Shoot it!: Hollywood Inc. and the rising of independent film PDF
Preview Shoot it!: Hollywood Inc. and the rising of independent film
ShootCover_V14_NewSpine_outlined.indd 1 16/11/11 10:42 AM UUnniivveerrss LLTT SSttdd TTyyppeeffaaccee UUnniivveerrss LLTT SSttdd TTyyppeeffaaccee Shoot It! Shoot It! Hollywood Inc. and tHe RIsIng of Independent fIlm daVId spaneR arsenal pulp press vancouver sHooT IT! copyright © 2012 by David spaner all rights reserved. no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical—without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may use brief excerpts in a review, or in the case of photocopying in canada, a license from access copyright. arsenal pulp press suite 101, 211 east Georgia st. vancouver, Bc canada v6a 1Z6 arsenalpulp.com The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the canada coun- cil for the arts and the British columbia arts council for its publishing program, and the Government of canada (through the canada Book Fund) and the Government of British columbia (through the Book pub- lishing Tax credit program) for its publishing activities. printed and bound in canada cover design by electra Design Group photograph on cover courtesy of susan seidelman editing by susan safyan library and archives canada cataloguing in publication: spaner, David shoot it! : Hollywood Inc. and the rise of independent film / David spaner. Includes bibliographical references and index. also issued in electronic format. IsBn 978-1-55152-408-5 1. Independent films—History and criticism. 2. Motion picture industry—united states—History. I. Title. pn1993.5.a1s63 2011 791.4309 c2011- 905445-0 For the blacklisted, who endured with humor and dignity. “They'll rob you of your innocence, they will put you up for sale The more that you will find success, the more that you will fail so play the chords of love, my friend, play the chords of pain If you want to keep your song, don't, don't, don't, don't play the chords of fame” —phil ochs contents Introduction 9 parT I: Why are the Movies so Bad These Days? The Rise of Studio Film one: 21 class War in the valley Two: 40 The cossacks are coming Three: 56 Hollywood exiles Four: 70 The actor rebellion Five: 84 The cassavetes Group six: 99 new Hollywood seven: 119 new York Magic eight: 135 studio nation parT II: and Why are They so Good? The Rise of Independent Film nine: 155 France: The Impossible Is realistic Ten: 173 Great Britain: The Ideological Is personal eleven: 191 south Korea: sympathy for Quota vengeance Twelve: 205 Mexico: revolution and Hollywood Thirteen: 219 romania: out of the silence Fourteen: 233 canada: Goin’ Down the us road Fifteen: 252 america: Just real sixteen: 267 Hollywood ending endnotes 280 selected references 290 Index 296 IntRoductIon On September 15, 2010, while Mexican authorities were sparing no ex- travagance to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the country’s inde- pendence, filmmaker Francisco vargas assembled 850 photographers to create an “instantaneous” movie about Mexico city. They fanned out across town, word-renowned photographers and novices, to cre- ate Nuestra Señora de Concreto (Our Lady of Concrete), a loving portrait of their city and its people, but one with a question. “The unequal, uncertain, and violent reality we live in,” says vargas, “makes us ask ourselves if we really have something to celebrate.” ‡ The better filmmakers have always had questions. The French new Wave’s François Truffaut, for one, also always had an answer—no— whenever Hollywood studios came calling with offers. “He never really made a movie for commercial reasons,” says his daughter laura. These days there’s even more reason to steer clear of the studios. “They don’t care about the movie,” notes Truffaut’s other daughter, eva. “They care about the products they sell.” With ancillary profits from merchandis- ing and home viewing, box office accounts for less than twenty percent of the bounty generated by a studio movie. There were early examples of commercial crossovers and product placement (the first film to win a best-picture oscar, Wings, promoted Hershey’s chocolates in 1927), but today’s commercialism is so unbridled that the Writers Guild of america has complained that their members are being forced to write ad copy into their scripts. “The result is that tens of millions of viewers are sometimes being sold products without their knowledge, sold in opaque, subliminal ways and sold in violation of government regu- lations.”1 In Cast Away (2000), Tom Hanks isn’t stranded on a desert island; he’s stranded in a two-hour Fedex commercial. I, Robot (2004) wants to tell us that the distant future will have the same great com- modities as today: converse trainers, ovaltine, audi, Fedex, Dos equis, and Jvc. Space Jam (1996) star Michael Jordan is the film’s product placement, along with everything he’s ever dreamed of endorsing, from Wheaties to nikes. The movie known at the time of writing as James Bond 23 has reached new heights, deriving $45 million from prod- uct placements. “What disappointed me about The Last Temptation of 9
The list of books you might like
