Revisiting the Matter of Independent Film

I am old enough to remember the fuss about independent film back in the '90s.

That makes me also old enough to remember how little it ended up amounting to--a handful of works ranging from marginal to execrable, and the mass-manufacture of pale imitations of these, with the mediocrity, derivativeness, ugliness of Quentin Tarantino's films tellingly the outstanding "success," the model for all the other little edgelords who want the whole world to know how "cool" they think they are following in his footsteps.

Meanwhile there has been the reality that whatever one makes of this side of its content, independent film was never really so "independent" as the label suggested, with David Walsh putting it particularly memorably in a review at the turn of the century: "What does the phrase 'independent filmmaker' signify? It often seems to mean a director whose films have not yet made anyone a great deal of money--a hack commercial filmmaker in training."

Walsh's view is certainly confirmed by the frequency with which an "independent" who drew some raves or made some money happily takes up the task of churning out the kind of bland blockbuster against which the "cool rebels" supposedly defined themselves. And it would have become even more the case given what has become of today's film market, with the prospects for funding such a movie and putting it on screens dwindling as they have. (A decade ago Steven Soderbergh was talking about how much worse it had become than when he started out--gone from the challenge of hitting a baseball, to the challenge of hitting a baseball with another, thrown baseball--and it would seem to have become worse still since to go by what Bryan Wizemann has to say about the matter.)

Indeed, the complaint of the sadly departed Ray Liotta seems all too telling--the actors "who are doing the superhero movies are the ones getting the leads in independent movies."

Want to make that small personal film? That real work of art you've been dreaming about realizing for years?

You'd better become a Marvel superstar first.