Monday, April 6, 1998
Beyond the red carpet
FILM: An in-depth look at indie
and not-so-indie films honored at the Independent Spirit
Awards
By Tommy Nguyen
Daily Bruin Contributor
Brick houses are for those who have safety on their minds. One
can assume this, because for the last few years the Independent
Spirit Awards, which honors the best in independent films, has held
its ceremonies in a makeshift circus tent on a Santa Monica beach
parking lot.
What probably first started out as an arbitrarily convenient
location has now built itself into some type of symbolic refuge:
the wild bunch at the Spirit Awards scoff at the idea of safety,
they say "phooey" to the dangerous winds – with their grungy,
goateed way of life, they can risk a few hairs on their
chinny-chin-chin. And it wouldn’t be appropriate for those industry
rebels to be patting their backs at a venue housed in concrete and
plaster; any established foundation, naturally, would reek of
establishment.
That’s not to say that the 13th edition of the Spirit Awards
(held on March 21) didn’t reek of something. Oh, the Spirit Awards
did its best to divert the stench: with a sort of low-price, canned
taste of Cannes cuisine, the noon sun shone brightly over the ocean
breeze, aloof as it brushed through the palm trees and the
sunbathing spectators, while the stars strolled up the red carpet
in sunglasses and sun dresses, downplaying their wardrobe to fan
their own casual air.
Of course, this was all staged so that the Spirit Awards could
set itself apart from the traditional posh fussiness of the
Academy’s night on the town. You can imagine the producers of the
show giving thumbs up when Aaron Eckhart ("In the Company of Men")
indignantly responded to a reporter’s question of whether his best
debut performance award made up for his (supposed) Oscar snub.
"Who cares," Eckhart said with a derisive flex of his neck and
walked out of the press room like a stud.
But in its attempt to sell this type of renegade image, the
Spirit Awards inadvertently reminds us that something is being
sold, that its seaside cheerleading for the independent spirit is a
posturing of the most fishy sort. As Peter Rainer, film critic for
the New Times, notices, "I’ve been to the Spirit Awards a few
times, and I always see a lot of the usual faces trying to look
like outlaws."
Yes, it’s amusing to hear box-office darlings like Samuel L.
Jackson and Cameron Diaz speak on behalf of indie filmmakers –
whose worst oppressor is our box-office culture – but the true
absurdity of the Spirit Awards has less to do with its actual
ceremony and more to do with target of its campaign.
For the past few years the independent film industry, sadly no
longer an oxymoron, has become the focus of Hollywood’s latest
efforts to create a commodity, a filmmaking genre, readily prepared
for demographic consumption.
"Independent films now occupy a marketing niche," says Quentin
Lee, film director and founder of Margin Films, "and it has become
a genre with market viability."
The savory equation that Hollywood is sinisterly growing wise to
is that watching an independent film somehow makes you an
independent person in the bargain. Indeed, it’s become the
cleverest marketing device of the 90s, to have someone say that you
can be who you are, as long as you just "be" with the right
perfume. Much like how clothing companies and designers send out
scouts to take fashion notes on the underground, Hollywood too
senses a movement at hand, so they’re frantically retailing their
own lines of Puma and wallet chains.
"Nowadays, the notion of an independent film is a scam," adds
Rainer. "Most of the independent film companies today are financed
by the studios, and you’d be hard-pressed to find an independent
film without some amount of studio money in it. There’s no real
independent movement taking place, and it’s a bit disconcerting to
think that people are (buying into it)."
A few year ago Disney purchased Miramax, at the time the monarch
of the independents, and that augmented the era of the PIDs
(pseudo-indie divisions): Universal bought October Films, Fox
created Fox Searchlight, Columbia/TriStar touts its own Sony
Picture Classics label, FineLine is a division of NewLine which is
a owned by media giant Ted Turner and so on.
Jeffrey Spaulding, writing for a March-April issue of Film
Comment magazine, points out that the PIDs "are looking more and
more like their parent companies every day … In an increasingly
crowded marketplace, these ‘classic divisions’ are leaning more
heavily on star-driven films that are creeping into the eight-digit
budget area."
The emerging debate over the PIDs prompted a reporter at the
Spirit Awards to ask Robert Duvall, whose "The Apostle" won the
awards for best picture, director and actor, whether or not there
was a lack of integrity in his independent project.
"No, it was October Films (distributor of "The Apostle"),
they’re the initial people – they’re in conjunction with Universal,
but it was definitely October who went out on a limb," Duvall
insisted. But the reporter wouldn’t let up, badgering him with his
conspiracy theory, much to Duvall’s impatience: "No! It was October
Films who stepped up."
True, if the reporter had done his homework he would have known
that Duvall used his own money to make the film and sold it:
October owns "The Apostle" not through bankrolling, but through
finished-film acquisition, which is still a common way of indie
releasing.
But the reporter had the right idea: what about films like "The
Big Lebowski?" – which gets to strut with a hip little label like
Grammercy Pictures (also owned by Universal), but clearly the
movie, due to the high demand of the Coen Brothers, had been a
financial interest of higher powers from the very beginning.
And how can a big-time, internationally financed art-houser like
the "English Patient" be thrown in the same indie neighborhood with
a garage sale like "Clerks" merely because they share the same
Miramax banner?
With labels meaning nothing these days and independent financing
a complicated issue, we’re forced to concentrate on the content of
film to find an independent vision, the kind defined in two of the
Spirit Awards’ selection criteria:
1. Original, provocative subject matter
2. Uniqueness of vision
Atom Egoyan, who won best foreign film for "The Sweet Hereafter"
explains: "A film like mine would have never made it through the
studio system … a film that has a modesty to it, made for a
certain audience. I think the studios have tremendous support for
first and second (independent) features, but at a certain point
we’re expected to be absorbed into the mainstream."
Which brings up the dilemma of "Good Will Hunting," a film that
has just surpassed "Pulp Fiction" as the highest grossing film in
Miramax history – which can be translated as the highest grossing
"independent" film in history. But if we’re still looking at
content to define for us the indie film, are we to feel comfortable
that such a derivative, narratively routine movie sits at the acme
of the indie upsurge?
"Is the film independent of the kind of movies that the studios
usually churn out?" Rainer wants us to ask. "’Good Will Hunting’ is
a familiar, touchy-feely story from a director (Gus Van Sant) who
was once independent. But that’s what happens, you tend to go that
way."
Mainstream movies selling themselves as independent visions may
very well bring a disastrous off-Broadway phenomenon to the film
industry (if it’s not happening already); keep your eyes peeled for
a term called "indie-independent" – in order to separate a real
indie spirit like "Spanking the Monkey" from a trick-or-treater in
white sheets like "Shine" – and remember you saw the term here
first.
Hard to believe, but in the long run a film like "Good Will
Hunting" may be more harmful than one like "Titanic." At least
"Titanic" knows what it is and only reiterates what the studios
have been doing for decades – render unto Caesar which is
Caesar’s.
The ballyhooing of "Good Will Hunting," on the other hand,
throws the world of independent filmmaking totally off-kilter. It
will force the PIDs to concentrate on bigger star-driven movies,
ones that insure mainstream safety like "Good Will Hunting." The
margins will merge into the mainstream until left and right are
indistinguishable. And to stay afloat, real indie companies like
Strand and Trimark will have to become PIDs themselves. We’ll find
fewer and fewer films being stranger than paradise.
As it stands now, talk of an independent film movement is
becoming as ridiculous as an "alternative" music scene, especially
in a press room full of reporters asking the same tiresome
question, with their most serious faces: "Why do you choose to be
involved with independent films?"
With a few exceptions, those honored at the Spirit Awards gave
equally tiresome answers. But the best words by far were given by
Danielle Gardner, who won best documentary feature for "Soul in the
Hole."
"Has anyone seen the film? No? Then I guess it’s truly an
independent."
Writer and director Atom Egoyan (left) with Ian Holm on the set
of "The Sweet Hereafter."