and risky subjects, themes, or plots’, and neglected genres; Geoff King (2005: 10): American independent films depart from Hollywood filmmaking ‘either in making greater claims to verisimilitude/realism, or in the use of more complex, stylized, expressive, showy or self-conscious forms’ and ‘offer visions of society not usually found in the mainstream’; Chris Holmlund (2005: 2): ‘social engagement and/or aesthetic experimentation—a distinctive visual look, an unusual narrative pattern, a self-reflexive [sic] style’; Berra (2008:2): ‘a romantic vision of film productivity’ coming from Easy Rider and Ken Loach’s Kes (1969) as ‘films [that] traded studio shooting and rigid scripting in

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favor of real locations, improvised dialogue, episodic narrative, and reflective codas that would encourage discussion amongst critics and audiences alike’; and, Geoff West (2009: D3) referring to a recent film: ‘a cute, romantic tale about the awkward new love between idiosyncratic’ protagonists with the indie film’s ‘stereotypical best and worst—emotional poignancy (good), contrived absurdity (bad)’. In fact, one view is that ‘independent film started to become more of a brand than a movement by the mid-1990s’ (Polish et al. 2005: 9), and Berra (2008: 11) writes that it is in the 1990s that ‘American Independent Cinema’ appears as an idea. Michael Allen notes that in the early 2000s only 2 percent of the films on US screens are foreign films: ‘The values associated with foreign film-making—serious treatment of adult issues, self-conscious cinematic style, film seen as art—were taken over by American independent film-makers’ (2003: 140). So where are we? On the one hand, I want to argue that film historians should retain the term ‘independent’ to refer to the mode of financing and/or distributing films. On the other hand, I have no doubt that a minor strand of American fictional narrative filmmaking from at least the 1960s, and very sporadically earlier, is different in terms of the filmmakers’ conception of quality from the one held by the practitioners in mainstream Hollywood. This I shall call ‘indie’ cinema to distinguish the film practice from the industrial facts. Certainly, King’s approach of looking at ‘(1) [the films’] industrial location, (2) the kinds of formal/aesthetic strategies they adopt and (3) their relationship to the broader social, cultural, political or ideological landscape’ (2005: 2) has great facility to sort out matters. Here, though, I would like to offer a different schema, one initiated by Bordwell for another project. In ‘The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice’, Bordwell states that his ‘purpose in this essay is to argue that we can usefully consider the “art cinema” as a distinct mode of film practice, possessing a definite historical existence, a set of formal conventions, and implicit viewing procedures’(1979: 56). Bordwell particularly desires to use this schema of a film practice to argue that art cinema’s implicit viewing procedures expected spectators to explain unusual (non-classical Hollywood) narrative form and style as objective realism, subjective realism, or authorial expressivity. When I use this schema, I expand it to distinguish among multiple historical film practices which each have: 1 A definite historical existence, including specific political, economic, cultural, and aesthetic contexts; 2 A set of conventions, including form of narrative, style of narration, and subject matter; and 3 Implicit viewing procedures. So for the classical Hollywood cinema, I would point to (1) a long and ongoing historical existence (1917–present), (2) the set of formal and stylistic conventions described as ‘classical’, with a wide variety of subject matter that is often bound into generic formulas and uses heterosexual romance to affirm the appearance of narrative

Independent of what? 23

coherence, and (3) implicit viewing procedures that privilege an audience being emotionally involved with the narrative’s dramatic progression. I would underline that my description of the implicit viewing procedures for the classical Hollywood cinema is something Bordwell does not particularly foreground in his analysis of the classical Hollywood film although viewing procedures are crucial in his description of art cinema. Another film practice, Soviet montage, has a much briefer and less widespread historical existence, a recognized set of formal conventions particularly in its editing style and subject matter pertinent to the Soviet revolution, and an implicit viewing procedure of providing socialist education. And so on for other sorts of film practices, including the art cinema that Bordwell discusses. Considering various groupings of films as modes of film practice has benefits in allowing comparisons amongst films that may not be bounded within national perimeters and has, I think, some useful potential as a different way to write film history (Staiger 2010). For one thing, focusing on film practices rather than national cinemas might allow seeing comparisons and contrasts both within and outside specific national contexts, although I would argue for also considering the political, cultural, and economic contexts that explain the existence of film practices. For another, appearances and disappearances of practices might be accounted for in more historical terms of influence and reactions. As well, American cinema might be described as having at least two lively film practices rather than being homogenized into the classical Hollywood mode. Thus, I believe that postulating American Indie Cinema as a discrete film practice is worthwhile. In this approach, indies have a definite historical existence, starting very sporadically in the 1960s. Certainly economic contexts involve the non-studio financing of the early projects, but, additionally, social and cultural upheaval after World War II promoted this cinema as well as aesthetic options seen in the highly praised foreign films imported to the United States and quality 1950s ‘auteur’ television (Kraszewsky 2008). The vital experimental, avant-garde, and underground cinema also reinforced the pleasures and values of off-the-cuff, alternative filmmaking. Second, while the set of conventions might be a place for some debate (and have likely transformed over the past five decades), the definitions I quoted above offer a good starting point. In summary, I believe they are (1) dialogue for purposes other than advancement of a plot, (2) ‘quirky’ or odd characters (MacDowell 2009), (3) emphasis on certain methods of creating verisimilitude, and (4) ambiguity and intertextuality in narrative and narration. King (2009) proposes that the term ‘indie’ may come from 1980s’ ‘indie music’, and certainly by that point, indie cinema was displaying an equivalent ‘rock authenticity’ and, later, ‘punk’ do-it-yourself discourse. I do want to caution that complex narrative structures are not necessarily the sign of an indie film. As Charles Ramírez Berg (2006) argues with precision and grace, complex narratives can often be quite classical.1 Third, the indies’ implicit viewing procedures seek an emotional and, for the most part, intellectual engagement with the film. In contrast with the maxim that is attributed to a Hollywood producer, to wit that if filmmakers want to send a message, they should use Western Union, most indie filmmakers address their audiences as social

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beings or cinéphiles. In fact, films without an intellectual engagement might better be relegated to the traditional classical Hollywood cinema film practice. If a complex narrative film emphasizes the puzzle, rather than the narrative suspense it creates, then that film probably should be considered as part of the indie film practice. Certainly, this definition allows distinguishing the prototypical American indie film, Cassavetes’s Shadows, from a classical Hollywood film, with the film’s lack of a narrative set-up, extended conversations among friends, episodic narrative, improvised acting, sliceof-life use of location mise-en-scène, extensive close-ups without standard continuity editing, and, importantly, explicit raising of contemporary social issues. Indie cinema conventions also probably justify the inclusion of most of the ‘smart cinema’ [for example, Safe (1995), Happiness (1998), Election (1999)] as defined by Jeffrey Sconce, who makes the valuable argument that the long take treasured by many of these filmmakers ‘produces tension through dividing audience and story world, fostering a sense of clinical observation. [T]he static tableau may well be the thinking man’s [sic] shot of choice in the smart cinema of the 1990s’ (2002: 360). As I noted above, the indie film practice has contextual sources in the 1950s and 1960s European new waves although the economic contexts and consumption opportunities of the mid-1980s permit the expansion of the film practice. It is likely from that cinema that it derives parts of its viewing practices. Indie cinema’s implicit viewing procedures overlap art cinema’s goal of soliciting readings of the films’ style and form as objective realism and authorial expressivity, although seldom art cinema’s subjective realism. As well, contrary to art cinema, indie cinema strives for emotional engagement much more than the standard art film of that era. To make these distinctions, however, is simply to underline that these two film practices are soliciting different pleasures. Both emotional and intellectual appeals have their particular delights. What does this method of defining differences do to and for the history of American cinema? For one thing, it separates out issues of financing and/or distributing a film from the filmmakers’ notion of a quality film. This gives historians analytical tools to resolve any troubled sense that independently produced films such as Terminator 2, The English Patient, and City Slicker are different from Faces, Stranger than Paradise, El Norte (1983), Slacker (1991), Go Fish (1994), and Clerks (1994). This difference in notions of a quality cinema has produced some alterations in the normative labour system. Although the division of labour and hierarchy of roles has remained much the same, J. J. Murphy emphasizes that indies are sometimes avoiding screenplays, using ‘improvisation, psychodrama and visual storytelling’ instead. The dramatic differences that he notes include extended character exploration, flattened dramatic arcs, ‘realism’, and smaller epiphanies (rather than the blockbuster explosive climax) (2010: 176). Returning to Baghead, this mumblecore film is easily smack in the middle of indie cinema with its ‘undercurrents of contemporary relationships [of] shallow, crabby characters’ shot in ‘semi-improvised performances’ and filled with parody and intertextual references. And the pretentious premiere in an arty American town—Austin’s city slogan is ‘Keep Austin Weird’—underlines its implicit viewing procedure of soliciting

Independent of what? 25

reading for objective realism and authorial expressivity to produce both emotional and intellectual engagement. However, and equally important here, we need to examine indie cinema’s ideologies as we would consider Hollywood cinema. Both film practices exude fairly conservative ideologies as well as occasionally progressive ones. An alternative film practice, as with art cinema, does not guarantee better representations of women or minorities or social justice. In fact, often, indie films reinforce sexism and racism and revel in elitist viewing practices for the initiated cinéphile. For instance, with Shadows, I would ask why it is that the sister, rather than the light-skinned younger brother, is the body upon which to write the social lesson of racial discrimination. And many of these indie films with an explicit intellectual engagement are produced to serve as authorial calling cards with hopes of their filmmakers moving on to big-budget Hollywood movies (see the career of Christopher Nolan). Thus, film practices alternative to the classical Hollywood cinema in themselves are no guarantee that alternative is better. As always, historians need to be careful not to mistake difference for progressive representation.

General note I appreciate the help from my audience at the ‘American Independent Cinema: Past, Present, Future’ conference, May 8–10, 2009. This essay has a companion article wherein part of my discussion of the indie film practice is repeated: ‘Film History, Film Practices’, Scandia 76, no. 2 (2010): 13–30.

Note 1 Michael Z. Newman provides another way to define indie films: as a ‘film culture’ and as feature films ‘that are not mainstream films’ (2011: 1–2). This method, however, cannot be applied to all sorts of other film practices, something that I am suggesting with my application of Bordwell’s schema.

Bibliography Anon. (2009) ‘IndiePix announces almost 6-fold increase in sales of independent films across its web platform in 2008’, Email press release from [email protected], 15 January. Allen, M. (2003) Contemporary US Cinema, Harlow: Pearson Education. Austin Film Society (2008) Email to members, 7 June. Balio, T. (1996) ‘Adjusting to the new global economy: Hollywood in the 1990s’, in A. Moran (ed.) Film Policy: international, national and regional perspectives, London: Routledge, 21–35. ——(1998) ‘“A major presence in all of the world’s important markets”: the globalization of Hollywood in the 1990s’, in S. Neale and M. Smith (eds.) Contemporary Hollywood Cinema, London: Routledge, 58–73. Berra, J. (2008) Declarations of Independence: American cinema and the partiality of independent production, Bristol: Intellect. Bordwell, D. (1979) ‘The art cinema as a mode of film practice’, Film Criticism, vol. 4, no. 1 (Fall), 56–63.

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Box Office Mojo, (n.d.) Box Office Mojo, http://www.boxofficemojo.com/ (accessed 31 March 2009). Carr, D. (2009) ‘A red carpet that leads to all homes’, New York Times 16 March, B1. Cieply, M. (2008) ‘In a reverse rollout, an indie film has its premiere in Austin’, New York Times, 3 June, B1, B5 Elsaesser, T. (2000) ‘The New New Hollywood Cinema beyond distance and proximity’, in I. Bondebjerg (ed.) Moving Images, Culture and the Mind, Luton: University of Luton Press, 187–203. Hillier, J. (1992) The New Hollywood, New York: Continuum. Holden, S. (2008) ‘Gabbing, flirting, drinking, missing’, New York Times, 25 July, B14. Holmlund, C. (2005) ‘Introduction: from the margins to the mainstream’, in C. Holmlund and J. Wyatt (eds) Contemporary American Independent Film: from the margins to the mainstream, London: Routledge, 1–19. Insdorf, A. (1981) ‘Ordinary people, European-style: or how to spot an independent feature’, American Film, vol. 6, no. 10 (September), rpt. in C. Holmlund and J. Wyatt (eds) Contemporary American Independent Cinema: from the margins to the mainstream, London: Routledge, 27–40. Kehr, D. (2009) ‘A Sundance film before Sundance’, New York Times, 22 February, AR 22. King, G. (2005) American Independent Cinema, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ——(2009) ‘Thriving or in permanent crisis? Discourses on the state of indie cinema’, American Independent Cinema conference, Liverpool, United Kingdom, 8–10 May. Kraszewsky, J. (2008) ‘Authorship and adaptation: the public personas of television anthology writers’, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, vol. 25, no. 4, 271–85. Levy, E. (1999) Cinema of Outsiders: the rise of American independent cinema, New York: New York University Press. Lewis, J. (2008) American Film: a history, New York: W. W. Norton & Company. MacDowell, J. (2009) ‘Notes on “Quirky”’, American Independent Cinema conference, Liverpool, United Kingdom, 8–10 May. Mekas, J. (1978) ‘Independence for independents’, American Film, vol. 3, no. 10 (September): 38–40, rpt. in C. Holmlund and J. Wyatt (eds) Contemporary American Independent Film: from the margins to the mainstream, London: Routledge, 35–40. Merritt, G. (2000) Celluloid Mavericks: the history of American independent film, New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press. Murphy, J. J. (2010) ‘No room for the fun stuff: the question of the screenplay in American indie inema’, Journal of Screenwriting, vol. 1, no. 1, 175–96. New American Cinema Group (1961) ‘The first statement of the New American Cinema Group’, Film Culture, no. 22–23 (Summer), rpt. in P. A. Sitney (ed.) Film Culture Reader, New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970, 79–83. Newman, M. Z. (2011) Indie: an American film culture, New York: Columbia University Press. Perren, A. (2001) ‘Sex, lies and marketing: Miramax and the development of the quality indie blockbuster’, Film Quarterly, vol. 55, no. 2, 30–9. Pierson, J. (2003) Spike, Mike Reloaded: a guided tour across a decade of American independent cinema, New York: Hyperion. Polish, M., Polish, M., and Sheldon, J. (2005) The Declaration of Independent Filmmaking, Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Inc. Ramírez Berg, C. (2006) ‘A taxonomy of alternative plots in recent films: classifying the “Tarantino effect”’, Film Criticism, vol. 31, nos. 1–2 (Fall/Winter), 5–61. Schamus, J. (2001) ‘A Rant’, in J. Lewis (ed.) The End of Cinema as We Know It: American film in the nineties, London: Pluto Press, 253–60. Schatz, T. (1993) ‘The New Hollywood’, in J. Collins, H. Radner, and A. Preacher Collins (eds) Film Theory Goes to the Movies, New York: Routledge, 8–36. Sconce, J. (2002) ‘Irony, nihilism and the new American “smart” film’, Screen, vol. 43, no. 4 (Winter), 349–69.

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Scott, A. O. (2003) ‘The studio-indie, pop-prestige, art-commercial king’, New York Times, 9 November. Online. Available HTTP: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/09/movies/ 09SPIELBERG.html?pagewanted=all (accessed on line 17 March 2009). Staiger, J. (1983) ‘Individualism versus collectivism’, Screen, vol. 24, nos. 4–5 (July-October): 68–79. ——(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, 309–29. ——(2010) ‘Film history, film practices’, Scandia, vol. 76, no. 2, 13–30. Thompson, K. and Bordwell, D. (2003) Film History: an introduction, 2nd ed., Boston: McGraw Hill. Tzioumakis, Y. (2011) ‘Academic discourses and American independent cinema: in search of a field of studies, part 1: from the beginnings to the 1980s’, New Review of Film and Television Studies, vol. 9, no. 2 (June), 105–31. Wasser, F. (2001) Veni, Vidi, Video: the Hollywood empire and the VCR, Austin: University of Texas Press. Waxman, S. (2006) Rebels on the Backlot: six maverick directors and how they conquered the Hollywood studio system, New York: Harper. West, G. (2009) ‘Indie conventions help—and hurt—film’, Austin American-Statesman, 24 April, D3. Wyatt, J. (1998a) ‘The formation of the “major independent”: Miramax, New Line, and the New Hollywood’, in S. Neale and M. Smith (eds) Contemporary Hollywood Cinema, London: Routledge, 74–90. ——(1998b) ‘From roadshowing to saturation release: majors, independents, and marketing/ distribution innovations’, in J. Lewis (ed.) The New American Cinema, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 64–86.

2 ‘INDEPENDENT’, ‘INDIE’ AND ‘INDIEWOOD’ Towards a periodisation of contemporary (post-1980) American independent cinema Yannis Tzioumakis

Introduction On July 30, 2010, and after a protracted period of speculation about its future, Disney sold its speciality film division Miramax Films to a consortium of equity investors for a reported $660 million (Quinn 2010). The sale took place almost five years after Bob and Harvey Weinstein, Miramax’s founders and senior executives for almost 25 years, had walked out of the company following a well-publicised fall-out with Disney’s chairman Michael Eisner over a number of issues (Roston 2005: 49). Since 2005 and until the sale in 2010, Miramax had been transformed from the undisputed leader of the speciality film market in the 1990s and early 2000s to a small scale producer-distributor that was finding it increasingly difficult to remain competitive in the market it had helped create. In this respect, Disney’s decision to offload its subsidiary was hardly surprising given the latter’s diminishing fortunes. In many ways the end of Miramax was the latest instalment in what Variety had described as ‘the great studio pullback of [20]08’ (Hayes 2008); the partial or complete withdrawal of many major entertainment conglomerates from the speciality film market, a major part of which was the American independent film market. Starting with Time Warner, which on May 8, 2008 announced the closure of both its speciality film divisions, Warner Independent Pictures and Picturehouse (shortly after it had also merged New Line Cinema with Warner Bros.), and followed by Viacom, which a month later moved to shutter its own speciality film label, Paramount Vantage, and NBC Universal, which in January 2009 sold its speciality low-budget genre label Rogue Pictures to Relativity Media, half of the major entertainment conglomerates had been either exiting the speciality film market altogether or limiting their involvement in it substantially. Not surprisingly, such an extensive shakeout had a dramatic impact on American independent cinema. This was because these divisions were primarily in the business

‘Independent’, ‘Indie’ and ‘Indiewood’ 29

of acquiring, producing and distributing ‘independent’ films, despite the fact that all had a corporate relationship with the major entertainment conglomerates, and therefore were not really independent. However, with a large part of ‘independent’ filmmaking in the US characterised by a long history of a symbiotic relationship with the Hollywood studios (Bernstein 1986: 2), it was not difficult for those divisions (and the ones that survived the 2008 shakeout: Fox Searchlight, Focus Features and Sony Pictures Classics) to brand themselves as ‘independents’. The cornerstone in that branding was, arguably, the widespread use of the label ‘indie’, the ‘hip offspring’ of independence (Perren, 2002: 37), which, on the one hand, validated their presence alongside smaller producing and distributing outfits that had no corporate ties with the Hollywood industry and could therefore claim the label ‘independent’ more legitimately, while, on the other, did not necessarily negate these divisions’ relationship to the majors. The adoption of the label ‘indie’ by these studio divisions and its wide acceptance by industry analysts, film critics and the film-going public since the early 1990s clearly suggests a shift from earlier expressions of American independent cinema. Arguably, it signals a qualitative difference from a less commercially oriented type of independent filmmaking that characterised a considerable part of the sector in the 1980s and was located away from the Hollywood majors, despite the fact that their speciality film divisions at the time distributed a small number of these independent films. Furthermore, the subsequent evolution of ‘indie’ cinema, which was determined to a large extent by the introduction of new studio speciality film divisions in the late 1990s and early 2000s and especially by increasing emphasis of these companies on film production rather than acquisitions, arguably signalled another distinct expression of independent filmmaking and a new stage in the history of the sector. Often called ‘indiewood’, this new configuration was characterised by an increasing convergence between practices associated with independent filmmaking and Hollywood cinema and, not surprisingly, comes part and parcel with ‘independent’ films that have blockbusting tendencies, such as Good Will Hunting (1997, Miramax), and Juno (2007, Fox Searchlight), both of which grossed more than $100 million at the US theatrical box office. Despite evidence that suggests that ‘independent’, ‘indie’ and ‘indiewood’ could refer to different articulations of independent filmmaking and, if not distinct eras, certainly distinct trends within contemporary American independent cinema, these labels have been used by scholars and critics interchangeably.1 This is partly because the speciality film sector evolved in ways that made the distinction of these labels often difficult to discern. For instance, Miramax Films was a small distribution, and later production-distribution, company without any corporate ties to a Hollywood major for almost 15 years before it became the leader of the ‘indies’ in the 1990s, especially after its takeover by Disney in 1993. Does this mean that the company used to trade in independent films before shifting to indie ones? Focus Features, on the other hand, came into existence following a series of mergers and takeovers orchestrated by Universal’s conglomerate parent, and involving no fewer than six other companies, including stand-alone speciality film distributor October Films. However,

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while October Films was firmly grounded in the acquisition and distribution of relatively low-budget films such as Lost Highway (D. Lynch, 1997) and High Art (L. Cholodenko, 1998), one of the first Focus Features releases was the $33 million production, The Pianist (R. Polanski, 2002).2 Does the metamorphosis of October Films into Focus Features reflect a shift from indie to indiewood? With these complications in mind, this chapter will attempt to pin down the meaning of the labels ‘independent’, ‘indie’ and ‘indiewood’ with reference to contemporary American independent cinema. For most critics, this extends from the late 1970s/early 1980s to date,3 even though the recent consolidation in the studio divisions might also suggest the unfolding of a new era in independent cinema.4 In this respect then, my efforts to define ‘independent’, ‘indie’ and ‘indiewood’ will also be accompanied by an attempt to periodise contemporary American independent cinema. As I will argue, the three labels not only connote specific expressions of independent filmmaking but also represent distinct trends within fairly clearly demarcated periods of time in the recent history of the sector. Furthermore, each of these periods is marked by the presence of a distinct group of studio film divisions, which suggests that, rhetoric aside, much of American independent cinema has always operated at close range with the Hollywood majors. As with every periodisation project, one cannot expect that the recent history of American independent cinema moves easily from one stage to another, with each stage having its own features that separate it from the ones before or after it. As historian Penelope Corfield has argued, ‘history’s ages and stages do not come ready labelled’ but, instead, ‘old and new are continually fused, contested, retained, adapted, lost, refound’ (Corfield 2010: 380, 393), while the act of periodising itself, with its inherent emphasis on dividing a whole, often obscures ‘deep continuities’ as well as ‘very long, slow, gradual trends [that] are not so easy to fit into such schema’ (2010: 394). In this respect, and despite the dominance of particular articulations of independent filmmaking over each of these three stages, other modes and formats of independence continued to be practised, often surviving intact the passage from one stage to another. However, as my discussion will demonstrate, these modes tended to occupy a more marginal space in the sector and therefore receive less attention from critics and the film-going public than the dominant forms of each period. In this respect, their marginal status within the discourse of American independent cinema during a particular period allowed the period in question to be primarily defined by very specific modes of filmmaking to which the labels independent, indie and indiewood can be attached.

Contemporary American Independent Cinema – Phase 1: The Independent Years Although the 1970s witnessed a number of films produced and distributed away from the Hollywood studios and a relatively well-defined exploitation sector (for instance, A Woman Under the Influence [J. Cassavetes, 1974], Hester Street [J. Micklin Silver, 1975], the documentary Harlan County, USA [B. Kopple, 1976], Eraserhead [D. Lynch, 1977]

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and many others), these releases never coalesced into a distinct body of films under a particular identity. Neither were they perceived by audiences and the critical apparatus alike as parts of a coherent body of work that had specific objectives to achieve or that was permeated by a distinct aesthetic. Instead, they were considered examples of low-budget independent filmmaking, financed and produced entirely away from the major studios and distributed by boutique releasing organisations that specialised primarily in non-US arthouse film or, quite frequently, by exploitation film distributors who added the occasional ‘quality film’ in a release slate otherwise dominated by low-budget genre filmmaking (Tzioumakis 2012: 3–5). By the late 1970s, however, this perception had changed. Within a short period of time a significant number of feature-length narrative films and documentaries produced entirely away from the Hollywood industry found commercial distribution and limited box office success, including Northern Lights (J. Hanson, R. Nilsson, 1979), Gal Young ’Un (V. Nunez, 1979), Heartland (R. Pierce, 1980), Alambrista! (R. M. Young, 1979 [1977]), Return of the Secaucus Seven (J. Sayles, 1980), The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter (C. Field, 1980), and several others. ‘Where before there had been a trickle of poorly funded documentaries, supplemented by the occasional underfinanced grainy picture’, Peter Biskind wrote, ‘there was now a comparative flood of slick, reasonably well-produced films’ (2005: 17). This ‘flood’ prompted a number of contemporary critics to pronounce the arrival of a new era in independent filmmaking. Writing as early as 1981 and as part of an American Film editorial dedicated to independent cinema, Annette Insdorf noted that what distinguished these films from Hollywood fare were: casting, pace, cinematic style and social and moral vision. Countering big stars with fresh faces, big deals with intimate canvasses and big studios with regional authenticity, these filmmakers treat inherently American concerns with a primarily European style. (1981: 58) This new expression of American independent cinema benefited from an emerging industrial and institutional infrastructure that helped it assert itself in the marketplace and achieve the longevity and commercial success that earlier independent film movements (such as the New American Cinema of the late 1950s/early 1960s) were not in a position to accomplish. Organisations such as the Independent Feature Project (established in 1979) and its Independent Feature Film Market; the Sundance Film Institute (established in 1981); the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, which started administering grants to both organisations and filmmakers (Cornwell 1981: 64); and municipal and state film bureaus which administered local government grants while also offering a variety of services to independent production companies – all contributed to the creation of a more hospitable environment for producing films away from Hollywood and indeed in various regions of the country. A similarly positive development took place in the field of film distribution. Castle Hills Productions, Cinecom and Horizon Films took their place in 1981 alongside

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First Run Features (a distribution company established as a co-operative by some of the creators of the early 1980s films) (Peary 1981: 63). There were also a few other distributors that had been formed in the latter half of the 1970s, such as the Samuel Goldwyn Company and Atlantic Releasing Corporation, which found a new lease of life in the early 1980s with all these films seeking commercial distribution. Furthermore, new distribution technologies such as video and cable represented additional opportunities for ancillary profits, especially as cable programmers and video distributors were in need of product during the boom years of the early 1980s and would consider licensing films that under other circumstances might have been deemed un-commercial. However, and in hindsight, arguably the most important development in distribution took place in 1980, when United Artists created United Artists Classics with a mandate to trade in foreign arthouse films, re-releases of titles from the former’s vault and independently produced US films. The division represents the starting point of what I have labelled elsewhere the first of three waves of speciality film divisions of the major studios (Tzioumakis 2012), one that also included Twentieth Century Fox International Classics, Universal Classics, Triumph Releasing (a subsidiary created by Columbia in collaboration with the French major Gaumont) and Orion Classics – the last the speciality label of mini-major Orion Pictures. Although these companies (with the exception of Orion Classics) were short-lived and distributed only a small percentage of the independent films of the 1980s, they nevertheless influenced immensely the trajectory of American independent cinema. This is because, together with the independent distributors, the number of which increased significantly in the mid-1980s, they established a viable commercial distribution network that on many occasions allowed independent filmmakers to earn profits from the commercial exploitation of their films and therefore continue pursuing filmmaking as a full time occupation. Additionally, the studio divisions enabled a new level of a symbiotic relationship between Hollywood and independent cinema, which would intensify considerably in the following two decades. Finally, this phase in American independent cinema was also characterised by a particular type of film that could be labelled as the ‘low-budget, low-key quality film’, and which mostly dealt with mature themes targeting specifically an adult, educated audience. The box office success of these films was always limited, as distribution took place primarily in the North American market and extended mainly to dedicated theatres specialising in arthouse fare. The number of these theatres was around 200, but could extend to approximately 500–600 if a film crossed over and proved a commercial success (Deutchman 2011). According to Peter Biskind, in order for a film to go past the $10 million mark in box office takings in the 1980s it would have to ‘play the suburban multiplexes’ (2005: 81), something that happened on extremely rare occasions for the low-budget, low-key quality films that constituted the dominant expression of independent filmmaking during this phase.5 On the other hand, there were a number of films that were also produced and distributed away from the influence of the Hollywood studios but did not follow the dominant format in independent filmmaking. For instance, a film such as Dirty

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Dancing (E. Ardolino, 1987), which was the first production of newcomer producerdistributor Vestron Films, had several points of contact with the high-concept film that was practised by the major studios, including a catchy narrative premise and extensive use of pop songs in the soundtrack, while Vestron released it in almost 1,000 theatres, a far cry from the handful of arthouse engagements that characterised the release of low-budget, low-key quality independent films. However, Dirty Dancing also had certain points of contact with these films, including its strong emphasis on issues of class and race, its mature handling of sensitive subjects (especially abortion), while some of the film’s key contributors were eager to highlight its industrial location as ‘different from Hollywood’.6 Dirty Dancing’s association with both Hollywood and independent cinema then, brings it, arguably, closer to ‘indiewood’, a distinct expression of independent filmmaking that nonetheless achieved great visibility and critical acceptance more than a decade after the film’s release. Still, despite its undisputed independent film credentials, the film is perennially absent from scholarly accounts of the sector in the 1980s,7 as it does not fit the dominant low-budget, low-key quality film format.

Contemporary American Independent Cinema – Phase 2: The indie years The release and great commercial success of sex, lies, and videotape (S. Soderbergh) in 1989 provides a convenient point of departure for the second phase of contemporary American independent cinema, the indie years. According to Emmanuel Levy, sex, lies, and videotape ‘forever changed the public perception of independent movies’ (1999: 94), while for Geoff King the film ‘remains a milestone in the development of the indie sector as we know it today’ (2005: 261). However, despite its undisputed visibility and the undeniable fact that it made the US film industry see the independent sector as a yet to be exploited goldmine, the commercial success of Soderbergh’s film was one of several developments that pushed contemporary American independent cinema to its second phase. Less ‘epic’ but arguably equally important was New Line Cinema’s decision to move to the establishment of a classics division in 1990, the first new such company in seven years. Fine Line Features represented a break from the classics divisions of the 1980s as, in the words of its first president Ira Deutchman, it focused on distributing films that had ‘more market, more crossover potential than classics-oriented films’ (quoted in Wyatt 1998: 78). Equally importantly, Fine Line specialised primarily in American films, largely avoiding the acquisition and distribution of arthouse film product from around the world (with the possible exception of English-speaking films from Britain, Australia and New Zealand) that had primarily characterised the first wave of the classics divisions in the 1980s. For instance Fine Line’s roster of releases in 1991 included now-celebrated canonical ‘indie’ films, such as Trust (H. Hartley), My Own Private Idaho (G. Van Sant), The Rupture (M. Tolkin) and Night on Earth (J. Jarmusch), with the British film Let Him Have It (P. Medak) and Jane Campion’s An Angel at My Table, an Australia/New Zealand co-production, filling up the slate.

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Fine Line Features spearheaded a second wave of classics divisions, which also included Sony Pictures Classics (formed in 1992) and Miramax, which was originally a stand-alone company before it was taken over by Disney in 1993. Besides focusing mostly on American films, there was another key difference between the second and the first wave of the classics divisions. While the 1980s studio divisions remained strictly in the distribution business,8 the ones formed post-1990 started also venturing into the areas of film finance and production. Although such arrangements were relatively few in the early years of the 1990s (especially for Sony Pictures Classics), this meant that there existed films associated strongly with the independent sector that were produced with funds from the conglomerated majors’ subsidiaries. And even though, for example, Sony Pictures Classics’ association with a film such as The Myth of Fingerprints (B. Freundlich, 1996), which it financed for $2 million (Anon. 1996: 13), did not necessarily mean that it influenced its production in any way, such deals did mark the beginning of a new era in American independent cinema, when the label ‘independent’ ceased to signify economic independence from the majors when it came to questions of production; instead, the label became a signifier of a particular type of film, the ‘indie’ film (which subsequently gave birth to arguments about films with an ‘independent spirit’). This was the era of American ‘indie’ cinema, which therefore needs to be seen as different from the American independent cinema of the 1980s. Furthermore, while Sony Pictures Classics remained marginal in film finance and production, and Fine Line, despite its considerable production activity, was still a subsidiary of the stand-alone major independent New Line Cinema – and therefore not corporately controlled by conglomerated Hollywood – in the two-year period 1993–94 the landscape of indie cinema was subjected to deeper structural changes. In 1994 New Line Cinema ceased to be stand-alone as it was taken over by Turner Broadcasting System, a media conglomerate with stakes in major cable television networks such as CNN and Turner Classic Movies, while Miramax, the company most heavily associated by the cinema going public with the distribution of American independent films, was taken over by Disney in May 1993. If nothing else, these takeovers demonstrated that the Hollywood majors were taking seriously developments in the independent cinema sector, especially the fact that an increasing number of relatively low-budget films were finding substantial commercial success. This second phase of contemporary American independent cinema saw a solidification of its institutional infrastructure with a large number of initiatives and developments lending extensive support to the sector. Besides the second wave of classics divisions, the early/mid-1990s also saw the introduction of even more specialised film distributors, established in the hope of getting a slice of the increasingly lucrative indie film business (for instance, October Films, IRS Media, Triton Pictures, Cabriolet Films and Greycat Films were all established in 1990). It also saw the publication of speciality magazines, such as Filmmaker (launched in 1992 and published by the Independent Feature Project) and MovieMaker (launched in 1993 by film practitioner and journalist Timothy Rhys), which were established to cover exclusively the independent film sector. There was also an increasing number of other publications

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that aimed to encourage filmmakers with no formal training or access to funds to enter the filmmaking business as independents, such as Rick Schmidt’s Feature Film Making at Used-Car Prices: How to Write, Produce, Direct, Film, Edit, and Promote a Feature-Length Film for Less Than $10,000, which was published in August 1995. Finally this phase also saw an increase in the number of film festivals dedicated to indie films or opening up to films of that designation, with the Austin Film Festival in Texas (launched in 1994) and the Heartland Film Festival in Indianapolis (launched in 1991) joining forces with significant existing showcases such as the Sundance Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival and the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado. In the face of such institutional support it is no surprise that the American indie cinema started reaching substantial levels of popularisation in the mid-1990s, finding perhaps a suitable embodiment in the Pulp Fiction phenomenon, a film co-financed, co-produced and distributed by Miramax and widely perceived to be the first indie film to break the $100 million mark at the US theatrical box office. However, while the independent cinema of the earlier period had found a dominant expression in the low-budget, low-key quality film that enjoyed kinship with European arthouse cinema, targeted upmarket audiences and dealt with mature themes, the indie film of the early and mid-1990s had become increasingly difficult to define. Pulp Fiction, which was also the winner of Best Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards in 1995, had few points of contact with, for instance, the 1994 Sundance Film Festival winner, Tom Noonan’s micro-budgeted What Happened Was … , which received minimal distribution from the Samuel Goldwyn Company and grossed slightly over $300,000 at the US theatrical box office. On the other hand, Pulp Fiction’s playful use of genre and film style, its complex narrative structure, its popular culture references, and the presence of major film stars and a celebrity filmmaker seemed to be closer to films such as The Player (R. Altman, 1992) and Short Cuts (R. Altman, 1993) that were released by Fine Line Features. But then The Player and Short Cuts had few similarities with more modest Fine Line releases such as the low-budgeted Swoon (T. Kalin, 1992), which became one of the banner films in the New Queer Cinema movement that took place within the context of the early 1990s indie cinema. One could argue then, that American indie cinema included a heterogeneity of voices, narratives, styles, ideas and budgets loosely grouped under the label indie (which also started being used a marketing tool/brand name to differentiate these films from the more expensive and formulaic studio films as well as from the low-budget genre and exploitation filmmaking that continued to operate at the margins of the industry). A great number of indie films (such as Swoon) retained their links to the challenging, esoteric and often difficult material that characterised many of the films of the first phase of contemporary American independent cinema. But, significantly, an increasing number of indie films did not hide their affinities with Hollywood cinema (use of stars and strong generic frameworks; targeting of other audience demographics and not just of the arthouse, upmarket one; strong use of sex and violence) (Tzioumakis 2012: 8), and it was eventually these kinds of films that attracted most critical attention, proved most commercially successful and finally defined the indie phase of contemporary American independent cinema. With all these elements certainly pointing

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more towards Hollywood cinema rather than the low-budget, low-key independent cinema of the 1980s, it is not surprising that the next phase in contemporary American independent cinema saw these tendencies intensify and indie cinema getting increasingly closer to Hollywood in a number of ways.

Contemporary American Independent Cinema – Phase 3: Indiewood With the lines between independent cinema and Hollywood already getting blurred during the indie years, it is considerably more difficult to bookmark the end of the second phase and the beginning of the third. The period 1996–98 seems to have held a number of events and developments that point towards a new stage in the history of the independent sector, and in this respect could function as the transitional period from indie to indiewood. These events would include: Miramax’s further opening up to big-budget, star-driven and narratively accessible fare that achieved great critical and commercial success, such as the Oscar-winning The English Patient (A. Minghella, 1996) and Shakespeare in Love (G. Madden, 1998); the introduction of a third wave of studio speciality film divisions, starting with Fox Searchlight at the end of 1995 and followed by Paramount Classics in 1997; and the emergence of a new group of production and distribution companies (Artisan [1997], USA Films [1998] and Lions Gate Films [1999]) that were much better capitalised than the smaller boutique companies that had entered the market in the early 1990s but which were falling by the wayside later in the decade as the cost of production and distribution of independent filmmaking had started increasing. Arguably, the one element that underwrites all this activity is what James Schamus has labelled as ‘the successful integration of the independent film movement into the structures of global media and finance’ (2001: 254). As he explained, by the end of the 1990s independent films ‘ha[d] succeeded overwhelmingly in entering the mainstream system of commercial exploitation and finance, as [at the end of the century] the economics required to make oneself heard even as an ‘independent’ [were] essentially studio economics. In this so-called independent arena’, Schamus continued, ‘even the ‘little guys’ need[ed] big capital if they [were] to survive in any economically viable form’ (254). This new reality lent considerable credence to the ‘indiewood’ label, which had been in circulation since the mid/late-1990s, but which has been utilised increasingly in discourses of independent cinema post-2000.9 In the first book on the subject, Geoff King argues that indiewood (in this case with a capital ‘I’) is a zone where ‘Hollywood and independent film merge or overlap’ (2009: 1). While this zone incorporates a variety of producers and distributors, for King, ‘the most clear cut institutional base for Indiewood is either studio created subsidiaries or independent operations taken over by studios’ (2009: 3–4). This is because indiewood films tend to be both produced and distributed by these divisions (rather than acquired in film festivals). According to King, the growing emphasis of these divisions on production has led to ‘an increasing tendency to favour more conservative or star-led properties’ that often blur previously well-established distinctions between

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the independent and major studios sectors (110). Indeed, while companies from the second wave of the studio divisions became involved in finance and production in the early/mid-1990s, these arrangements were always secondary, as film acquisitions remained firmly the main strategy that defined their modus operandi. However, from the mid-1990s onwards, both these companies and the newer studio divisions, like Fox Searchlight and Focus Features, turned their attention primarily to production. By concentrating on the more conservative, star-led properties, often as part of mandates from their parent corporations, which pressurised them to ‘make mainstream movies that make money’ (Harris 2003: 54), these studio divisions privileged further the commercial elements that characterised indie film production for most of the 1990s. One could suggest then that the period from the late 1990s onwards represents a distinct phase in contemporary American independent cinema; one that has been marked by the domination of the studio divisions and their increasing emphasis on film production. As subsidiaries of global entertainment conglomerates, these divisions are by definition integrated into the structures of global media and finance and therefore are fully equipped to play ‘the independent film game’ better than the traditional stand-alone distributors, whose levels of integration into global finance are much less deep. The application of Hollywood standards to the independent film sector has taken a number of forms and has altered irrevocably the fabric of contemporary independent cinema. For instance, films can cost up to $20 million and still be considered for the Independent Spirit Awards, while by 2004, Focus Features had a budget ceiling of $30 million for its indiewood films (Rooney 2004: 8, 15). Equally importantly, Hollywood stars have become an even more integral aspect of this phase of independent cinema than the earlier one, and despite the fact that they tend to work for a fraction of their normal fees, they have contributed to the inflation of budgets compared to the previous years. Finally, and perhaps unexpectedly, all these changes have created films that often compete against major studio releases on equal terms. Indeed, a small number of expensive indiewood films, such as Kill Bill Vols. 1 and 2 (Q. Tarantino 2003, 2004), Sideways (A. Payne, 2004), Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005) and a few others have become runaway hits generating revenues in the hundreds of millions of dollars and have claimed major awards in the US and internationally. On the other hand, however, and despite representing the dominant mode of filmmaking in recent American independent cinema, these films are the exception to a rule that sees most of the releases from studio divisions and stand-alone distributors failing to find an audience. The above and a few other ‘blockbusting’ indiewood films then, often offset the losses from a much larger number of releases that struggle to secure playdates and attract critical attention. For instance, in 2007 three out of Fox Searchlight’s ten releases, Juno, 28 Weeks Later (J. C. Fresnadillo) and Waitress (A. Shelley) grossed more than two-thirds of the company’s annual US theatrical box office revenues and covered the losses incurred by the underperformance of its remaining seven releases, such as Joshua (G. Ratliff) and The Savages (T. Jenkins). With the convergence between independent and Hollywood cinema having reached such an advanced stage in the late 2000s, it comes as no surprise that the parent

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companies of the speciality film divisions started questioning the seeming evolution of their subsidiaries into studio-like organisations. According to MPAA data, in 2007 the average cost of producing and releasing a film by the speciality divisions in the US had reached a staggering $74.9 million (Miller 2008), only $30 million less than the production and marketing costs for the average studio film in the same year (MPAA 2007: 15).10 In this respect, it made little financial sense for the major entertainment conglomerates to maintain these divisions, as their main studio distributors could now handle the distribution process, which has increasingly relied on saturation release methods. This suggests that Warner Independent, Picturehouse, Paramount Vantage and Miramax became casualties in an extremely competitive sector that was in need of consolidation given the exponential growth in the cost of indiewood titles. With a much-reduced number of well-capitalised players in the sector there will be less competition amongst the indiewood releases, which effectively guarantees the continuation of this type of independent filmmaking at least in the short term future.

Conclusion: A New Dawn? Despite the clear affirmation of indiewood films as the dominant expression of independent filmmaking from the late 1990s onwards, other types of independent films continued to be produced and distributed, often finding considerable commercial success. For instance, feature documentaries are still a staple of independent cinema in the indiewood years, while Sony Pictures Classics did not embrace the indiewood model and has continued to deal primarily in acquisitions, including several low-budgeted films that had few points of contact with the product released by its competitors, such as the micro-budgeted ‘mumblecore’ Baghead (J. and M. Duplass, 2008) or the slightly higher-budgeted Frozen River (C. Hunt, 2008). It is clear, then, that independent films of all kinds and modes continued to be made, despite the dominance of particular expressions at specific historical junctures in contemporary American independent cinema. Despite the current dominance of indiewood, contemporary American independent cinema is becoming increasingly financially viable outside the traditional theatrical exhibition sector. With an increasing number of filmmakers utilising what Peter Broderick has called ‘new world distribution’ methods (Broderick 2008), which involve partial self-distribution models that utilise Web 2.0 tools and depend increasingly on social network media, a large number of mostly micro-budgeted films that are far removed from indiewood film practices premiere away from the theatres (cable and satellite television; DVDs; and web distribution outlets such as YouTube). With social network sites enabling filmmakers to tap directly into a known potential audience, filmmakers are in a position to determine the most efficient way to reach that audience without having to rely on established theatrical distributors and a costly national theatrical release. Furthermore, with major film festivals such as Sundance already collaborating with social media such as YouTube and Facebook for the distribution of several festival films (Reevers 2011), it is clear that these recent developments are beginning to be adopted widely.

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One could argue then that that the dramatic changes in American independent cinema in the late 2000s that followed the consolidation at the top end of the sector, in tandem with the increased opportunities for independent filmmaking that have been provided by the rapid rise of social media and digital technology, have brought contemporary American independent cinema into yet another transitional period. Where this period would lead is still unclear at this point. What is clear, however, is that the heterogeneous and polyphonic nature of independent filmmaking will persist, irrespective of whether people consume films primarily in the home (video, cable, download) and, more recently, ‘on the move’, and not in the theatres.

Notes 1 See, for instance, Needham (2010: 8), who uses indie and indiewood interchangeably and King (2009: 268–9), who uses independent and indie interchangeably and distinguishes them from Indiewood (the latter term is capitalised in some cases, including King, and not in others). 2 The figure for the budget of the film was taken from Tzioumakis 2012: 184. 3 See, for instance, Levy 1999; King 2005 and Newman 2011, all of whom focus either primarily or exclusively on the post-1980 era. 4 See, for instance, Newman (2011: 1), who frames his discussion of the ‘Sundance Miramax era’ between the middle to late 1980s and the indie industry crisis of the late 2000s. 5 One such film was Kiss of the Spider Woman (H. Babenco, 1985), which grossed $17 million. 6 In a series of interviews, Eleanor Bergstein, the film’s writer and producer, and Jennifer Grey, the film’s protagonist, brought up questions of the film’s independence (‘Special Features’ 20th Anniversary DVD, Region 1). 7 Exceptions here are Pierson (1995: 97, 119) and King (2005: 25), who include brief references to the film in their respective discussions of the independent film sector. 8 Orion Classics is an exception as it co-financed a number of films, including the US independent picture End of the Line (J. Russell, 1987). (See Tzioumakis 2012: 72.) 9 See, for instance, Roman 2001; and King 2009. 10 Studio subsidiaries here include also larger divisions, such as New Line Cinema, which occasionally produced and released films that cost more than $100 million.

Bibliography Anon. (1996) ‘Sony Pictures Classics’ Hollywood Reporter, 1 Aug, 13. Biskind, P. (2005) Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance and the rise of independent film, London: Simon & Schuster. Bernstein, M. (1986) ‘Introduction’, Velvet Light Trap, no. 22, 2. Broderick, P. (2008) ‘Welcome to the new world of distribution, part 1’, Indiewire. Online. Available HTTP: http://www.indiewire.com/article/first_person_peter_broderick_welcome_ to_the_new_world_of_distribution_part1/ (accessed 6 February 2011). Corfield, P. J. (2010) ‘POST-medievalism/modernity/postmodernity’, Rethinking History, vol. 14, no. 3, 379–404. Cornwell, R. (1981) ‘Cents and sensibility or funding without tears’, American Film, vol. 6, no. 10, 63, 64, 80. Deutchman, I. (2011) [former executive at United Artists Classics and former President of Fine Line Features] Phone interview with the author, 2 Jun, 1 hour 15 minutes. Harris, Dana (2003) ‘H’wood renews niche pitch: studios add fresh spin as they rev up “art” divisions’, Weekly Variety, 7 April, 1, 54.

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Hayes, Dade (2008) ‘Picturehouse’, Daily Variety, 8 September, page not available. Insdorf, Annette. (1981) ‘Ordinary people, European-style: how to spot an independent feature’, American Film, vol. 6, no. 10, 57–60. King, G. (2005) American Independent Cinema, London: I. B. Tauris. ——(2009) Indiewood, USA: where Hollywood meets independent cinema, London: I. B. Tauris. Levy, Emanuel (1999) Cinema of Outsiders: the rise of American independent film, New York: New York University Press. Miller, W. (2008) ‘Indie spirits wade into mainstream’, Weekly Variety, 10 March, 53–54. MPAA (2007) ‘Entertainment industry market statistics’. Online. Available HTTP: http:// www.immagic.com/eLibrary/ARCHIVES/GENERAL/MPAA_US/M080925E.pdf (accessed 1 March 2011). Needham, G. (2010) Brokeback Mountain, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Newman, M. Z. (2011) Indie: an American film culture, New York: Columbia University Press. Peary, G. (1981) ‘Getting it on: how to make deals and influence exhibitors’, American Film, vol. 6, no. 10, 60–63. Perren, A. (2002) ‘Sex, lies and marketing: Miramax and the development of the quality indie blockbuster’, Film Quarterly, vol. 55, no. 2, Winter, 32–39. Pierson, J. (1995) Spike Mike Slackers and Dykes: a guided tour across a decade of American independent cinema, New York: Hyperion/Miramax Books. Quinn, J. (2010) ‘Walt Disney offloads Miramax for $660 million’, Telegraph. Online. Available HTTP: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnology andtelecoms/media/7918523/Walt-Disney-offloads-Miramax-for-660m.html (accessed 1 September 2011). Reevers, C. (2011) ‘Sundance, Facebook and Kickstarter announce collaboration’, Paste Magazine. Online. Available HTTP: http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2011/01/ the-sundance-institute-to-collaborate-with-kicksta.html (accessed 6 February 2011). Roman, Shari (2001) Digital Babylon: Hollywood, indiewood and Dogme 95, Hollywood: Lone Eagle Publishing. Rooney, David (2004) ‘Niche biz comes into Focus: U specialty label marries taste with overseas savvy’, Weekly Variety, 2 August, 8, 15. Roston, Tom (2005) ‘Life after Miramax’, Premiere, March, 48–51, 122. Schamus, James (2001) ‘A rant’, in Jon Lewis (ed.) The End of Cinema As We Know It: American film in the nineties, London: Pluto Press, 253–260. Tzioumakis, Yannis (2012) Hollywood’s Indies: classics divisions, specialty labels and the American film market, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Wyatt, Justin (1998) ‘The formation of the “major independent”: Miramax, New Line and the New Hollywood’, in S. Neale and M. Smith (eds) Contemporary Hollywood Cinema, London: Routledge, 74–90.

3 THRIVING OR IN PERMANENT CRISIS? Discourses on the state of indie cinema Geoff King

The status of the indie sector at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century was subject to a number of differing judgements, so much so for it to have been a period of some confusion to many of those interested in or with a commitment to this part of the American film spectrum. There was much talk of ‘crisis’, either actual or impending. This was partly related to the broader economic difficulties of the moment, but also to some specific tendencies within the indie sphere itself. At the same time, some of these developments were viewed as either heralding a return of indie cinema to something like its ‘true’ indie roots or offering new opportunities. The aim of this chapter is to examine these discourses, but not simply in their own terms, as judgements about the actual health of the indie sector at a particular moment. I start by sketching some of the specific details around which indie cinema has recently been characterized as either thriving or in crisis, situating some of these within the broader history of the sector. But this chapter also seeks to go beyond this level, to consider these not just as concrete facts – important though those might be – but also as parts of a discursive repertoire that has deeper roots in prevailing conceptions of this part of the film landscape and of American culture more broadly.1 In this sense, the particular period in focus is taken as representative of wider tendencies in the articulation of distinctions within this realm. I should make it clear at the start that I am using the term ‘indie’ here to characterize a particular part of the broader independent sector embraced by this book as a whole. It is used here to signify the variety of independent film that gained a particular kind of institutionalization and wider cultural recognition in the period from some point in the 1980s to date, although the precise nature and boundaries of this category remain subject to debate. The dominant tenor of discourses in the trade press in the late 2000s, both Hollywood-centric publications such as Variety and The Hollywood Reporter and the indie-specific online indieWIRE, tended towards an emphasis on the crisis end of the spectrum. This was unsurprising given the likely impact of the contemporary global

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recession on the indie sector, not to mention the fact that ‘crisis’ tends to make for better short-term headlines. Funding has always been a problem, especially for new filmmakers or smaller operations without ties to the corporate majors, and a tightening of credit was widely assumed to impact on indie production. Downturns and recessions are generally expected to make investors more risk-averse, presenting a real difficulty to the indie sector. This, in itself, was nothing new, however, even if the recession from the late 2000s were a particularly deep one. The sector had faced similar problems in the past, including the aftermath of the 1987 Wall Street crash, the impact of which included the closure of a number of indie distributors in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Various other financial ups and downs have affected the indie business in the past two decades or more, making it far from easy always to be clear whether particular signs of ‘crisis’ are related to specific factors – such as a particular economic downturn – or the broader pressures often felt by those operating in the more marginal parts of the industry. A notable apparent casualty of the period under discussion here, for example, was New Yorker Films, a ‘legendary’ distributor of art films, the closure of which was announced in February 2009. How far it was a victim of the more immediate economic context or the broader vicissitudes of the sector was hard to say at the time, given the always precarious nature of an enterprise that had survived a number of earlier threats (and which subsequently bounced back the following year, reopening for business in 2010 under new ownership). Indie cinema as a whole continued to thrive in many respects during the 1990s, after the crash, whatever the difficulties faced by some institutions. The numbers of films produced rose consistently during the decade, even if far from all found theatrical distribution, a trend that has been more or less constant throughout the recent history of the sector and appeared to be sustained into the second decade of the new century. A measure often used in the trade press is the number of films competing for inclusion in the always-oversubscribed Sundance festival, a figure that continued to rise in 2009, 2010 and 2011. The part of indie discourse that focuses on the notion of ‘thriving’ includes an emphasis on the potential seen in low-budget digital production. Digital video has often been celebrated as a format that offers filmmakers the prospect of much greater ownership and control over the means of production; of a real democratisation of access (see, for example, Figgis 2007). Allied to this in some ways is a recent growth of a range of new internet-based production initiatives, schemes through which actual or prospective filmmakers seek funding and participation from viewers and try to build audiences through websites such as IndieGoGo and Kickstarter, although the potential of these remains largely unproven to date beyond the realm of certain social-issues oriented documentaries (for more detail, see King 2012). If there was nothing to indicate a fall-off in production in the late 2000s, the key locus of notions of crisis might be sought in the central arena of theatrical distribution. A common theme of coverage in the trade press was the increasing difficulty faced by indie films in this domain, particularly for relatively smaller productions. A report on Sundance in Variety in January 2009, for example, named a number of features it

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suggested ‘would have easily scored theatrical release just a few years ago’ but would now have to employ a number of alternative ways of reaching audiences instead (Thompson 2009). But this, again, is a problem that had been identified in one way or another for at least a decade, without the indie sector being destroyed or grinding to a halt as a result. Fears have been repeatedly expressed since at least the late 1990s of the impact of too many indie films competing among themselves, effectively cannibalizing each other’s market. So this is another factor that does not appear to offer any clear-cut grounds for identifying a new ‘crisis’ specific to the late 2000s, even if the period may have been characterized by some particular difficulties, including a general reduction in the advances paid by distributors to those films that did get picked up for theatrical release (on the latter point, see, for example, Hernandez 2010). An upturn in sales was subsequently noted at Sundance in 2011 (Kaufman 2011, Hope 2011), further evidence of the hazards involved in the interpretation of what might prove to be short-term trends. This is also a discourse that can be accompanied by a more positive spin, in the shape of hopes expressed about the potential future offered by alternative distribution channels, particularly those related to the use of the internet. ‘Digital’ is invoked, again, as a potential saviour, as either a means of delivery – digital projection in new venues, or internet distribution – or as a marketing and sales channel that can be put to particularly indie uses. A good case-study example of this is the lifehistory of Susan Buice and Arin Crumley’s Four Eyed Monsters (2005), a fiction feature based partly on their own real-life relationship. Four Eyed Monsters has been seen as a model of how the internet can be used as part of a multi-pronged strategy designed to promote and sell low-budget indie work. This included web postings of video podcasts about the making of the film and its festival appearances. Viewers were invited to respond to these, and data gathered from the locations of these responses was used to secure a selective theatrical release. The DVD was then sold directly from the filmmakers’ website, followed by a screening of the whole film on YouTube, the latter helping to secure a retail release on DVD. No one clear model has yet been established for the use of the web as a way of earning substantial revenues (for a more detailed examination, see King 2012), but the notion of its promise or potential remains an important part of the contemporary indie discourse. The sense of ‘threat’ posed to more traditional theatrical distribution is closely connected to another key element in these discourses, the development of what became known in the 1990s as Indiewood, the area in which Hollywood and the indie sector seem to merge or overlap, particularly in the form of the ‘speciality’ divisions owned by the Hollywood studios and seen as having gained or exerted undue control over the sector as a whole, particularly through their ability to dominate access to theatres (for more on this, see King 2009). The very existence of Indiewood is perhaps viewed as a more profound threat, however, regardless of any of the specific aspects of the strategies with which it became associated. The presence of Indiewood has often been treated as a threat to the very notion of indie as anything that can at all clearly be distinguished from the mainstream. The term ‘Indiewood’ is usually evoked in

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a negative spirit, a classic example of the negative reference point against which a discursive concept such as ‘true’ indie might be defined. Even here, though, an interesting balance of conclusions can be identified in the discourse of this period. The dominant strain since the mid-1990s was an emphasis on Indiewood as source of threat and contributor to crisis. But it is striking to note one interpretation that was made quite frequently in relation to Indiewood and the more immediate, short-term difficulties faced by the indie sector at the end of the 2000s. A consensus seemed to emerge that it was Indiewood itself that was in trouble at this time, as much as the wider indie sector. Commentators were quick to seize upon a number of setbacks faced by the studio divisions, most prominently the decision by Time Warner to close its indie/speciality wing, Warner Independent Pictures, in May 2008 as part of a series of changes that also led to the dismantling of its more mainstream/genre-oriented New Line Cinema and New Line’s indie-leaning Picturehouse wing. This was followed by other events including the effective closure of Paramount Vantage and the radical downsizing (and subsequent sale) of Disney’s Miramax division after the departure of its founders Harvey and Bob Weinstein in 2005. The closure by Disney of the Miramax offices in New York was a development of symbolic as much as more substantial significance, given the iconic role played by the company in the growth of the indie scene and the process through which parts of it morphed into Indiewood in the 1990s. A general impression was created by many commentators that Hollywood was engaged in a withdrawal from the indie sector. This may have been exaggerated, given the continued prominence of other divisions such as Fox Searchlight and Universal’s Focus Features and of releases from these subsidiaries at both the box office and prestige events such as the Academy Awards. It is also important to note that the studio/speciality division relationship had never been entirely stable or comfortable in some cases. Warner had for some time struggled to establish a settled strategy in this area, for example, rather than suddenly been thrown into crisis from nowhere. Others had arrived at more stable arrangements, including Fox (with Fox Searchlight), Universal (once it eventually settled on the Focus Features recipe from 2002) and Sony (with Sony Pictures Classics, the most autonomous and art-cinema oriented of the group). What was striking about the discourse of withdrawal on the part of the studios, however, was less the question of its veracity than the tone in which it was expressed, which tended to be highly favourable. That is to say, if the studios were pulling out (or, at least, some of them were doing so or reducing the scale of their commitment) it was widely seen as ‘good riddance’. A panel at the London Film Festival in October 2008 was titled, somewhat hyperbolically, ‘Indiewood is Dead … Long Live the New, True Indies’ while a broadly similar sentiment was expressed in a discussion of the contemporary state of the business in Filmmaker magazine, published by the Independent Feature Project. Ira Deutchman, a long-term indie stalwart, suggested that ‘the market correction that is happening with the majors getting out of this business is the best thing that has ever happened’, a view echoed by the prominent indie producer Ted Hope: two substantial voices from inside the indie sector (Macaulay 2008: 110).

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One person’s crisis, according to these responses – that believed by some to be facing the Indiewood studio divisions, in this case – is another’s source of potential revival. Further examples can be found in press coverage, both mainstream and tradeoriented. A feature by New York Times critic Manohla Dargis in September 2008 was headlined in similar fashion to the LFF panel: ‘The Revolution Is Dead, Long Live the Revolution’ (Dargis 2008). Much of the coverage of the first Sundance festival to follow the Time Warner announcement and the development of the credit crunch, in January 2009, took a similarly positive line as far as the underlying state of supposedly ‘true’ indie values was concerned: the festival was judged to have been quieter than usual and, by implication, more in tune with its indie roots (see, for example, Thompson 2009). As with the downsizing of Miramax, the expression of such views about Sundance can be viewed as carrying more weight than the literal meaning, the growth of the festival and its links with the studios having become another major signifier of departure from smaller-scale and supposedly more ‘authentic’ beginnings. What, then, should we make of the deployment of these notions of crisis and their opposite, often linked, in celebrations of the ‘true’ indie that might thrive or have prospects for revival, either alongside or as a more or less direct result of the constraints faced by the Indiewood end of the spectrum? There appears to be more to these discourses than just a series of matter-of-fact reflections on the various ups and downs of different parts of the indie landscape. Diagnoses of crisis or renewal can be understood as parts of the same discursive regime surrounding indie cinema, one in which the two positions are mutually implicated rather than simply opposed. Both could be said always to have been in play. Indie cinema often seems to have been viewed as existing in a state of close-to-permanent crisis of one kind of another – while also seeming always to retain some potential either to continue to thrive, at some level, or to undergo revival at some point in the future. One way of understanding this is to suggest that, within the prevailing discourse, the indie sector almost needs to be seen as existing in a permanent state of crisis; that this is, in a sense, part of its definition. To be truly indie, in this view, is not to be too stable and secure but to exist in a manner that is understood as being ‘on the edge’, as it were, on a tightrope without a safety net, or whatever other metaphor might be chosen. One of the problems diagnosed from this perspective is any kind of institutionalization of indie, other than at the smallest scale, something that might be seen as a contradiction in terms. This might include the very use of a term such as ‘indie’ itself, in the way I have employed it to signify a consolidation of a number of independent traits within a particular period. Institutionalization was clearly an important part of the formation of indie cinema that developed in the 1980s and 1990s – a story that is now familiar – through the creation or consolidation of a distinct realm of indie distributors, festivals and other organizations. This can be understood in the terms used in Howard Becker’s classic account of the formation of a particular ‘art world’, the constitution of which also involves the work of various institutions, critics and receptive audiences (Becker 1982). The problem comes when this kind of process is perceived to have gone too far, through too much institutionalization or consolidation.

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This immediately raises a number of questions, however, along the lines of: ‘how much is too much?’ How big can an indie distributor or an indie-oriented festival become before it is seen as posing a threat to some core notion of independence? Any association with one of the Hollywood studios is an obvious cut-off point for many. The Oscar aspirations of some Indiewood films are another source of suspicion. While the indie sector has its own equivalent, the Independent Spirit Awards, these are seen to have let down the barriers by not excluding films produced and distributed by the main divisions of the studios. Guidelines for selections suggest that films made with ‘an economy of means’ could still be considered independent when fully financed by a studio or an indie studio division ‘if the subject matter is original and provocative’ (Film Independent, n.d.). The ‘how-much-is-too-much’ argument is conducted in a particularly open way in relation to the Spirit awards, a budget ceiling having been imposed on entrants into the main competition since 2006, a frequent source of controversy in the indie community, the current threshold being a substantial $20 million. At the heart of much of this kind of discourse is an emphasis on the importance of authenticity as a marker of indie status; or, loss of authenticity as a source of one kind of perceived crisis. This is a recurrent trope, whether expressed directly or more indirectly. Claims to the status of some kind of authenticity are made by many indie films, practitioners or spokespeople, at various levels. These include certain formal qualities, notable examples including the grainy black-and-white photography of key films now established as indie ‘classics’ or the pixilation of low-budget DV features. Pitches for authenticity are also made, implicitly, through devices such as the absence of certain kinds of plotting or narrative structure (for more on this, see King 2005). It is notable that what is characteristically involved here is usually understood as a negation of qualities associated with Hollywood, the latter being a byword for all that is assumed to be false, fake and contrived. It is easy to over-simplify this picture. Far from all indie production has positioned itself as ‘authentic’, and Hollywood can also embrace a wider range than is sometimes acknowledged. But over-simplification is precisely the currency of these kinds of discursive regimes. The notion of authenticity spreads more widely than just being a matter related to specific qualities of indie films. It applies not just to the form and content of texts, but also to all other aspects of the business. This would include areas such as marketing and distribution strategies, key regions of debate around the nature and qualities of whatever makes the indie sector more or less distinctive. ‘Authentic’ approaches to marketing and distribution would be seen as those that take their cue from individual films themselves, rather than being more formulaic. One of the markers of indie distribution as it grew from the 1980s was an emphasis on close attention to the particular qualities of the individual text, and the constituencies to which those might appeal. The ‘authentic’ version of marketing would be ‘grass-roots’ marketing, in which campaigns are tailored to the particular audience that might be reached by a particular film if it were given a chance; the niche occupied by many of the earlier indie distributors. Opposed to this would be the growing tendency from the later 1990s for some indie films to be treated more like their mainstream equivalents: a formula based on

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higher spending on advertising and on wider, quicker theatrical openings. The implication here is treatment more as generic industrial ‘product’ and less as individual works of ‘art’ in need of special attention. This is another dimension in which distinctions are often made between the approaches of the smaller indie distributors, remaining ‘true’ to the original recipe, and studio divisions searching for sources of larger, cross-over success (even here, though, this is an area where it is easy to oversimplify the distinction; Indiewood features, for example, are often handled in ways that draw on aspects of both the indie and larger-market strategies, while the ‘classic’ indie recipe could also be considered to have become a generic formula of its own kind in some respects).

‘Defenders of the indie faith’ How should we understand the location of this kind of discourse? It is quite possible to see discourses relating to authenticity, or its absence, evolving organically from the actual development of indie film in this era. It did start very small and has grown larger, in a process that might be expected to be a cause of concern to many of those with investments in the distinctive nature of the earlier form. This might be posited without implying the existence of any entirely ‘pure’ and prelapsarian original; just in a more proximate sense of one kind of entity being to a greater or lesser extent overwhelmed by another. Why, though, so much investment in this? The tenor of much of the debate about the nature of indie cinema often seems to imply more than just an immediate concern about particular concrete issues. I am drawn back here to a phrase I have used elsewhere in passing myself (for example, King 2010: 9), to characterize those who seek to position themselves as policing the boundaries: ‘defenders of the indie faith’. Something of that kind of quality, a quite deep-rooted investment, does appear to characterize the terms in which these debates are sometimes conducted. A useful and in some ways provocative framework in which to understand the nature of this investment is offered by Wendy Fonarow’s study of indie music, a work of social anthropology (Fonarow 2006). Fonarow begins with a portrait of indie music that suggests substantial similarities to the way indie is usually conceived in the realm of film, which is not surprising given the extent to which the adoption of the term here appears to have drawn on discourses relating to music. There is no exact, single definition of indie music, she suggests, in much the same way that I and others would argue about indie film. But, she continues: ‘Although indie has no exact definition, the discourses and practices around the multiple descriptions and definitions of indie detail a set of principles that reveal the values and issues at stake for the community’ (25). At the heart of the process of definition is one of differentiation, as is the case with all cultural groupings: ‘To form a group, members need to create a set of boundaries between what constitutes and excludes membership’ (25–6). That is quite straightforward cultural anthropology and can clearly be applied to the manner in which discourses function around indie film along the lines suggested in Becker’s concept of the art world or the notions of distinction associated with the work of Pierre

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Bourdieu (1984). What, though, exactly is ‘at stake’ in this process as it operates in the indie arena? What Fonarow finds in operation here is, indeed, something related to ‘faith’, although in a secularized context. The underlying discourse, she suggests, is one that owes much to Puritanism: ‘The core issues of indie and its practices are in essence the arguments of a particular sect of Protestant reformers within the secular forum of music’ (27). This seems to apply equally well to the indie film sector, even if religious discourse might at first appear an unusual or uncomfortable place to go in search of understandings of indie music or film. The primary difference between Protestant and Catholic churches at the time of the Reformation, Fonarow suggests, was about the means of reaching the goal of achieving a true relationship with the divine. ‘Within indie’, Fonarow argues, ‘we find similar arguments regarding the nature of experience, but in this case experiencing the divine is displaced onto the experience of “true” or “authentic” music’, for which we can also read film (28). Should music be produced by centralized authority (major labels) or by independent local operations (independent labels)? What form should music take to promote the experience of true music (the generic characteristics of indie vs. the generic characteristics of other genres)? How should listeners experience music to foster a true encounter with music (live vs. recorded)? How is one’s authentic musical experience measured? Indie’s arguments replace the experience of the true spirit of the divine with that of the true spirit of music. The common goal set forth for music listeners within indie cosmology is to have a communion with the sacred quintessence of music. Differences in musical practices are interpreted through a moral frame, producing an aesthetic system based on moral values. (28) Much of this can be applied to the realm of indie film, if with some exceptions. There may be no exact equivalent of the opposition between live and recorded music, for example, although for some there might be some similarity to the distinction between the theatrical and home-viewing experiences. Numerous parallels can be identified, including the often rather vague manner in which each version of ‘indie’ is defined against notions of ‘the mainstream’, the latter often being employed as a loose, negative catch-all term. In each case, there is a strong discourse related to notions of ‘authenticity’, including a grass-roots do-it-yourself aesthetic at the lowerbudget end of the scale, which is contrasted to the corporate domination of the mainstream. In each case, from an industrial perspective, distribution is identified as a key battleground, an arena in which lines became blurred during the 1990s. There is also in both cases a strong tendency to distrust anything that achieves wider popularity, on the basis of an assumption that this must be the result of ‘selling out’ or diluting the basic principles of the indie aesthetic in some way, as seen in some responses to the break-out success of films such as Little Miss Sunshine (2006) and Juno (2007).

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The key point for Fonarow is that: ‘It is the persistence of these metaphysical cultural narratives that creates such consistency in the indie community’s discourse despite the changes in its personnel, the variations in its music, and the crossing of national borders’ (29). This, again, seems useful as a framework to apply to discourses that have been employed quite consistently in relation to certain central aspects of indie cinema. Why the world of indie film or music should be tied up with broader cultural discourses of this kind is clearly an important question. There seems little doubt that this would not be something happily embraced in these terms by most of those who would situate themselves within the indie community. As Fonarow suggests in relation to music, some latent recognition can be identified in the use of terms such as ‘purist’ and ‘puritanical’ with a small ‘p’. But the roots of this in religious doctrine are not generally recognized within what is considered to be an entirely secular and culturally alternative sphere. Most of those involved might be expected to be appalled by the suggestion that many of their key values are associated with what is likely to be seen as a conservative and repressive ideology; that, as Fonarow puts it, instead of a form of rebellion, indie discourse involves a recapitulation of dominant cultural ideology and narratives. On the surface, there seems to be a strong disjunction between the two. How might this be explained? Fonarow’s sociologically based argument is simply that aesthetic discourses tend to follow the same lines as broader religious or metaphysical discourses in all cultures. While this is territory familiar to anthropologists studying other cultures, Fonarow suggests, it is something of a blind spot in the study of the arts and other secular realms of Western societies. ‘It is a Western conceit’, she argues, ‘to think that only in other societies do religious notions pervade all domains of life. We consider our own secular spheres [to be] free of metaphysical concerns’ when that is actually far from the case (3). An argument can certainly be made for the deep-rooted presence of many Puritan concepts within American culture. In tracing elements of these discourses across the history of the nation, James Morone concludes that they are one of the ‘mainsprings’ of American history and culture (Morone 2003: 5). The history of Puritan currents in America is one that involves periods of threat or crisis followed by revivalist outbreaks. As Morone suggests, the content of these discourses changes, from literal religious meanings to secularized versions. But, as he concludes, ‘the rhetorical trajectory lives on: lamentations about decline, warnings of doom, and promises of future glory [ … ]’ with which the tenor of ongoing discourses about the state of indie cinema seems to have much in common (45). The broader cultural resonance of these discourses might help to account for the appeal of what indie is constructed to stand for in the wider culture, particularly given the relatively narrow social constituency that appears to be the main audience for this kind of material. As Michael Newman suggests, indie is a somewhat contradictory notion ‘insofar as it counters and implicitly criticizes hegemonic mass culture, desiring to be an authentic alternative to it, but also serves as a taste culture perpetuating the privilege of a social elite of upscale consumers’ (Newman 2009: 17). Newman cites the deployment of tropes from indie music and film in advertising as instances of the

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use of such qualities to seek to appeal to a wider audience, a selling of notions of anti-corporate style authenticity that might also resonate with the broader secularized Puritan dimension in American culture. Whether or not articulations of aspects of indie discourse of the kind cited by Newman have the effect of undermining the distinctive concept of ‘indie’, and, as a result, its basis as a marker of particular sociocultural distinctions, remains open to debate. As Newman suggests, such practices can also function to promote and disseminate the distinctly indie sensibility, an argument similar to that made by David Hesmondhalgh in relation to indie music. The aim of Hesmondhalgh is to complicate what he sees as overly simplistic conceptions of the ‘selling-out’ of indie through developments such as the formation of alliances with corporate distributors or the ‘professionalization’ of what started out as more amateur-scale operations (Hesmondhalgh 1999). Hesmondhalgh’s terminology is significant in the context of the preceding argument, identifying as ‘purist’ the position that sees any such move as one of unacceptable co-optation. As opposed to this position, he suggests: ‘The choice to set up more permanent positions and careers, while despised by many enthusiasts, is often based on a genuinely idealistic commitment to fostering talent, and to providing an alternative’, a point that might apply equally well to many of those involved in operations such as the studio speciality divisions (4). If the negative object in the purist account might be opened up to a more complex reading, the opposite pole is also a mythic notion, in the realms of music, film or any other such forms of cultural production. As Hesmondhalgh puts it in relation to one of his case studies: ‘there was no pure, original moment where anarcho-punk was “untainted” by entrepreneurialism’ (40). A similar argument is made by Philip Auslander in the context of assertions of authenticity in relation to issues of liveness and recording in rock music more generally. As Auslander puts it, ‘the creation of the effect of authenticity in rock is a matter of culturally determined convention, not an expression of essence’ (Auslander 2008: 82). The same can be said of notions of the ‘true’ indie, no version of which that has been part of the established discourse is likely to have been void of any forms of institutionalization at some level, or is likely to be in the future. While a range of different scales of production or other kinds of operation can be identified, from the no- or micro-budget to the margins of the Hollywood studio system and from the subversive to the conservative in form and content, articulations rooted in notions of an original truth or purity remain within the ideological realm of rhetorical distinction-marking. The latter is a process that seems central to many of the kinds of investments made in the consumption and advocation of the values associated with indie but one that needs to be distinguished from the more complex nature of the material reality. Even if the ground on which they stand is questionable, however, such discourses have a real and substantial presence of their own within the indie cultural field. The coining of a notion such as ‘true’ indie, or variations on the term, immediately suggests an institutionalized discursive conception of some kind in itself. To make such a point is not necessarily to criticize the use of such terms but merely to recognize the inevitable status of any such constructs from the moment of their entry into prevailing discursive regimes. A hyperbolical example of this kind of discourse is the

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notion articulated by the producer Ted Hope, a prominent figure in the indie community, of what he terms, variously, ‘A Truly Free Film Culture’, ‘New Truly Free Filmmaking’ or ‘True Indie’, posited as a potential successor to ‘The Indie Period’ (Hope 2008). The capitalized formulation, largely reliant on an appeal to the use of the internet as a source of more genuine contact with audiences, is almost entirely rhetorical, calling among other things for an abandonment by filmmakers of dreams of distribution through the existing, limited channels. The point here is not to dismiss the notion that the online world might bring some new freedoms and opportunities, or any of the more specific arguments made by Hope, but the absolute terms in which this is put, as if the online terrain would ever be one entirely ‘free’ of institutionalized forms and mechanisms of its own. The latter are, in fact, likely to be essential to the effective mobilization of the internet for the kinds of purposes advocated by Hope (including dimensions such as the building of relationships with audiences) (for more on this, see King 2012). Hope himself seems to recognize this, calling for the building of a new infrastructure, something that seems at odds with the language of the ‘Truly Free’ in which he situates his intervention. The use of such terminology has rhetorical power and resonance, however, in the discursive context outlined above. The implication of Hope’s argument is that ‘Indie’, which he credits with having increased the diversity of films available to the viewer, has become an ossified institution (‘a distortion, growing out of our communal laziness and complacency – our willingness to be marketed blandly and not specifically’), but something equally distorted seems to result from the hypostatization of a reified notion of anything ‘truly’ free or independent in this realm.

Note 1 The issues considered in this chapter are examined in greater detail in King 2012.

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Hope, T. (2008) ‘A thousand phoenix rising: how the new truly free filmmaking community will rise from indie’s ashes’, keynote address, Film Independent Filmmakers’ Forum, New York, 27 September. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 29 September 2008). ——(2011) ‘Get ready for the indie film investment deluge!’, ‘Hope For Film’ blog posting, 11 February. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 14 February 2011). Kaufman, A. (2011) ‘Why 38 films sold at Sundance, many of them dark’, indieWIRE, 2 February. Online. Available HTTP: (accessed 2 February 2011). King, G. (2005) American Independent Cinema, London: I. B.Tauris. ——(2009) Indiewood, USA: where Hollywood meets independent cinema, London: I. B. Tauris. ——(2010) Lost in Translation, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ——(2012), Indie 2.0: Change and continuity in contemporary American indie film, London: I. B. Tauris. Macaulay, S. (2008) ‘Creative destruction’, Filmmaker, vol. 17, no. 1, Fall, 106–112. Morone, J. (2003) Hellfire Nation: the politics of sin in American history, New Haven: Yale University Press. Newman, M. (2009) ‘Indie culture: in pursuit of the authentic autonomous alternative’, Cinema Journal, vol. 48, no. 3, 16–34. Thompson, A. (2009) ‘2009 Sundance a breeze’, Variety. Online. Available HTTP: