Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film

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Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film VOLUME 3 INDEPENDENT FILM–ROAD MOVIES Barry Keith Grant EDITOR IN CHIEF
INDEPENDENT FILM ‘‘Independence’’ is in many ways the Holy Grail in the film business—something most everyone who makes movies strives for but can never quite attain. To be independent in the film business denotes a freedom from something, whether the vicissitudes of the commercial market or the matrix of companies that dominate the production and distribution of motion pictures in America. Such an independence can be attained only by degree. So long as a feature is screened in commercial theaters and/or aired on pay or network TV, so long as it carries a PCA seal or MPAA rating system designation, independence is a relative term. What then is meant by the term ‘‘independent film’’? At bottom, independence is attained within either or both of the two principal and intersecting characteristics of the movies as a medium: the artistic and the commercial. Huntz Hall (1919–1999), an actor famous for his appearances in the Bowery Boy B movies of the 1940s, once mused that you can recognize an independent film with a simple test: if the whole set shakes when someone slams a door it’s an independent film. Though reductive and true for only the least ambitious of independent pictures, Hall’s quip hints at the larger budgetary concerns of the vast majority of independent films. What we have come to recognize as an independent aesthetic—small-ensemble casts, limited use of exterior and location shooting, and an emphasis on conversation over action and exciting special effects stems primarily from an effort to stay within tight budgets. There is a mantra shared by independent directors: ‘‘Talk is cheap; action is expensive.’’ When budget considerations loom over a production, it is always cheaper to film two people talking in a room than a car chase or a UFO landing in Washington, D.C. Independent films are also recognizable by how they are ‘‘platformed’’ in the entertainment marketplace, by the way promotion and advertising is handled, and by selective versus saturation distribution. Big films are released into thousands of theaters all at once, while with some independent titles, only a handful of prints are available for screening at any one time, and they are screened almost exclusively in small, so-called art-house theaters. At every stop along the way in the various commercial venues available for films in the United States, independent films are at once marginal and marginalized. Independence thus assumes a distance from the commercial mainstream that is systematically and industrially maintained. Two Hollywood adages that inform independence are worth considering here. The first is a bastardization of an H. L. Menken quip: ‘‘When they say it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.’’ In other words, what makes a film independent is its stake in the commercial marketplace: limited access (to big commercial venues) results in almost every instance in limited box office. An independent film is thus defined by the money it makes (not a lot) and the audience it reaches (a select, small group). The second adage is even more to the point: ‘‘You take the money, you lose control.’’ It is generally believed that independence has something to do with a refusal to make concessions. To that end, the Independent Spirit Awards, founded by FINDIE (the Friends of Independents) in 1984, annually celebrate the ‘‘maverick tradition’’ of independent film in America. But such a maverick tradition, evinced in some producers’ and directors’ refusal to kowtow to industry pressures, is founded on the relative commercial inconsequence of the films in question. A degree 1
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Page 5 and 6: of raw film stock. By the end of 19
Page 7 and 8: Samuel Z. Arkoff. EVERETT COLLECTIO
Page 9 and 10: terrible acting, and low-end produc
Page 11 and 12: Independent films the following yea
Page 13 and 14: y boldly acquiring Miramax, and in
Page 15 and 16: The fact that India annually produc
Page 17 and 18: RAJ KAPOOR b. Ranbirraj Kapoor, Pes
Page 19 and 20: and Bimal Roy’s Do Bigha Zameen (
Page 21 and 22: Satyajit Ray. EVERETT COLLECTION. R
Page 23 and 24: Pinaki Sen Gupta (right) as young A
Page 25 and 26: Although the origins of the Interne
Page 27 and 28: important and exceptional case in f
Page 29 and 30: Apple’s library, the January 2006
Page 31 and 32: Iran Abbas Kiarostami is perhaps th
Page 33 and 34: Iran fact and fiction, using both n
Page 35 and 36: Ireland images of the Irish have ma
Page 37 and 38: Ireland (b. 1949), Pat Murphy, Cath
Page 39 and 40: Israel origin and class, whereby th
Page 41 and 42: Israel are of parking lots, empty s
Page 43 and 44: Italy dockworker and taciturn prota
Page 45 and 46: Italy Italian films through a few g
Page 47 and 48: Italy Federico Fellini on a crane s
Page 49 and 50: Italy SOPHIA LOREN b. Sofia Scicolo
Page 51 and 52: Italy The self-reflexive world of i
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Italy LINA WERTMÜLLER b. Arcangela
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Italy Sophia Loren and Marcello Mas
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Italy Giancarlo Giannini and Shirle
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Italy Palmerini, Luca M., and Gaeta
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Japan the content of film, but actu
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Japan YASUJIRO OZU b. Tokyo, Japan,
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Japan Yasujiro Ozu examined the dyn
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Japan Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon (
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Japan Akira Kurosawa on the set of
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Japan TOSHIRÔ MIFUNE b. Qingdao, C
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Japan Burch, Noël. To the Distant
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Journals and Magazines fanzines fro
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Journals and Magazines PAULINE KAEL
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Journals and Magazines group of Hol
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Korea screenings. Though these exhi
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Korea IM KWON-TAEK b. Chang-sŏng,
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LATINOS AND CINEMA Latinos/Hispanic
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Latin-American cultures and themes
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Luis Valdez. Ó UNIVERSAL PICTURES/
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Fregoso, Rosa Linda. The Bronze Scr
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Lighting Suggestive lighting in Alf
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Lighting Expressionist lighting in
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Lighting who used the technique in
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Lighting John Alton on the set of T
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MAINLAND SOUTHEAST ASIA While the f
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Prince Chatrichalerm Yukol’s work
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earlier films may have lacked appea
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There are three kinds of makeup art
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Tuttle succeeded him and ran the de
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JACK P. PIERCE b. Janus Piccoulas,
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(1889-1968), who in the 1930s devis
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Martial Arts Films of dozens of fil
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Martial Arts Films Bruce Lee in Ent
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Martial Arts Films an American mast
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Marxism read as one long plea for s
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Marxism most influential style of t
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Marxism Pier Paolo Pasolini. Ó HUL
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Marxism West (Anthony Mann, 1958).
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Few artistic movements have provoke
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DOUGLAS SIRK b. Detlef Sierck, Hamb
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investigated the uses of the term m
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Vincente Minnelli. EVERETT COLLECTI
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While there has been merchandise as
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long-term relationship agreements b
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George Lucas. EVERETT COLLECTION. R
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Mexico Mexican film industry. In 19
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Mexico Arturo Ripstein. Ó IMCINE/C
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MGM (METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER) Created v
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Louis B. Mayer. EVERETT COLLECTION.
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Greta Garbo in Anna Karenina (Clare
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Strike Up the Band (1940), Babes on
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allowed them to continue operations
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Mise-en-scène but in the editing r
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Mise-en-scène Characters are only
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‘‘Film music’’ as a term ha
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BERNARD HERRMANN b. New York, New Y
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important work has begun. Martin Ma
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and sound effects, could now be use
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With well over a hundred major feat
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Howard Shore conducting the music f
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SERGEI PROKOFIEV b. Sontsovka, Ukra
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Sergei Prokofiev worked closely wit
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As a distinct genre, the film music
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proven the most durable type of fil
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Ginger Rogers masks (‘‘If he co
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BUSBY BERKELEY b. William Berkeley
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GENE KELLY b. Eugene Curran Kelly,
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Perhaps no term is more central to
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Ancient Babylon as depicted in one
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D. W. GRIFFITH b. David Wark Griffi
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NARRATIVE THEORY Under the influenc
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film is still the cinematic practic
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National Cinema insisted that the n
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National Cinema Gurinder Chada’s
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NATIVE AMERICANS AND CINEMA The rep
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In the 1990s Dances with Wolves (19
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Nature filmmaking has a long and mo
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ARNE SUCKSDORFF b. Stockholm, Swede
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which premiered on NBC in 1963 and
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follow-up to the Blue Planet series
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Neorealism Italian neorealist cinem
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Neorealism Cesare Zavattini. DAVID
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Neorealism between 1945 and 1953 in
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About one thousand feature-length f
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poetic, or contemplative compositio
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The period from the mid-1950s to th
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conventional directors who had serv
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Jean-Luc Godard. EVERETT COLLECTION
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THE RENEWAL OF FILM FORM However, t
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Alain Resnais. EVERETT COLLECTION.
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one kind of empire and the developm
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New Zealand 1930. Welsh’s system
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New Zealand Point Day 507 (1980) an
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Paramount JOSEF VON STERNBERG b. Jo
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Paramount Marlene Dietrich and Gary
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Paramount Harpo, Chico, Groucho, an
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Paramount Gary Cooper, 1934. EVERET
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Paramount DeMille, Cecil B. Autobio
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Parody Young Frankenstein (Mel Broo
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Parody MEL BROOKS b. Melvin Kaminsk
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Parody parodies take great care in
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Philippines wider appeal. Independe
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As a result of successive partition
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Zbigniew Cybulski (left) in Andrzej
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Andrzej Wajda remains first among e
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2002) have proved to be the most co
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Populism of an orientalist ‘‘Sh
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Pornography is a genre that involve
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sexually explicit films with pornog
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American director, producer, writer
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so that representations of rape and
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It is now a truism to say that the
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GUY MADDIN b. Winnipeg, Manitoba, C
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Rather than functioning as a cause-
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The cinema’s prehistory is freque
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THE INFLUENCE OF LOUIS DAGUERRE One
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The American Grandfather, a 19th-ce
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Zoopraxography: animal locomotion s
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Eadweard Muybridge. Ó HULTON-DEUTS
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Prizes and Awards if a film is nomi
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Prizes and Awards show business) aw
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Producer genres. Finally, the produ
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Producer IRVING THALBERG b. Brookly
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Producer beautiful friendship’’
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Producer Jerry Bruckheimer may be t
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Producer Schatz, Thomas. The Genius
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Production Design WILLIAM CAMERON M
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Production Design The sleek futuris
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Production Design FERDINANDO SCARFI
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Production Design some visual exces
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Production Process Staged films dem
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Production Process The problems of
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Production Process Jerry Lewis dire
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Production Process Fitzcarraldo (19
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Production Process The production p
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Propaganda This ‘‘rescue’’
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Propaganda LENI RIEFENSTAHL b. Hele
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Propaganda Triumph des willens ( Tr
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Propaganda is juxtaposed with a mil
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Propaganda Taylor, Philip M. Muniti
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Psychoanalysis Ingrid Bergman as ps
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Psychoanalysis the spectator is pre
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PUBLICITY AND PROMOTION Hollywood c
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ad campaign was distilled into a pr
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WILLIAM CASTLE b. William Schloss,
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streetcar accident, then denying th
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Originating in the early 1990s, que
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difference directly informs queer t
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RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER b. Bad Wor
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RACE AND ETHNICITY Race and ethnici
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that even when films do not appear
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JAMES YOUNG DEER PRINCESS RED WING
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Other—provide a point of identifi
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final runs of films that had played
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Hollywood’s involvement with radi
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Orson Welles directs the historic W
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Woody Allen’s Radio Days (1987) o
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Realism has become one of the most
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the same. In 1995, the Danish filmm
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JEAN RENOIR b. Paris, France, 15 Se
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Arnheim, writing in the early 1930s
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photographic image is an illusion.
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RECEPTION THEORY Reception theory p
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uncovering how actual spectators in
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Traditionally, ‘‘religion’’
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decades. The demise of this earlier
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Krzysztof Kies´lowski directing Tr
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as verging upon nihilism, as in L
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RKO RADIO PICTURES The history of R
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approved a screen test for Fred Ast
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and budget. After two false starts,
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Val Lewton. MARTHA HOLMES/TIME LIFE
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which opened the proverbial floodga
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Road Movies the road movie tends to
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Road Movies Thelma and Louise (Ridl
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