This came up in another post…
Disney’s new Miramax allegedly will have a $300 million budget. Focus, Searchlight and WIP are around and/or over the $150 million a year that Miramax was given – a lot of loose cash back then – when they went to Disney.
Eternal Sunshine, Huckabees and A Very long Engagement were all budgeted at over $20 million this year.
What is indie?
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
Does “indie” refer to size of budget, or state of mind? Robert Altman works in and out of the system, John Cassavetes acted to pay for his own films, Stanley Kubrick had backing from Warners, Hal Hartley and Henry Jaglom rely on outside investors… But wouldn’t you agree all these guys are/were independent filmmakers?
It’s a state of mind maaaaaan.
Or
An “excuse” for a studio to try and stay chic with a “non mainstream” type of film. That way the money guys can say they have “a number of indie films on the slate.”
An independent filmmakers is really that guy that still has to hustle a bit to rustle up some cash to just barely get the film made. Anyone getting a $20 million budget is beyond “independent” and is firmly working within the industry. Which is not always a bad thing, but it must be recognized!
It’s not a matter of studio vs. indie… it’s all about the type of film and who’s making it. Wes Anderson’s films are “independent” despite rather high budgets because you know they aren’t compromised.
I never use the term “Indie” because it is such an undefinable term. “A Very Long Engagement” cost something north of $50mil did it not? NOT INDIE. Plus, it certainly doesn’t feel like an indie! But then while “I Heart Huckabees” COST $20 mil or more, it feels like an indie. It feels like the kind of movie that nobody would want to make (studio types).
It’s a fickle term. To a lesser extent so is the term “Arthouse” because some films that screen in arthouses are not actually arthouse movies such as the before mentioned “A Very Long Engagement” and so forth.
But, we also need to remember that when the whole “indie”/”arthouse” revolution thing came around these studios couldn’t put $20mil budgets but now they can and do in a means to reach a greater audience.
…i dunno.
I will tell what should be considered indie. The
new I Heart Huckabees DVDs. Selling a regular DVD
along side a SPECIAL EDITION DVD that cost nearly
30 bucks and did not go on sale anywhere? That’s
some INDIE BULL**** right there.
Sideways fans; youre next.
face facts. miramax is a studio now. they can come off as indie or support indies but they’re a studio
Huckabee’s may have been the worst movie of 2004. What a waste of talent on that film. It is unwatchable.
“Indie” is attitude: all else is a journalistic epithet as useful as when a movie is described as a “cult hit.” (“Cult hit”=”won’t ever see a dime.”)
‘Huckabees’ unwatchable? Really? How did I sit through it three times, then, and laugh heartily at each go round?
I agree that the term “indie” is useless. And, strangely, it’s the independent film community that helped make it useless -like the ISA awards which routinely dropped awards on studio stuff masquerading as indie and threw token nominations here and there to really independent work.
Indie may be transitory, a training program for Independent thinking directors who aren’t inside the studio system (yet).
Someone who independently gets enough cash (themselves or from a bunch of people) to make a movie and pay actors Indie SAG rate, they get it to a festival where it’s seen and bought, then it was indie-made. If the same director gets 20 million from a studio and gets final cut, well it might be independently thought out, but s/he still has to answer to a studio/investors since they paid for it, so I don’t see that as Indie even though the director might have alot of freedom and it didn’t cost alot.
Wasn’t the first Billy Jack Indie in reverse? Wasn’t it studio co-financed (was it Warners or Universal?) then became Indie becasue the rights were bought back by Tom Laughlin after which he independently 4-walled it across america? It was before my time…but I remember a cousin talking about it as a big event in the early 70s because it became such a phenom. Perhaps the biggest Indie hit ever vs. its initial cost.
Let’s cut the snob crap and call a spade a spade.
Miramax is owned by Disney (has been since 1994). Focus is owned by Universal. United Artists (the imprint) is owned by MGM.
Fox Searchlight distributes through 20th Century Fox. Fine Line distributes through New Line. WIP distributes through Warner Bros.
Sony Pictures Classics shares ownership (but not distribution) with Columbia. Paramount Classics shares ownership (but not distribution) with regular Paramount.
Thus, any upmarket/arthouse picture from those studios is NOT “indie”!
indie is now the term used for any movie not with a 100million buck budget
Yeah, but Chucky, if the filmmakers didn’t have these corporate entities behind them when they took the risk and made the films, and then sold them to these companies, why aren’t they indies? They were independent in putting the film together, rather than taking studio money first. It’s the difference between a Garden State and a Cold Mountain. Who cares who finally puts them out there for the world to see?
u think cold mountain wasn’t a studio film?
I’ve always thought “independent,” in film terms, meant independent of major studio financing. That the filmmakers and producers put up the dough, took the movie to a festival and sold the distribution rights to a studio. Maybe I was mislead.
Either way, it seems the word is just a media catch-all for “low-budget movie playing in one theatre in the nearest big city starring actors you may or may not have ever heard of.”
This discussion reminds me of the phrase “alternative music.” What was it the alternative to? And once Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins were on every station on the dial, was it still the alternative? We needed an alternative to the alternative. I guess “modern rock” wasn’t edgy enough for the focus groups.
Using the word “indie” is purely an advertising and marketing tool. And also keeps expectations down for the film itself.
I think the whole “indie” term has been watered down. Miramax used to be the studio of Fresh, The Crying Game, Trainspotting, and Sex, Lies, and Videotape – ballsy little films that they used their marketing muscle to get exposure for. But starting with The English Patient – Talented Mr. Ripley, Shakespeare in Love, Chicago, Cold Mountain, there are really just putting out old fashioned mainstream entertainments aimed at a ’40’s sensibility (BIG STARS, BIG EMOTIONS, BIG DRAMA) that the real studios aren’t doing as much, any more.
That said, every once in a while, they promote a City of God or In the Bedroom and remind me of the Miramax of old. I know that Weinstein gets a lot of guff, but you have to give him credit for getting audiences to see films like City of God. How he passed up on Memento, though, I’ll never understand.
And people forget that even though they were already owned by Disney, Miramax had a real good streak going on in the mid’-’90’s, where it seemed like every film that I really dug came from their studio – Pulp Fiction, Swingers, Flirting wtih Disaster, Trainspotting. I have to admit that they used that Disney money well, for a while.
Lets be fair. It wasn’t hard to buy hard Pulp, Trainspotting, etc. Not like they’re genuis’ for pricing the other companies out of the water. They have as many failures as hits.
Oh, and one more thing. Notice how Dave didn’t include Sideways in that group. The film apparently cost over $20 million. I guess he loves it too much to lump it in with the others. But one question I have to ask is
HOW THE HELL did that film cost that much? It had no stars, there were no sets, and the locations were near LA. Man, it looked like it should have been cheaper than Garden State and it actually cost almost as much as Ray, which looked like a big budget film?!. Only Alexander Payne could take $20 million and make a film that looks like it cost $4 mill. I guess he’s the reverse of Spike Lee.
I know, I know, Payne is my whipping boy. But the guy just bugs me when he claims to be reclaiming the ’70’s drama for us. Sorry, Alex, but guys like Chris Nolan (see Insomnia) amd Todd Field (see In the Bedroom) beat ya to it.
If you’re gonna talk the big talk, have the skills to back it up. You would have never seen Cassavettes just abandon his best character (Maya) and stick some dick jokes in the third act of any of HIS films. Him and his writer, Jim Taylor, are just the Farrelly Brothers with critical cred. Rant over.
Jeff, you obviously don’t know the economics of the movie business. There is a reason Sideways looked like it wasn’t costing a lot. Because a lot went into the production that made you think it was a simple story with a simple setting. Give credit to the director, producers, designers and the set people for making the minimal look look so good.
I don’t pretend to be an expert on the economics of the movie business. I am not going to give credit to Payne and his crew for not being able to do what less lucky filmmakers have been doing for years – making the most of their money to tell a simple story. $20 million could have been easily spent on four or five films, with similar scale, from a variety of up-and-coming filmmakers. Sideways is as much a reflection of the budget problem with Hollywood as Van Helsing, which probably looked like complete crap for the over $150 million they spent on it. Wasting money is wasting money. When a simple drama costs that much, studio’s will continue to see a safer investment in films like Constantine. That’s the sad part.
at least he knows G comes before J in the alphabet. And he’s bloody right about Payne too.
this indie argument is as old as the grey hair is long on Chris Gore’s balls. Move on.
It’s pretty simple stuff, Indie – not financed by a corporate entity. The term indie has nothing to do with quality, attitude, or the like.
One thing that amuses me is the notion that “compromise” is a determining factor in this discussion.
Of course, most makers of small films have to compromise greatly. If Alexander Payne had not gotten the kind of box office on” “About Schmidt” that he (and Jack) did, we might well have seen “Sideways” starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney.
Meanwhile, George Lucas is the most “indie” filmmaker there is. He pays for his movies himself and compromises for no one.
And of course, Graham King has been calling “The Aviator” an independent film from the start.
Then there are films like “Napoleon Dynamite,” which was made completely independently of Searchlight, but was released by the Dependent. Meanwhile, a movie like “Shaolin Soccer” is made independent of a studio, but is completely compromised by Miramax in its release.
Is “Ray” indie or not? Born Into Brothels, paid for by HBO? The company that released “Tarnation” was just bought by The Genius Company so they could build their library.
I don’t really think there is an answer here… but I do think it’s an interesting discussion.
Indies are films financed outside of typical hollywood financiers, and are not backed by large corporations. If an indie is bought by a large corporation and changed, or say millions are spent to improve its look, its sound, etc. it is no longer an indie film. If you want to get right down to it, a real indie doesn’t have a real straight path to distribution, certainly not in theaters. Many indies have to pay to get a small number of showings. For the most part, true indies are now relegated to video and tv lives. Most of the best indies right now are documentaries.
Chantal Akerman has said that the only real independent filmmakers are the ones who own their own prints and negs and with whom you have to deal personally if you want to show their work. By that (admittedly extreme) definition, only Russ Meyer, Chantal, and a very few others are true independent filmmakers.
>>For the most part, true indies are now relegated to video and tv lives.<< But Martin: If a movie is picked up by a DVD distributor or a TV outlet, cable or broadcast, how is that different from being picked up by a theatrical distributor? And as for docs: If you're funded by PBS, or even ITVS, does that make you less independent? I don't claim to have the answer for any of this. I'm merely suggesting that indie, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. If, as many people in this blog have claimed, Martin Scorsese had to recut "Gangs of New York" to please Miramax -- does that make him less of an independent than Clint Eastwood, who gets final cut on all his movies?
if ur gonna be in business with martin s, u can’t go chopping up his movie. ur getting what u paid for. prestige. where does miramax get off?
To Jon’s shortlist of filmmakers fitting Akerman’s def: Jim Jarmusch.
Too bad Jarmusch can’t tell a story.
Sigh. More Miramax bashing.
Forget the fact they did indeed produce/release many great great GREAT movies and let’s all focus on the fact that they also, as of the last 7 or so years, decided to produce their own movies with the intent of making money.
That’s a shocker for ANY studio. How dare Miramax want to make money. It’s as if they ought to keep slugging it out in the dugout for all eternity and never see a dime from movies.
…groan.
Miramax was always about making money. You can buy the hogwash about making good movies but they’re all about money.
At what point did wanting to make money become a bad thing? Akira Kurosawa, Federico Fellini and Jean-Luc Godard directed TV commercials, Robert De Niro pimps for American Express, and Alex Haley helped finance his writing of “Roots” by scripting “Super Fly T.N.T.” When RKO signed Orson Welles, the powers that be didn’t say, “OK, now we’ve got someone who will forever change filmmaking by making the greatest movie ever made.” They said, “OK, we got that guy who raised such a ruckus with the ‘War of the Worlds’ radio broadcast, let’s see if he can make some big bucks for us.” So Harvey and Bob W. want to make money? Well, so what? Companies that don’t make money don’t stay in business, and companies that don’t stay in business don’t release movies. Frankly, I’ve never quite understood the reasoning of people who complain about the money made by movie stars, rock stars, superstar athletes, studio executives, etc. I mean, it’s not like the money is coming out of YOUR pocket, is it? And trust me on this: If Miramax didn’t spend, say, $100 million on “Cold Mountain” (or whatever the hell that movie cost), that wouldn’t mean they’d make 100 $1 million movies, or even 200 $500,000 movies, instead. No, they’ll likely make another $100 million movie. Or two $50 million movies. And maybe they’d make enough of a profit to keep releasing smaller movies as diverse as “Undisputed,” “I’m Not Scared,” “Hero,” “The Last Kiss,” “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind,” etc.
“Miramax was always about making money. You can buy the hogwash about making good movies but they’re all about money.”
Well if that’s the case then EVERY SINGLE STUDIO IN THE WORLD should claimthe same thing. As Joe Leydon said, if you’re not making money you’re not in business. And I’d quite frankly LOVE to sit through a Cold Mountain (which I didn’t mind, actually) or a Talented Mr. Ripley (which I thought was great! when did this “big budget miramax” become a horrible movie?) to be able to see “City Of God” “The Hours” “Strictly Ballroom” “Muriel’s Wedding” “sex lies and videotape” and so on.
no one is saying capitalism is a bad thing, but when art is (in some cases) made lesser in the name of the $, of course there will be outrage, justifiably so. Which, again, does not mean capitalism is bad, it just aint as great as art.
Miramax has twice as many failures as hits. Be they do a good job of keeping that talk down. It hasn’t been a good business model the past 5 years for them. But they are all about money and making money. The big lie is that they are about indies or art or helping filmmakers. Its hypocritical. They are a studio. For better or worse. And studios have a responsibility to make money.
Cinema culture pervades almost every area of life today. And with the greater demand and popularity of cinema, comes greater profits. In the light of outsider cinema however, I contend that such filmmakers’ inner inspirations are unscathed by the quest for power.
Within the context of this definition, I will need to define what is meant by inner inspiration. Inner inspiration comes from a person’s cumulative history along with their personal relationship with the transcendent. Therefore, inner inspiration will be different for everyone and moreover, because it entails one’s personal relationship with the transcendence, is very difficult to ascertain.
Power is another term that will need further discussion. By “quest for power” I am specifically referring to one’s goals in producing a film. The goals of creating a film are dependent on the filmmaker’s values at that time and I would argue that if greed, hatred, or delusion are present in the filmmaker, the film cannot be considered independent. Taken a step further, capitalism and consumerism are driven by these manifestations, so for a filmmaker to be unscathed by power, they must be void of capitalistic and consumerist concerns.
Within this definition of outsider cinema, there will always be space for independent filmmakers to explore. However, even with a working definition of outsider cinema, it can still be very difficult, as a viewer, to decide if a film is in fact outsider. To be sure, this can only be obtained with a thorough and most probably personal understanding of the filmmaker because ultimately both inner inspiration and values are a personal affair.
However, I contend that with minimal due diligence, one can determine with some certainty if a film should be considered outsider or not. Here, I have specified film and not filmmaker on purpose. A person’s worldview or value system is liable to change over time, as the cumulative tradition shapes an individual’s personal relationship with the transcendence and vice versa. Therefore, looking at a series of films to determine if a certain filmmaker expresses a constant inner inspiration or value system is not of concern. Instead, we must look at each film independently and try to understand what the filmmaker was experiencing at that point in time. Specifically, it is of utmost importance that the film was not influenced by monetary concerns. Therefore, any constraints made by financiers will render a film non-outsider.
This is an important distinction because the presence of greed, hatred and delusion breed more of the same. Therefore, once these values have entered a film, the filmmaker is only adding fuel to capitalism and consumerism.