The Hollywood-Indie Hybrid

So I almost prefer IMDB as a method of procrastination to facebook. Almost. That said, yesterday I noticed an article on IMDB's independent film page called "What's So Independent About American Independent Films?"

It was very interesting. The subheading read: "The current crop of American independent films have indie style but a Hollywood soul. Where's the integrity?" It listed films like Little Miss Sunshine, Juno, Sideways, and Me and You and Everyone We Know as "dark comedies done in a light comedy way which have intelligence to spare but nary a bollock between them." It then went on to identify such films as out-of-place Oscar nods that "are all basically Hollywood films in terms of both funding and ethos."

The article then gave the genealogy of the indie film, starting with the low-budget 1950s film, Marty. It discussed the work of John Cassavetes, Robert Altman, and Richard Linklater, which can be "loosely defined" as "featuring everyday or highly plausible situations, naturalistic dialogue and character driven plots," rich with "social, political or philosophical implications." It equated realism with the audience's "voyeuristic discomfort."

A recent trend in indie films, according to the article, is to "flaunt 'authenticity,'" to use "troubled characters, inner city settings, post-rock soundtracks and conversation heavy plots."

The main problem with independent film today is that "indie has been swallowed up by Hollywood and with it so has its identity...the line between indie and Hollywood has bee erased along with the significance once attached to it."

A lot of this sounded familiar after reading Corrigan's "Glancing at the Past." As Corrigan notes, "The movement from a modernist to a postmodernist film industry remains, of course, part of a historical logic: the relative failure of an art cinema and avant-garde in the United States and to a lesser extent in Europe to create new institutions and audiences encourages the dispersal of that counterculture into the mainstream." According to Corrigan, mainstream Hollywood cinema absorbed counter cinema. I couldn't help but wonder if this absorption is what caused the undeniable present Hollywood absorption of independent cinema OR if what we are currently seeing is a separate but parallel occurrence of contemporary Hollywood absorbing what is essentially the 21st century manifestation of counter cinema in the independent film.

Another connection this article had to "Glancing at the Past" is independent film's attempt at mass appeal. Corrigan writes that with the onset of multi and megaplexes, studios were attempting to appeal to virtually everyone. Is current independent film trying too hard to satiate the cravings of both counter cultural 'youngins with trendily obscure soundtracks (à la Garden State and Juno) and more mainstream spectators with a happy ending (à la Garden State and Juno)? It seems to me that are definitely parallels.

Lastly, I couldn't help but wonder if postmodernism in its entirety hasn't set the stage for this current Indie-Hollywood phenomenon. Is it possible that during the 60s our culture incorporated counter cultural values into our collective mentality? Is it possible that we now inherently crave to "go against the grain" even when this desire is one of the masses?

On a different note, in the Godard screening and article, I was interested in the parallels between second and third cinema. The article used the word "revolutionary" several times to describe Godard's work. Godard himself even had a period - during the 70s, I think - where he didn't release any films commercially. His work resembled that of Third Cinema. I was wondering what Godard tells us about the mutual exclusivity, or lack thereof, of second and third cinema.