Reading Between the Lines:
The Pragmatics of Meretricious versus Meritorious Independent Cinema
Brandon Niezgoda , Seif Sekalala
Drexel University, Philadelphia PA
Introduction
Independent Cinema is in turmoil, yet much
of recent film theory is in debt to an
exhausted corpus of post-structural ideas
made current during the 1970s. As the
Hollywood Industry is primarily functioning
with a tentpole system under multinational
global corporations , current film research
must reorganize and address these relevant
structural inequalities for current
filmmakers. Evaluation must address the
political economy of the film industry to
find where progress can be made towards a
more democratized, authentic and
autonomous, cinema beyond Indiewood.
Driving Miss Daisy and Do The Right Thing both premiered in 1989. The former went on, beyond unfair and
uncompromising production standards, to win a set of well earned Academy Awards. The latter, backhanded compliments
but an iconicity. Spike Lee has continued in his future career to voraciously create films addressing the impossible issue of
race in the United States. An intolerable question to answer, Spike Lee’s inability to win an Academy Award and
conspicuous relationship with the Hollywood Industry doesn’t answer any questions but creates new ones.
The production of culture perspective and
methodology deconstructs the artistic
qualities and merit of a motion picture not
from semiotic readings on the work of an
autonomous and isolated auteur, or from
exegesis and dissemination of
poststructuralist metaphors, but rather
through acknowledging the political
economy and cultural milieu of the film
through analysis of historically situated
topics.
This project uses a six-facet model of
cultural production comprising of
technology, law and regulation, industry
structure, organization structure,
occupational career and market analysis to
identify the specific modes of creation for
specific films. Do The Right Thing (1989) and
Driving Miss Daisy (1989) will be two
movies evaluated relative to their treatment
of African Americans in the United States.
Kissing Jessica Stein (2001) and The Owls
are compared on motion picture treatment
of lesbianism; and LOL (2006) and LOL
(2012) on technology and society. While the
films are disparate, the production of
culture perspective makes possible
comparisons across the diverse sites of
culture creation as it focuses on the
expressive aspects of culture rather than
textual values.
Three iconic, although not traditionally acclaimed Independent films Do The
Right Thing, The Owls, and Joe Swanberg’s LOL share specific qualities.
1. They have original scripts, with plots constructed through the social reality
of their writers.
2. They included the input of their community.
3. They were produced and created through networks, rather than traditional
production models.
Spike Lee is an auteur. A central, but collaborative role, built on patterns of
simultaneous innovation, recognition, and repetition in his over twenty feature
films as director.
Driving Miss Daisy, 1989, Directed by Bruce Berseford
Methods & Materials
Conclusions
Results
Do The Right Thing, 1989, Directed by Spike Lee
From films of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, the New Queer Cinema movement was coined by B. Ruby Rich. The films
were innovative, brash, and uncompromising. With the Hollywood commercialization of the genre conventions, Rich
eventually claimed the movement was but a moment. A studio independent, distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures,
Kissing Jessica Stein tells the story of a single woman who has an impromptu lesbian relationship. Ten years after Kissing
Jessica Stein, and fifteen years after her well received, yet micro-budget film The Watermelon Woman Cheryl Dunye’s The
Owls is a confounding, and mesmerizing film made through the use of a collective, and speculative of all gay and lesbian
filmmaking made before it and to be made after.
Kissing Jessica Stein, 2001, Directed by Charles Herman Wurmfeld
The Owls, 2011, Directed by Cheryl Dunye
The remake of her 2008 French film, Lisa Azuelos’s LOL starring Miley Cyrus was a supposedly plagued production. A film
about the role of technology in a teenager’s life featured the self destruction of the directors iPhone over frustration of the
creation process. Joe Swanberg’s 2007 LOL was created, with love, by friends on and off during breaks. Not focused on
technology itself, the creators of the film expressed banality with the oft repeated questions on what camera they used.
With no aspirations of ever showing the movie to many people, the film captures the hyperreality of twenty somethings as
they aimlessly try to make sense of their lives. The film and others were grouped under the phrase and genre
Mumblecore. An imperfect cinema, but wrongfully identified; Swanberg’s filmmaking is self-reflexive, and far from selfserving. Technology helps Swanberg, and his characters, but it certainly is by no means their savior.
LOL, 2012, Directed by Lisa Azuelos
LOL, 2007, Directed by Joe Swanberg
Cheryl Dunye’s The Owls brings together key figures past and present in Queer
Cinema as she thinks through the possibilities of her filmmaking in the selfconfessed twilight of her career..
Joe Swanberg’s LOL serves as but one example of a Semi-Permanent Work
Group pragmatically assembled. The directors of the Mumblecore disaspora
essentially take turns in a mutually beneficial relationship.
Implications
Driving Miss Daisy being produced, funded, and
distributed is a hard to fathom anomaly in 1989. Now, in
2015, there is even less room to maneuver within the
tumultuous Independent Film industry. Although not
granted an Academy Award, Spike Lee’s constant
collaborations are acknowledgement enough of his
ambition and drive. Cheryl Dunye’s The Owls is ultimately
a piece of frustration, recognition, and transcension of an
all absorbing and unforgiving Hollywood model that
devours all forms of authenticity. Filmmakers like Joe
Swanberg have found relative success, not through
technology, but through the help of others. Filmmakers,
more now then ever must be cognizant that an ingenious,
rabid, rhizomatic, and selfless production style will be the
only way to keep making films and engender new
channels of and for democratic filmmaking.