THE ARTS | Reshaping ideas, expressing identity
04 February 2008
Independent Films Encourage Self-Expression
Low-cost productions can launch dazzling Hollywood careers
The modern U.S. independent film industry was born when a few courageous directors spent their own money to produce movies that Hollywood studios were not interested in financing. Public appreciation for these usually low-budget, high-quality films, however, has enabled the independent film industry to grow and thrive. Kenneth Turan is the film critic for the Los Angeles Times newspaper and for Morning Edition on National Public Radio. He is the author of several books, including Now in Theaters Everywhere: A Celebration of a Certain Kind of Blockbuster (2006) and Sundance to Sarajevo: Film Festivals and the World They Made (2002). The following is an excerpt from his article "The Rise of the Independents" published in the eJournalUSA The Movie Business Today.
(begin byliner)
Kenneth Turan
Over the past 20-plus years, a parallel American movie industry, the independent film world, has grown up and prospered. It has its own annual festival (Sundance in Park City, Utah) and its own version of the Oscars (the Independent Spirit Awards, held a few days before the Academy Awards). There are even theaters that specialize in showing independent films and actors and directors who do mostly independent work.
That doesn't mean that there isn't something of a symbiotic relationship between these parts of the American movie whole: There very much is. Big Hollywood stars sometimes gain praise for appearing in independent films, the way Tom Cruise did when he took a part in Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia. And independent stars sometimes find a home in bigger Hollywood films, the way indie (independent) stalwart Steve Buscemi did when he appeared in traditional blockbusters such as Armageddon and The Island. And the independents have also come to be a major force in that most Hollywood of institutions, the Oscars.
Finally, though, two key elements separate the Hollywood movies from the independents. One is budget -- how much money a film costs to make -- and the other is sensibility and subject matter -- what a film is about. As always in the American movie business, the two are linked.
EMPHASIS ON ARTISTRY
When a film costs $100 million plus, as the average studio film does, it has to appeal to the widest possible audience, not only in the United States but all around the world, in order to make its money back. That means an emphasis on action, the one element that audiences everywhere respond to, as well as on the qualities that appeal to the 25-and-under crowd that is the most frequent moviegoing audience.
Independent films, by contrast, cost less: They can be made for anywhere from a few thousand dollars to $15 million to $20 million. Though that may seem like a lot of money, by Hollywood standards it is not. And that lower cost frees these films to be more personal, more idiosyncratic, more concerned with character and story than explosions. These films can care more about artistry and self-expression and less about what will work at the box office, which is one of the reasons that they tend to do better at the Oscars than the big moneymakers.
If any American movie fan wanted these kinds of experiences from movies 40 or 50 years ago, the only place he or she could get them was in foreign-language films, which is part of the reason the 1950s and 1960s saw an ever-increasing audience for films from France, Italy, Japan, Scandinavia, and elsewhere.
The independent alternative, which allowed American audiences to experience these kinds of films in their own language, did not arrive out of nowhere. The late actor and director John Cassavetes (the only filmmaker to have a prize named for him at the Independent Spirit Awards) was making independent-style films as early as 1957, when his legendary Shadows was shot.
Many people also credit John Sayles's 1980 The Return of the Secaucus Seven with starting the modern independent movement. It cost $60,000 to make, which Sayles financed himself, partly with money made rewriting studio films, and it ended up earning $2 million. For the first time it was clear that money as well as creative satisfaction could be had outside the studio system.
THE INDEPENDENT ESTABLISHMENT
Two other films, both distributed by independent world giant Miramax, the company started by Harvey Weinstein and his brother Bob and named after their parents, made it clear that independent films were here to stay. In 1989, Steven Soderbergh's sex, lies, and videotape won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and went on to take the Palme d'Or at Cannes, beginning the international recognition of American independent film.
Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction did that film one better, not only winning the Palme in 1994 but becoming the first independent film to earn more than $100 million at the box office. This underlined the wisdom of the Disney organization when it acquired Miramax the previous year.
Soon every studio, understanding that independent films were too different to be made by their regular personnel, wanted to have an independent arm of its own. Today, these specialty divisions (as they are known in the business) include Fox Searchlight, Warner Independent Pictures, Universal Focus, and the venerable Sony Pictures Classics.
The films these specialty divisions make are the top-of-the-line independent films, the ones with the biggest budgets and biggest stars. These films may seem like Hollywood movies, but the reality is that Hollywood isn't making these kinds of films anymore. A case in point is Little Miss Sunshine. Though the film was nominated for best picture and its script ended up winning an Oscar in February 2007, it had been turned down numerous times by the major studios.
In addition to having a different sensibility, independent films can reflect different constituencies and tell different kinds of stories. Because independent films don't have to cost a fortune, the indie world is a place where African-American directors like Spike Lee and gay directors like Gregg Araki have been able to make films that deal with marginalized characters but potentially speak to a broad audience.
For the full version of this article, see "The Rise of the Independents."
(end byliner)
