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
Fruitvale Station with
actors Michael B. Jordan
and Octavia Spencer;
Woody Allen directs Cate
Blanchett and Alden
Ehrenreich in Blue Jasmine.
COURTESY OF LIONSGATE ENTERTAINMENT