Shoot it!: Hollywood Inc. and the rising of independent film

305 Pages·2012·3.379 MB·English

by  Spaner, David

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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