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January 03, 2006
Independent Film Outlook: New Year, New Crises?
The last few days have seen some especially interesting indie-front newsgathering, led by Salon's Andrew O'Hehir in New York. In looking back at 2005, O'Hehir offers not only a coherent Top 10, but also a healthy dose of insight from local film gurus like IFC's Ryan Werner, Zeitgeist's Nancy Gerstman and Magnolia's Eamonn Bowles. Perhaps most tellingly (or at least amusingly), in evaluating the concept of upcoming day-and-date releases like Steven Soderbergh's Bubble, O'Hehir bitch-slaps all the theoreticians into submission with a fairly muscular reality check:
Where does all this fascinating business news leave the art form of cinema, if that hasn't become an embarrassing expression? I have no idea. Can some new distribution model, where you can watch Tarantino's next film at home with a group of friends over gnarly rounds of bong hits, restore the lost sense of "cultural imperative," the aura of aesthetic and cultural definition that independent movies once possessed?
I don't think so, and it's probably not even the right question. New movies, even when they're as good as the 10 or 20 I'm about to list for you, have to compete not only with each other but with a vastly expanded entertainment universe. Are you really going to haul your ass off the couch and go pay 10 bucks to see an uncategorizable French film by an unknown director (like Arnaud Desplechin's Kings and Queen) when you could stay home and watch anything and everything by Scorsese or Tarkovsky or Hitchcock or Dario Argento? How does one choose between Pirjo Honkasalo's demanding documentary about the Chechen war, 3 Rooms of Melancholia, and the fifth uproarious night in a row of viewing Bubba Ho-Tep?
My sentiments exactly, even though it takes a lot more that a bong hit for me to sit through a Tarantino film anymore. But one thing O'Hehir leaves out of his equation is the x-factor invoked in today's Hollywood Reporter: Has an unofficial star system created a disappearing indie-film middle class?
It looks that way, according to HR's Gregg Goldstein:
Industry estimates vary, but at an American Film Market panel in November, Matthew Greenfield, associate director of the feature film program at the Sundance Institute and a producer of Chuck & Buck, said, "It's very hard to get more than $500,000-$700,000 (in funding) without a name actor."
Other indie filmmakers say raising a $1 million-$2 million budget requires at least one star. And because many agents are reluctant to take 10% of wages when their clients are bent on making a small-scale pet project, the bottom line is that many talented, first-time filmmakers without connections are simply priced out of the marketplace. As a result, the occasional success of homegrown films like Miranda July's offbeat Me and You and Everyone We Know are more of an anomaly.
Goldstein also offers a few perspectives from NYC filmmakers Chris Terrio and John Cameron Mitchell, the latter of whom, as we know, circumvented the whole A-list problem by making pornography. Nevertheless, it looks like we can look forward to another joyous year of wondering if the system is broken, evolving or possibly limping along in some hybrid form of both. Personally, I say, "Yay, evolution." Call me an optimist. Or maybe I just really want to see Bubble become this year's March of the Penguins--I predict a $10 million opening in West Virginia alone.
Posted by stvanairsdale at January 3, 2006 11:04 AM
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