The Costco Connection - January 2014

FOR THE AVERAGE FILMGOER, there are generally two choices. There’s the big-budget blowout filled with expensive special effects and a thrill a minute. Or there’s the smaller, quieter, character-driven story that reflects a bit more of our everyday reality—comic or tragic or somewhere in between.

Each has its place. The blockbuster is usually produced by a major Hollywood studio, or with major studio involvement. The smaller effort often comes from independent filmmakers anywhere in the world.

Here’s what you should know about the world of independent film.

What is an independent film?

The term “independent film” has different
meanings for different people. Seattle-based film
director Lynn Shelton ( Your Sister’s Sister, Touchy
Feely) says, “The definition as I understand it is any
film that was financed without studio money.”
Producer Cassian Elwes (All Is Lost, Lee Daniels’
The Butler, Dallas Buyers Club) takes it a step fur-
ther, saying, “To me, an independent movie is some-
thing that the studios would be afraid of.”
“It’s the character of the filmmaking itself,”
explains Josh Welsh, president of Film Independent
( www.filmindependent.org), a nonprofit organization
dedicated to supporting independent films from pro-
duction to exhibition. “It’s filmmaking with a distinct
point of view, with original, provocative subject mat-
ter, made with a real independence of spirit.”

A short history of independent film

Independent filmmaking is not a new phenomenon. In fact, it began in 1908, when a group of nascent filmmakers refused to sign on with the Motion Picture Patents Company, aka the Edison Trust, a coalition of the major film companies of the time that monopolized production and distribution. The breakaways from the trust moved to California and started individual studios.

In 1919, four of the leading stars of silent pictures—Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith—formed United Artists, independently financing, producing and distributing their own films.

In 1941, Pickford and Chaplin, along with Walt Disney, Orson Welles, Samuel Goldwyn, David O. Selznick, Alexander Korda and Walter Wenger, formed the Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers to protect the rights of filmmakers against the major studios that controlled production, distribution and exhibition of films. They were so successful in breaking those controls that the society closed in the late 1950s.

The ’50s and ’60s gave rise to “B” movies, mostly low-budget crime thrillers and horror films from the likes of Roger Corman and George Romero. In the late ’60s, Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper brought us Easy Rider, and we were soon introduced to the talents of Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, both of whom started as independent filmmakers. In the1970s, a “new Hollywood” arose

Call to action

WHAT’S YOUR favorite independent film? Write up a short review and send it to steve.fisher@costco.com with “Independent Film” in the subject line, and we may use it in an upcoming edition of The Costco Connection if the film becomes available at Costco.

arts & entertainment

Clockwise from top left: Robert Redford and writer-director J.C. Chandor at sea on All Is Lost.; Billy Bob Thornton directs Robert Duvall in Jayne Mansfield’s Car; director Ryan Coogler (right) works out a scene in