Independents

•Indie funding allows filmmakers to take risks

•What does it mean to take a risk?•What risks were taken in Stranger than Paradise?

Breaking of Conventions (risks)• There are expectations of films from moviegoers• We expect the films to be moralistic (or at least the central

characters tend to be good)• All of the boring moments have to be cut out• The central characters do not end up alone at the end• A central character’s will meets clear obstacle and the

goal is met before the conclusion• Clear exposition• Clear causality (every scene has clear motivation that

moves the plot forward)• The apparatus is hidden

Funding of Spike Lee films• His first two films She’s Gotta

Have it(1986) and School Daze(1988) were independently funded and financially successful

• This allowed for Spike Lee to receive more funding for Do the Right Thing

• At the time Indie films weren’t coopted by the studios

• Rare to have so much creative control over a project with mainstream backing

Spike Lee, Do the Right Thing 1989• Exceed Lee’s earlier efforts thematically and artistically

• energy and craftsmanship • realistic portrayal of African American neighborhood in Brooklyn

• Mise en Scene, music, and dialogue rich with allusions to African American culture

• Open ending, two divergent points of view

Modern Greek Tragedy: obeys the three unities. • The story takes place in one setting, Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant, on the hottest summer day

• And there is also continuity of time, which spans about two days

• Unity of Action (one central story and all secondary plots should be linked to it.)

Spike Lee• controversial

• portrayed poorly in the press

• Do the Right Thing was rumored as a threat in movie theaters even before it was released.

• Pioneer filmmakers (Charles Burnett and Gordon Parks are the only African American Filmmakers that precede him--many followed)

History• Communications Major

• Studied Film at New York University (Tish School of the Arts) like Scorsese, Seidelman, Jarmusch

• She’s Gotta Have It, 1986

• Most Commercially Successful film Inside Man was released last decade (Critical Success as well)

Do the Right Thing• Spike Lee’s first Union Film

• Studio Funding

• Diverse cast and crew

How did the script come together?I had the title of it before I had anything else. Then it was bits and pieces--it was going to take place on the hottest day of the summer on one block in Bed-Stuy.

Then I added the whole Italian-American/African-American conflict, which I’ve touched on in three films

• One of many questions at the end of the film is whether Mookie "does the right thing" when he throws the garbage can through the window, thus inciting the riot that destroys Sal's pizzeria. Critics have seen Mookie's action both as an action that saves Sal's life, by redirecting the crowd's anger away from Sal to his property, and as an "irresponsible encouragement to enact violence".[16]

The question is directly raised by the contradictory quotations that end the film, one advocating non-violence, the other advocating violent self-defense in response to oppression.[16]

• Spike Lee has remarked that he himself has only ever been asked by white viewers whether Mookie did the right thing; black viewers do not ask the question.[17] Lee believes the key point is that Mookie was angry at the death of Radio Raheem, and that viewers who question the riot's justification are implicitly valuing white property over the life of a black man

• Why were critics asking questions about the morality of the central character in this film?

• What does that have to do with whether or not the film is good?

Upcoming Test

Auteur Theory • a film-maker must have a body of work which can be

analyzed for ongoing themes and considerations• a differentiating style, almost instantly recognizable.

What makes the director responsible for the artistic outcome of the film?• What about the screenwriter?

• In a collective medium, it is almost impossible to establish who has the most control

Metteurs en Scène• some directors are considered auteurs and some are not

• metteurs en scène are not in the category of auteurs

• they do not have the artistic control required

• Peter Jackson: Lord of the Rings

• In adapting someone else’s work he removes a certain amount of artistic control

• he is subject to the economic pressures of Hollywood, which evidently rates artistic design below economic success

• he lacks any overriding themes or recognizable artistic design

Wes Anderson• A homemade aesthetic

• Widescreen

• Fast paced dialogue

• A sense of melancholy

• Characters who are lonely or outsiders

• Absurdism

Independent Film • B-movies• Midnight Movies • Roger Corman• John Waters • George A. Romero

New Hollywood • In the late 60’s Foreign films were resonating with young

people in ways the large studios couldn’t

• Bonnie and Clyde (Aurthur Penn)

• Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper) First truly independent film of new Hollywood

• Midnight Cowboy, John Schlesinger

• Francis Ford Coppola, Zoetrope ( achieved distribution from Warner Brothers)

• By the 70‘s the major studios were backing films like Dog Day Afternoon

Hollywood “Independent” Studios

• Disney bought Mirimax in 1993• Turner Broadcasting bought Fine Line Features in 1994

• Sony Pictures Classics 1992• Fox Searchlight Pictures 1995• Paramount Vantage 1998• Focus Features 2002• Warner Independent Pictures 2003 [15

Film Festival Circuit • The Sundance Institute renamed their festival: The Sundance

Film Festival in 1991

• The “festival circuit” refers to films playing festivals before getting distributed by big name studios

• Independent movie-making has also resulted in the proliferation and repopularization festivals Full-length films are often showcased at film festivals such as the Sundance Film Festival, the Slamdance Film Festival, the South By Southwest film festival, the Raindance Film Festival, ACE Film Festival, or the Cannes Film Festival. Award winners from these exhibitions are more likely to get picked up for distribution by major film studios.

3 Types of Films made in America

• large budget blockbusters and high-cost star vehicles marketed by the six major studio producer-distributors.

• Budgets on the major studios’ pictures averaged $100 million, with approximately one-third of it spent on marketing because of the large release campaigns.

Indie Studio Films• Another class of Hollywood feature film included art films,

specialty films, and other niche-market fare controlled by the conglomerates’ indie subsidiaries.

• Budgets on these indie films averaged $40 million per release in the early 2000s, with $10 million to $15 million spent on marketing (MPA, 2006:12).

Non-Studio Indies• The final class of film consisted of genre and specialty

films administered by independent producer-distributors with only a few dozen or possibly a few hundred-release campaigns screens in select urban markets. Films like these usually cost less than $10 million, but frequently less than $5 million, with small marketing budgets that escalate if and when a particular film performs.[17]

Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson• “When I showed [L. A. producer] Barbara Boyle their first

script, she said, ‘You’ve caught lighting in a bottle,’” recalls producer L. M. Kit Carson, the co-screenwriter of Paris, Texas.

• “Most scripts you read are pale imitations of films that have already been made,” she says, “but I had never seen anything like their work. As a producer, you live for — you pray for — finding that kind of writing. It was unique, unhomogenized, brilliant.”

• producer James L. Brooks (gave them 5 million and access to professional cinematographers and editors)