GROSS BEHAVIOR

The Spirits Drink the Kool-Aid

When you think American independent movies of 2011 what comes to mind?

I suppose for a lot of people nothing immediately springs forth. Let me suggest the following: Margin Call, Take Shelter, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Win Win and Beginners as some more conspicuous representatives of this sector of filmmaking.

Now, let’s consider a film financed, written and developed in France that stars two French actors and was shot, edited and scored by French folk. It’s called The Artist and on Friday was named best French film of the year at the Cesars in Paris. And, believe it or not, on Saturday was cited as the quintessence of American independent cinema by the Spirit Awards.

What makes The Artist soooo American?

Well, according to the Spirits nominating committee it boils down to the presence of American supporting performers, the fact it was filmed in the U.S. and employed some below-the-line talent during production including its production designer.  Where I come from when you total everything up The Artist is more pommes frittes than French fries.

Now let’s put aside all the good things that Film Independent does and simply ask why it has to plumb the depths of international cinema in order to find a film it considers the best picture and this year, the best directed with the best male performance and cinematography. Is the state of American Independent movies so bereft of quality artists and technicians that the Spirits must broaden its horizons in order to find worthy contenders from abroad?

Simply put the answers is “no.”

However, The Artist is hardly the first film crowned by the organization to have questionable American bona fides. In 1994 Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing was a nominee and more recently Pan’s Labyrinth and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. The incredibly yankee-like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was named best picture by the Spirits in 2001 because one of its producers and co-writers, James Schamus, is an Amareekan.

And there but for the grace of god The Fast Runner was all but set to be a best picture nominee in 2003 save the interference of this scribe. I was informed on the q.t. by nominating chair Bill Condon that the Inuit tale was on the slate just days before the official announcement. How were they justifying its inclusion? Well, its co-producer was born in New York. But, I countered that he’d never worked in the U.S. movie industry and was now a Canadian citizen. A hastily convened meeting was held and The Fast Runner migrated to the foreign-language category.

In retrospect my memory is that Condon’s tone when he revealed the confidence suggested his nominating committee (and those that have come before and subsequently) was encouraged to be mischievous.

However, a far more revealing Film Independent encounter puts a clearer light on the organization’s general insecurity about its annual awards. If memory serves following the 1993 awards I was having a conversation with then executive director Dawn Hudson and segued into my chief complaints about the Spirits. Chiefly, despite considerable effort to ensure that a broad spectrum of films was represented, the most commercially successful film invariably won the trophy in every category.

Hudson confessed that this was something that troubled the organization along with other less visible issues. And to her credit she set up two brain storming sessions each with about 15 people to trash out a broad spectrum of items relating to the awards.

What emerged from the confab I attended was that the organization’s dependence on the revenue from the broadcast largely dictated its approach to everything. A suggestion that it should move off of Oscar weekend and establish its own identity was met with horror. It was felt that the “star” quotient afforded by people in town for the Academy Awards would be reduced and jeopardize the broadcast and hence the money that runs the operation.

There was also considerable discussion as to what defines an independent film. Were films financed by the specialty divisions of studios really independent? Not that year but later Film Independent created a criteria list that flung the door wide open to just about any film that embraced the impossible to define independent spirit – regardless of who controlled its copyright. There were some caveats about production costs and American artistic and technical input but nothing to seriously preclude some otherwise questionable entries.

By my reading of the criteria such 2011 releases as Shame and Young Adult ought to have been in the running in several categories. However, a film has to be submitted for consideration and my guess is that the people involved with those films never thought of themselves as either American or independent. It’s also my suspicion that The Artist was submitted for foreign-language consideration and the nominating committee, as per its mandate, decided it was eligible for broader consideration much as it had handled The Fast Runner and presumably Pan’s Labyrinth and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly in the past.

Back in 2003 one of the producers of best picture nominee Tully confided that she would have preferred that the film had been nominated in the first picture category. But the nominating committee liked it so much it placed it in the top category and thus it was excluded from consideration elsewhere … and perhaps more appropriately and beneficially.

The Artist’s ascendance at the Independent Spirits won’t do a scintilla of good in any direct way for American indie filmmaking. However, viewed obliquely, the fact it’s an Oscar contender validates the Spirit Awards or at the very least provides it with a footnote to Academy coverage even if most of its honorees were unable to attend because they were taking part in the more appropriate Cesar celebrations. So, the mischief makers likely kept their broadcaster happy as well as significant corporate sponsors and can tell themselves that the revenues they’ve secured will go to the good of programs they sponsor to encourage and develop alternative cinematic voices.

But the echoes of Thomas More from A Man For all Seasons continue to ring in my ears when he looked at his betrayer and intoned, “But for Wales, Richard.”

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