With the Independent Spirit Awards coming up on Saturday, this New York Times blog post caught my eye. The post basically just points to this Time article by Richard Corliss. It begs the question of whether indie is a genre in and of itself. Corliss seems to say yes, as did we on the very first day of class. He notes that the indies for sale at Sundance last month can almost be gentrified:
“Sundance movies have devolved into a genre. The style is spare and naturalistic. The theme is relationships, beginning in angst and ending in reconciliation. The focus is often on a dysfunctional family (there are no functional ones in indie movies) that strives to reconnect.”
Is there a certain element of predictability to the work of today’s fresh independent filmmakers, as opposed to edgy fare from the past by auteurs like Tarantino and the Coen brothers? Corliss suggests that the answer is yes and the reason is that in recent years festival films have become very marketable and at times profitable. Today’s indie filmmakers are less likely to throw caution to the wind, and more prone to attempt to craft films that have the potential to catch on with larger audiences. Corliss suggests that while there’s still a lot of great stuff out there, originality has suffered in the scramble to make indies sell.
Meanwhile the Spirit Awards sound pretty cool. Apparently, they take place on the beach under a tent with portable restrooms for the filmmakers and stars in attendance. Rainn Wilson (aka Dwight Schrute!) is this year’s host, and he’s put out some pretty funny YouTube promotional videos.
2 comments:
I can't really say if independent films are all the same because I don't really get the chance to see them that often. I'm not the type of person that goes out of their way to go see stuff because its indie, but I've definitely found some good stuff that very obscure. In response to the cashing in on Sundance, have you heard of the Slamdance festival? It's like the anti-Sundance and happens at the same time as Sundance.
Your post reminds me of something Jim said at Versailles about how Sex, Lies, and Videotape (Soderbergh) and Tarantino changed the way indie filmmakers made films, filmmakers now concerned with using Sundance or similar festivals as a platform to "make it big." Perhaps that's to blame for the almost formulaic indie/Sundance films, all hoping to ride the indie wave and become the next big thing, more concerned with quirky style or "indie" premises (The Wackness or The Assassination of A High School President, for example) designed to get attention than the story they necessarily want to tell.
That being said, I still see originality and creativity in Sundance and the like. Sure, there's a Little Miss Sunshine or Grace is Gone every year, but there are still truly indie gems that shine through, like Once or Ed Burns' Purple Violets. Speaking of Burns, he had some intersting comments on the status of the art house film today.
Check it out:
http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2007/11/20/ed-burns-on-his-new-films-itunes-debut-this-is-the-year-that-art-house-cinema-died/
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