Quirk-less indie

Movie executives who worship the all mighty dollar are far from stupid. They might be vicious bloodthirsty lunatics, but business savvy is not a field in which they are lacking.

But bless, when it comes to filmmaking they are at the public’s mercy more than in any other field. It’s impossible to say what will work well, and they’re often left playing catch up.

Point in case; Gladiator. Maximus’s death and glory spawned a metric fuckton of movies set in the ancient past that always had a virtuous lead, sharp weaponry and some form of easily available redemption. Troy, Kingdom of Heaven, Alexander. All cash-in attempts. Ignore the writer’s reasoning; these films were greenlit because Harvey Weinstein or someone else wanted a piece of that ‘swords and sandals money.’

The same is true of fantasy post-Lord of the Rings, (Sword of Xanten? Anybody see it? No, didn’t think so), superheroes after X-Men and anything featuring ‘bullet-time’ after Keanu Reeves decided to take the red pill.

This is how studios do business: something makes money, one particular aspect of it is given credit and this aspect is assaulted and forced to produce seed - kind of like John Hurt in Alien.

The next trick is always just a dispensable, easily attachable term away. Terms like fantasy epic, swords ‘n’ sandals, and now indie.

Independent movies are no longer the sole property of Robert Redford and cous cous eating assholes. No, now you’re not interesting if you love Buffalo ’66, you’re just out of touch. You need to see the new stuff; it’s so much more real.
This is, of course, horseshit. (500) Days of Summer, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Juno, Sunshine Cleaning. All conforming to a type, a format. And an easily replicated one at that. A type based solely on quirk.

Quirky. It has lost all meaning. It has become a movie buzzword; like gritty, or intense. It is now something sought rather than attained by accidental virtue.

A quirk is a mannerism, a tic. Whether conscious or not, that’s all it is. As such, saying a film is quirky amounts to nothing. But that’s just the point - it’s an aesthetic, an ideal.

But here we encounter a problem. Indie is a genre spawned from a term that has nothing at all to do with aesthetic or content, so this aesthetic is a wholly manufactured one. In much the same way Bloc Party became the defining sound of indie music, the result is a bizarre mix of everything that previously made anything an obviously independent movie.
Rambling tone, implausible jobs, beautiful chronic messes, revelations spurred on by personal tragedies, shaky cameras, ridiculously extended shots, and of course - a truly excellent soundtrack.

This could be seen as unimportant. Of course studios are trying to make money. Of course they’re going to do whatever they can to make more. To complain that moviemaking is a business like any other is to show yourself as a naive bongo-playing idiot, right?

Wrong. Cashing in on ancient history or cod philosophy is one thing. Those movies don’t claim to be realistic or have anything other than a metaphorical bearing on real life. Twee little indie romances do. This is how love works! This is real because bad things occasionally happen!

Bullshit. You know what else bad things happen in? Scrubs. And if you think life is like Scrubs then you need to go to the nearest hospital and spot the lack of irritating moralising going on.

This is not the same as churning out romantic comedies or pure romance movies. There is always an element of escapism inherent in both of the above. Indie movies come with an automatic stamp of quirky authenticity, and as such, aren’t written off nearly as early. They creep into your head and before you know it you’ve the same idiosyncrasies as the next haircut.

Everyone has affection for certain genres, and it doesn’t matter if a studio or someone who saved their whole life to get their story told backed it. If it affects you then that’s really all there is to it. But it’s important to remember that the people who fund the sweet smiley love story that tugs at your heartstrings also backed Saw II-VI.