Where The Hell Is American film at right now?

Anybody?

i agree with you about the majority of new american fims, jay - particularly as far as the "indie" films go. i'm not quite sure how to describe it, but where "independent" used to be synonymous with a catch-all umbrella that included anything operating outside of the mainstream, not conforming to conventional expectations, etc. now it's become a kind of genre in its own right, with instantly recognizable tropes and its own set of sorry cliches. "garden state" bothered me in this way - it seemed like a lifeless assemblage of familiarly "quirky" characters, and the screenplay felt like it had been carefully plotted according to some manual distributed at sundance. there were absolutely zero surprises of any kind - a few nice visuals, but not enough to save it. i don't mean to pick in "garden state" it's just the most recent example i can think of.

on the other hand, i'm hoping to see "undertow" and/or "sideways" this weekend, and perhaps then i'll have some ammunition for the devil's advocate position, as i like payne and green a lot in general.

another note on the documentary trend (although this isn't really relevant to the films you cited, jay) - i'm not sure how this trend will play out after next week, but i'm getting increasingly tired of the programming at the small theatres around me being cluttered up with anti-bush documentaries. i'm glad that many of them have gotten made and that they're available to see (although i question whether the venues where they're shown allow them to have much of a discernible effect, besides further inspiring the converted to take action) but personally, i don't want to pay money to see yet another slapped-together video about how evil karl rove is. i think it's great these things are on dvd, can be easily rented and passed around, etc. and i feel kind of guilty saying it, but when your favorite theatre only shows one or two films at a time, and every other week one of them is of this nature, it's depressing. they're usually just comprised of archival footage and talking heads anyway, making a big-screen theatre experience pretty unnecessary. are they doing any good? i'm not talking about fahrenheit, i'm talking about the cottage-industry of imitations.

Some really great points Spec. Indie film really has become kind of a joke, almost an homage to its earlier self, often recycling the worst aspects of early 90's indie flicks. Bad acting, shaky camerawork & pretentious dialogue have become a genre of their own. Only now, the movies have bigger budgets.

"...the screenplay felt like it had been carefully plotted according to some manual distributed at sundance" OTM.

I agree that the polit docs are getting extremely annoying and overdone. At the same time, it shows how poor of a job the mainstream media & network news is doing if people are constantly looking to agitprop films for info. I think it's merely a fad--Republicans were extremely afraid of the influence of Farenheit 9/11 in an election year, overcompensated by releasing a half-dozen anti-Moore documentaries, and now the left is countering. By December it will hopefully be gone.

This explosion of interest in political documentary certainly makes one have greater respect for Moore, who certainly didn't invent the political doc, but is the father of its' current form. And love or hate his films, you have to have awe for any film that can inspire dozens of other filmmakers to make films combating his ideas. The desperation of the right to discredit and censor him is almost a validation of the ideas he represents.

My only hope is that Moore style docs don't completely overtake the "political documentary" genre, because there are some wonderful political docs out there that share nothing in common with the expose/agitprop style of Moore--"The War Room", "Primary", etc.

To get back to the larger point, has anyone seen any new films lately that have really "moved" you, either intellectually/ philosophically/ emotionally/politically, or have you seen anything that is trying to break the boundaries of filmmaking (new editing/storytelling styles,etc.)?

Not only American indie movies, but the foreign movies that make it to the US seem to fall back on cliches and tropes. I've been almost consistently disappointed with my movie theater trips in the last two years -- the only recent exception was, oddly enough, Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle. Even this movie seemed to be part of a disturbing trend of movies relying increasingly on a long string of quick thrills rather than great writing or storytelling, but it was forgivable for the type of movie it was.

Indie/Art/Foreign movies here seem to have become just another mid to upscale lifestyle marketing niche, like Yellowtail wines and Cosi coffee bars. Very depressing.

The real problem is WHAT GETS DISTRIBUTED... also what's adventurous that flops. i.e., "I Heart Huckabees" looks to have fallen off steeply its second week in wide release.

"Sundance buzz" movies are now expected to be big grossers, which may be why so many suck.

"Indie/Art/Foreign movies here seem to have become just another mid to upscale lifestyle marketing niche, like Yellowtail wines and Cosi coffee bars."

Nice analogy; I think that sums it up perfectly. Cinema has always been the ultimate commercial art form (alongside the music & fashion industries), and as such, appropriation is its strongest suit--take a fresh, outsider concept, wait until it spreads from the hipster elite to gain a modest mainstream following, then copy & mass-produce it, retaining all of its easily-digestible, pandering elements & discarding its most valuable attributes.

The problem does come within the distribution scheme, where it's just not economically viable to take a risk on an indie film anymore. Why spend $1 million on a indie flick that may make $8 million when you can spend a hundred million and possible have a total gain of $300 million? It's just smart business from the studio's perspective.

There's always art house theaters, but outside of major cities and college towns, it's tough to make a profit (or, worse, break even). It will be interesting to see how digital projection changes all of this. Of course, the invention of the Multiplex theater was supposed to give a diversity of choices to the film audience as well. Instead, we get "Save The Last Dance" playing on four screens....

I truly believe that digital projection is the death of cinema in the most obvious sense. Especially with DVD --> Blu-ray --> whatever next, I have a tough time believing that people will really go to the theater when they can just buy a nearly-identical-quality version and invest in a large screen TV.

CD technology:iTunes::digital projection:[insert medium/interface here] - a digital technology which will eat itself.

The expectation that the majority of filmgoers would be able to afford a home digital projection setup is a bit excessive. What it really comes down to for me is the ability of a digital projection system to be able to handle the resolution and depth of contrast range that projected 35mm can. And although I don't think that we're there yet, I think we'll be pretty close.

You're also leaving out the most important aspect of the cinematic experience--the theater itself. I don't think it will be as drastic as a "death of the cinema" (it's going to take more than digital projection to kill off the moving image), and I think the majority of filmgoers don't care what is being used to project images, as long as it is of comparable quality to the existing technology. People will always go to theaters because it makes watching a film a social event, rather than just a personal one (not that I'm knocking home viewing--I have posted many times on the value of the solitary viewing experience).

Beyond that, the psychological effect of viewing a film in a large, dark room inhabited with a bunch of strangers is something that you just can't recreate in your living room watching a 40-inch plasma TV. I really don't think anyone beyond the esoteric "film snob" circuit (i.e. curmugeon neophobes like Fred Camper, etc.) really care about what format a standard narrative film is being projected on at the local multiplex.

Don't get me wrong, however--I have great respect for maintaining the format if an artist respects it. Although I enjoy watching my "By Brakhage" DVD, I always have a pang of guilt, knowing the Brakhage wouldn't want his work presented in this way, that viewing his gorgeous paint films on anything but a 16mm print is a blasphemy & a bastardization. But still, does watching a digital reproduction destroy my appreciation completely? If I come into the viewing with the knowledge that I'm having a different experience of the work than if I watched it on film, am I still not having an "experience" of a work of art, and a valid one at that?

I have a feeling that we're about to see some Walter Benjamin quotes arising in this debate.....

First of all, I think that in the near future, the idea of a large image, high resolution, widescreen flat plasma TV (or something of that ilk) will be commoditized. That's my argument there. From then it's purely a matter of time before it becomes a staple of any middle class family on up, much as the medium-to-large size TVs are today. I'm not claiming everyone will be getting anything as massive as a theater screen, but that's the point - they won't care. Why go the theater when you can download or instantly stream a movie?

Yes, there is a social element to theatergoing. So what? You can invite all your friends over for the opening weekend instead. Just b/c theaters have an inherently unique and appealing element doesn't mean that such a thing will sustain or economically justify their existence, as much as I agree with you on the aesthetic point.

The Brakhage bit is troubling to a degree, esp. someone who clearly cared quite a bit about the implications of the methods of viewing. However in fairness, he died only shortly before the DVD release and was well aware of it (and even working with them on it). So I think that your guilt there is a bit excessive.

Back to the thread topic:
Scorsese said something recently about how it seems like now everyone's making movies. It appeared to me that he said this sadly, as if the magic had died. There is a point to this, in a way (I think), in that much like the internet, the film/video medium has become oversaturated with author/creators who are deadset on creating, even without having much meaningful to present to anyone else. And while certainly a small percentage of this new crowd will have meaningful things to say and show to us, it just also adds a much larger degree of detritus to the pile of multimedia creations. It's not to say that the success/fail rate is any different now that it was back in the studio days, but at least then there was only so much crap. Now it seems like we're drowning in it. The death of a medium is when everyone is participating directly in the presentation part of it, no? Like a conversation in which everyone is speaking at the same time, no one really has the ability to effectively listen to enough to catch what's going on.

Well, flame on.

I still don't agree with the idea that audiences are going to flee the theaters en masse when big screen digi becomes cheap & available. The same arguments have been levied before: when CRT TV's first reached to 20+ inch mark, when the first 50" rear projection TV's were introduced, etc. I just don't think that technology is going to kill the film industry, just as p2p's and iTunes haven't killed the music industry. It just alters the playing field.

In terms of the difficulties involved with "everyone making movies", it really depends on what you value in film. If you only view "good cinema" as well-scripted narrative features then, yes, I would probably agree that we would be better off with just the studios and the occasional indie flick to "spice" thing up a bit.

But this seems like such a pointless argument because it's impossible to reverse. People have the means to creation, and as such, they are going to create. We can't take the cameras out of peoples' hands or restrict the sales of film and videotape. We can't require a degree in film studies or have a required reading list before people make a movie. If the desire is there, people will create & it's up to you whether you watch it or not (and since these films are not often distributed widely, it's not like they're being forced on you).

And it's not like this is a new phenomenon by any means--there were just as many (if not more) Super-8 filmmakers in the 60's doing multiple exposure psychedelic shorts as there are pretentious teenagers today making miniDV epics or trying to be the next Harmony Korine. If it wasn't for "amatures" venturing out to make personal films in the 60's, we wouldn't have the masterpieces of Brakhage, Kenneth Anger, Bruce Connor and others that we have today (and further back, Maya Deren, Luis Bunuel, Man Ray, etc.)

If the number of films out there bothers you, take the Socratic approach and choose to limit your experience of cinema to only studio produced works. However, I think you'll find yourself yearning to look for opposing viewpoints, and the folks who seemed before to "have nothing meaningful to say" will become very appealing. I find I often identify much more closely with a very personal "underground" film than with most Hollywood productions, designed to appeal to everyone's sensibilities and emotions. The personal truly is the most universal.

On another note, I find it strange that the same arguments are rarely rallied against the independent music industry. There are thousands of independent labels out there, and it's nearly a full-time job just to keep track of who's hip one hour & who's not the next. I would say that there is much more crap to sift through in music, but you don't hear complaints about it as often as with film.

"On another note, I find it strange that the same arguments are rarely rallied against the independent music industry. There are thousands of independent labels out there, and it's nearly a full-time job just to keep track of who's hip one hour & who's not the next. I would say that there is much more crap to sift through in music, but you don't hear complaints about it as often as with film."

Right, but that's because I can sift through the crap in independent music much more quickly than I can with film, especially if we're talking about cinema. I can visit at least 10 band websites in 30-45 minutes and usually figure out right away whether I ever want to hear from them again. With films, I read reviews, talk to friends, and finally say, "Ok, I'll make the trip and plunk down my 10 bucks," and I still might be disappointed.

I would say that a movie trailer gives just as much indication of what a film is going to be like as what the 30 second preview on iTunes gives you for a song. I find it much more tedious to research the thousands of new bands that come out every year.

Keeping with the music parrallel, I can never figure out why experimental music gains such a large following, and even mildly experimental cinema does not. There's no cinematic equivalent of a Sonic Youth--maybe Harmony Korine comes closest. Why do you think that experimentation with new forms generate interest in the music world & seldom does in the cinematic world?

Good question. Maybe it just has something to do with the traditions of the respective industries? Actually, Sonic Youth is sort of an exception as far as "experimentalism" goes (in that they're also very popular), but it's very inexpensive to run a small label and put out experimental music for a devoted following, whereas I'd imagine putting out experimental film is much more costly (though I suppose the digital medium is changing that).

You're right, I think the traditions/accepted standards of the industries is what makes the difference. While Sonic Youth is an experimental band, they still maintain (for the most part) the common song length of 3-7 minutes. They also utilize most of the elements of popular music--vocal harmonies, a good rhythm, etc.

Meanwhile, most experimental films take the viewer outside of their comfort zone--they are usually much shorter or much longer, play outside of the typical theater setting, eschew stardard narrative and editing techniques, and either manipulate the soundtrack or eliminate it completely.

I think the reason why folks like Korine, David Gordon Greene, Vincent Gallo, Matthew Barney and Bill Viola are able to attract a following to their more abstract works is that they maintain at least some elements of the standard narrative in their works.

As for price differential, I don't think that's an issue. Experimental films are as cheap to make as an album (camera rentals/film stock replacing expensive studio time/equipment costs). It's just easier for an indie band to get distribution than an independent film.

Filmmakers need to take on the DIY approach that musicians have. Distributing free copies of your films on VHS, VCD's or DVD's is one cheap option. Renting space to have film festivals is always good. Unfortunately, a filmmaker is not likely to ever get a "gig"--whereas any guy who can play a few chords & can round up a drummer can get paid to play in a local bar, not many clubs will play films--even if you pay THEM. And I think it's this lack of accessibility to new styles/forms that keeps the filmgoing audience so conservative, while they are quite liberal with their musical tastes.

I have long been developing a business plan for establishing a series of small film venues to be run in a similar manner to small (~50 capacity) music clubs. The filmmakers go on tour, sell their stuff, maybe make a part of the door, and meet other filmmakers and film fans.

I think it's very much a doable alternative to the increasingly "independent" independent film festivals. What I really detest about film festivals is that for people who really are making true low-budget films, they don't have the budget to pay for all the entry fees to most of these festivals. It seems ridiculous in a way that you have to pay them just to get someone to consider you for the fest, and chances are that you'll get into maybe 10% of them, if you're lucky. Why should you have to waste hundreds of dollars collectively just to get into two or three festivals?

I actually did try to arrange for something like the tour thing with Caveh Zahedi, but it was as I was about to start preparing to move to London, so it ended up falling through.

All we need is a couple of microvenues and some promoters. Really, that's all. I was tremendously inspired to do this whole idea last summer while reading Our Band Could Be Your Life, and if they can do it, so can we!

that's a terrific idea, and it seems totally feasible. ironically, i've seen it done before by bands - one example is sun city girls, who just finished touring around and showing their world/ethnographic music DVDs (http://www.sublimefrequencies.com). something about it being a "band" showing films at a rock club made it seem more natural, but that sort of thing could be copied anywhere.

"Why do you think that experimentation with new forms generate interest in the music world & seldom does in the cinematic world?"

film is much more time/people/cost-intensive (even with no budget). it's just harder to make! simple as that really.

Girolamo's idea sonds great though.

I think American Film is where pretty much all pop culture is at the moment. A directionless cluster fuck. It's a mass of propulsive momentum in search of a focus. just like the music business it's a free for all with any and all styles swirling around with each other.

You think the video game influence is heavy now. Just wait 10 to 15 years when an entire generation of kids raised on ultra cinematic, visceral video games start making film.

I think American Film is where pretty much all pop culture is at the moment. A directionless cluster fuck. It's a mass of propulsive momentum in search of a focus. just like the music business it's a free for all with any and all styles swirling around with each other.

You think the video game influence is heavy now. Just wait 10 to 15 years when an entire generation of kids raised on ultra cinematic, visceral video games start making movies.

as far as independent films go. They're in a rut. It's a down time similar to the early 80's when spectacle and selling points were the dominant forces.

mass media has reached such a fevered pitch in general it's getting harder and harder, at least for me, to get any larger perspective on where it's going.

sorry for the double post.

"film is much more time/people/cost-intensive (even with no budget). it's just harder to make! simple as that really. "

I don't really think this is a good excuse, though. Most good bands put in hundreds of hours of rehearsal before they record an album or play out. It also assumes a very general perspective of filmmaking--the drawn out narrative "short films". The majority of smaller film festivals incorporate films ranging from 1 minute to 1 hour, the vast majority closer to the length of the former. I've made films that have screened in festivals that I conceived, shot and edited over the period of 1-2 days.

Okay, true, but generally speaking films require much more intensive resources in coordinating to get a large number of people of disparate talents and visions together in one place at one time, with limited capacity for retakes, preparation, and revision after the fact. And this overlooks all the pre and post production.

Yes, it's totally possible to shoot something guerilla-style and be done with it, but most of what we consider American [Independent?] Film is just a slightly scaled-down version of any regular production. And it's about 10x harder with good TV programs, because usually everything production-wise has to be moving so much faster. I find it amazing that shows like Six Feet Under (which I'm currently in the middle of a huge addiction for) maintain quality consistently under those conditions.

"but most of what we consider American [Independent?] Film is just a slightly scaled-down version of any regular production."

Maybe this is where the problem lies--why must independent film just be a bastardized version of studio films? Take a Cartesian approach--knock down the accepted standards of filmmaking & take a new approach.

There are some amazing filmmakers who have an impressive body of work who have never worked with (or seldom work with) actors or crew.