There’s a dark cloud hovering over independent film these days and fears that as a production mode and as an artistic expression, the independent film is dying.
One of the reasons is that after seeing the potential of these films, the studios launched their own independent wings which eventually crippled the independent spirit. Filmmakers, who were not expecting studio profits, all of a sudden became involved with the studios and eventually succumbed to the dynamic of the machine; some out of greed, some out of necessity.
Another cause of the downfall was the sheer number of independent films which saturated the market, lowered the overall quality and hurt the brand. The result was an over-arching one that pushed independents towards becoming more and more commercial in order to get their movies sold and seen.
Another problem was the technological revolution that made the filmmaking process accessible to the masses. Anyone who could follow their dog on a skateboard with a video camera felt they had to conquer Hollywood. A cinematographer friend of mine calls this brand of camera owners, “7/11 filmmakers.”
The democratization of cinema was similar to the popularization of sculpting when the costly and exclusive art of sculpting became available to anyone and they overwhelmed the market with cheesy imitations of Michelangelo’s “David.” Anyone can make a statue, but few become sculptors.
The same happened after Gutenberg’s invention made publishing a popular enterprise. On the bright side, you had Ben Franklin expressing his transformational ideas to the people of Philadelphia, but on the other side you give a Howard Zinn the chance to corrupt his students and completely undo Matt Damon’s already fragile mind.
Let’s pray no one democratizes medical equipment.
This democratization brought another downfall; the so-called “edge.” Nothing has been more destructive to cinema than “edgy.” Edge became the marketing advantage, the way to stand out from a flood of similar attempts at a movie. And by “edgy,” we all know that means gross, disrespectful, dumb, idiotic, addicted, pro-liberal, pro-Che, pro-promiscuity, anti-establishment, anti-middle class, Marxist, violent, dark, depressed, perverted and dogmatically open-minded.
This edge is so far removed from the center of American life and relative sanity that audiences now equate independent film with a bad acid trip. In a way, this generation’s experiments with the moving images are like the previous one’s experiments with hallucinogenic substances. They did it, had fun, had a lot of sex, then got over it and, as a result, managed to dent the culture with an impassable lameness …and all this with a staggering and omnipresent lack of seriousness!
All the complex ingredients that constituted a real human being were substituted by a single organic formula that promised health but deprived us from meaning. We have traded the mystery of who we are for being “edgy,” and dismissed the purposefulness of our evolution for a cheap contest of the survival of the fittest.
The simple, honest and direct emotional communication through screen was considered primitive and lacking a nuance. The plots became complicated and the characters became weak. Movies lost their masculinity and femininity and became comfortably metrosexual. Even gay movies became lame in trying to claim their piece of the poisoned mainstream pie.
In all of this confusion, the independent film completely ignored an entire part of the human psyche, namely, its traditionalism and conservatism; conservatism not even in a political sense but as an innate condition of a human nature.
Traditional truths that passed the test of time, the truths that manifested the ability to renew with the times were frontally attacked with alternative methods which failed to produce a result in real life but found a refuge in the movies. In an attempt to be original, the independent film became untrue to reality, yet, zealously dedicated to ideology. It tried to shape reality, a Marxist approach to art, in which art becomes an instrument of revolution instead of an instrument of introspection.
Reality is a combination of things seen and unseen and as such a much deeper concept than what’s comprehended by those who try to alter it through artificial and solely social means. The future success of independent film may come with the return of, or at least an honest examination of, eternal and mysterious values, rather than the continuous projection of socio-secular anxieties.
Although, this will have a political effect to some degree, the real change is going to happen on a much deeper level. The process will be that of restoring equilibrium which will include the worthy art of the libertine age, as well.
Unless an honest communication is reestablished, the most precise definition of the contemporary independent film will remain the one coined by “South Park’s” Cartman when he warned his friends not to watch independent movies since they’re always about gay cowboys eating pudding.
These words were prophetic, for they were uttered years before “Brokeback Mountain” emerged as an alternative Western.