Independent Film Coolness: Old, Yet New

One cool thing about independent film is just how long it’s been around, well before Roger Corman or John Cassavetes in the 1960s and 70s.  By the 1920s, African-American independent filmmakers already had an outsider cinema, with Oscar Micheaux and others serving audiences who were excluded from whites-only theaters and wanted to see blackness portrayed more fully and honestly onscreen.

For me, a compelling part of this longevity is the ongoing need to “keep it real” while contending with social and economic challenges.  Just to survive, those early African-American filmmakers, for example, struggled with scant resources and endless compromises.  With no formal training or industry support, how to finance, staff, write, shoot, edit, market, and distribute a film?  How much to compromise, when, and with whom so as to make both a film and enough money to pay it off and keep going?  All tough questions for independent filmmakers past and present. 

I like how sometimes the socioeconomic forces have supported the outsiders.  In the late 1960s and early 70s, Hollywood was struggling economically like never before.  The studios had gotten stodgy, TV was ascendant, and baby boomer audiences wanted new alternatives.  Forced to innovate, the studios took risks with young filmmakers as well as styles and subjects previously limited to niches, or simply invisible.  The marginal became central, and it paid off economically and critically.  In crude economic terms, the dynamics of supply and demand made for an exciting moment of creativity and independent-mindedness that broke the mold and still influences movies today, even as Hollywood has long since returned to its comfort zone of blockbusters, star vehicles, and recycled pop culture. 

It’s great how films have evolved, as well as their marketing and distribution.  When I was young, there simply weren’t any websites, DVDs, or satellite TV.  My rural hometown had a few movie theaters; my TV had four channels, including a PBS station with early Siskel & Ebert, before they went commercial.  You can guess how times have changed since then in Grants Pass, Oregon.  New media galore, and even a local film festival, the Siskiyou Film Festival; and, a few towns away, the Ashland Independent Film Festival has been thriving for years.  If I’d had those as a kid, I might have stayed.

But have times changed so much?  Are things really better now?  For consumers like me, definitely.  For independent filmmakers, I think so, but maybe not as much as it may seem.  Though there are more and better resources available than ever before, indie filmmakers still grapple with many of the same challenges as their forebears.  And, as filmmaking and distribution have gotten more accessible, more people are doing it, which clutters the marketplace.  Or does it?  What do you think?

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This post is part of a series in which I talk about independent film in a more detailed, wide-ranging, and personal way than I usually do here.  And it’s a chance to hear from you.  Feel free to post a comment anytime or let me know if you’d like to write a post.

By James Latham

For more on The Valley Film Festival, visit our website or Facebook page.

Independent Film Coolness: Pushing More Buttons

Previously, I discussed being a young film geek who hated Last Year at Marienbad for how it messed with my sense of what makes a good movie.  Go figure:  a few decades later, my favorite film of all time is the silent-era Soviet documentary The Man with a Movie Camera, with its even more challenging form and content.  Its stunning editing and cinematography are accessible simply as eye candy, but are actually part of a complex mix of ideas about society, art, and technology. 

I don’t love only esoteric documentaries.  I’ve always enjoyed diverse film and TV genres.  In my youth, I was a horror and sci-fi fan, though with no cable or VCR, so my options were limited.  But my friend had cable, and, late one Saturday night, on independent channel KTVU, we saw one of the all-time great indie films, Night of the Living Dead.  We were amazed by the film’s stark realism and intensity, and got some of the social commentary, most obviously the casting of the lead character as a smart, strong, attractive African-American man, in contrast to all the weak white characters trapped in the farmhouse.  In my lily white rural Oregon hometown, that alone was provocative. 

Since then, I’ve seen a lot of gruesome stuff.  Last November, I brought my teenage son to the VFF for his first time and saw The Human Race, which turned out to be one of the more violent films I’ve ever seen (also with an unusual lead character).  We liked it.  He wasn’t as shocked as I had been at his age with George Romero’s zombies, but it still pushed some buttons.  Maybe next I should show him Marienbad, or Man with a Movie Camera, and really blow his mind.

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This post is part of a series in which I talk about independent film in a more detailed, wide-ranging, and personal way than I usually do here.  And it’s a chance to hear from you.  Feel free to post a comment anytime or let me know if you’d like to write a post.

By James Latham

For more on The Valley Film Festival, visit our website or Facebook page.

Independent Film Coolness: Pushing Buttons

One of the cool (or tough) things about indie film is its tendency to push people’s buttons.  Extremes, ambiguity, eccentricity, seriousness, edginess, experimentation, provocation—all can be turnoffs, or on, depending on your point of view.  For me, it’s mostly the latter, though it took a while to get there.

The first time an independent film seriously pushed me was when I was a young adult, beginning to study film formally, and saw Last Year at Marienbad at a French New Wave retrospective.  This film may not have been technically “indie” as we’ve come to use that term (more on this in later posts), but with its austere tone, labyrinthine story, and enigmatic characters it was radically different from mainstream films of the time and even today.

I’ve seen Marienbad only that one time, and remember it less than my own angry reaction to it.  The film seemed pretentious, incoherent, and harsh toward what I loved about movies.  Indeed, it challenged many conventional assumptions about cinema; but my reaction also said a lot about me, about my limited understanding of film and culture.  Gradually, as I learned about modern art (among other things), I became more open to films that challenge viewers to see things differently, to confront and maybe even enjoy their alternative sensibilities. 

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This post is part of a series in which I talk about independent film in a more detailed, wide-ranging, and personal way than I usually do here.  And it’s a chance to hear from you.  Feel free to post a comment anytime or let me know if you’d like to write a post.

By James Latham

For more on The Valley Film Festival, visit our website or Facebook page.