A History of American Independent Cinema

In order to look at the history of American independent cinema, we must first define what constitutes an ‘indie film.’ This is a rather contentious task. Film critic Emmanuel Levy’s ‘ideal’ definition of an indie is “a fresh, low-budget movie with gritty style and offbeat subject matter that express the filmmaker’s personal vision” (cited in Tzioumakis 1). However, this definition becomes dubious when one considers the fact that big-budget films made with financing from subsidiaries of large studios, such as The Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring and Good Will Hunting, can also, technically speaking, be considered independent films (Tzioumakis 2). However, for the sake of conciseness, focus will be placed here on films that fall more under Levy’s classification.
Going back to Hollywood’s Studio Years, independent film existed in the form of movies made by Poverty Row studios to service independently-owned movie theatres that could not afford to buy the major studios’ productions (Tzioumakis 64). These films were characterized by, according to film historian Wheeler Dixon, “shoddy sets, dim lighting restricted mostly to key spots, non existent camerawork and extremely poor sound recording” (cited in Tzioumakis 63). These studios became the rulers of the B movie genre in the 1940’s (Tzioumakis 83), as well as major players in the ethnic film market (Tzioumakis 90). At the same time, picture magazines Life and Look experienced surges in popularity, demonstrating to filmmakers that the everyday can provide gripping dramatic material (Carney). As well, Italian neorealist films came to Stateside theatres, and the on-location shooting and “looser, less focused narrative and photographic style” that was characteristic of these films would influence American filmmakers in a huge way (Carney). This shift in consciousness was most evident in New York, which had always been more receptive to European cinema than the rest of the U.S. due to its large immigrant population (Carney). Facilitating the renaissance in American independent film even further, The Paramount Decree, which found the major studios guilty of applying monopolistic practices to eliminate competition, was signed by all the majors in 1948, and thus began the dismantling of Hollywood’s studio system (Tzioumakis 101).
In the second half of the century, modern independent American cinema really came to be defined, as films like Easy Rider (which would have been considered exploitation in the 1950s) entered the mainstream (Tzioumakis 171). The period between 1967 and 1975 came to be known as the Hollywood Renaissance. In this period, independent films saw great success, as they were born out of a new revolutionary sensibility that had spread through the U.S. and were thus able to “capture the spirit and mood of a nation in turmoil” (Tzioumakis 184). This short-lived era, however, ended with Hollywood’s abandonment of these socially relevant films and swift movement toward big-budget blockbusters at the end of the 1970’s (Shaw). This shift “left a door open to new voices” (Shaw).
As a response to the new, conservative politics that dominated the nation in the 1980’s, a countercultural film movement developed, whose leaders included Spike Lee and Jim Jarmusch (Tzioumakis 209). Breakthrough indies like sex, lies, and videotape were shown at Robert Redford’s newly-established Sundance Film Festival, which paved the way for a whole new crop of independent film festivals to emerge (Shaw). Independent filmmakers of the 1980’s generally financed their own films, which “afforded [them] the freedom to explore pressing social issues” (Shaw). One such issue was that of sexual identity. This litigious subject was taken up by the filmmakers of the New Queer Cinema sub-movement, of which Gregg Araki was, and still very much is, an important figure.
New Queer Cinema refers to the wave of queer-centered films that were shown on the festival circuit in the early 1990’s (Aaron 3). These critically-acclaimed films gave voice not only to the gay community, but also to the marginalized sub-groups within this community, such as gay black men and male prostitutes (Aaron 4). Some key figures of this movement, apart from Araki, include: Gus Van Sant, Todd Haynes, Jennie Livingston, and Tom Kalin (Aaron 3). These films subverted cinematic conventions in their content, form, and genre (Aaron 4). They also represented the AIDS virus in a new light, rejecting the soberness of an early death and instead focusing on the experience of a person attempting to make the most out of his or her remaining time in the world (Aaron 5).