For my studies this year I will be concentrating on American Independent Cinema, its history, and key movies that not only inspire my own adventures in filmmaking but generations of young filmmakers. In this beginning blog I will be covering the beginnings of Independent Cinema in North America and its early progression, leading up to the first of four movies I will discuss over the following weeks in this blog series.
It can be said that the true start of independent cinema in general springs from the original innovators of the film camera, who didn’t film for the sake of big production but more to just experiment with a new technology.
The first film believed to be made in the United States was released around the year 1890 and was by a pair of men named William Kennedy Dickson and William Herse, who shot an experimental film primarily made to test the original cylinder Kinetograph. They named the film ‘Monkeyshines’ and it is the true beginning of American Independent Cinema.
As the new century dawned and Hollywood blossomed into the cinema powerhouse that it is known for today, there were a few notable independent filmmakers who carved the way for the history of cinema and are commonly cited as pioneers and amongst the greatest artists of all time. Walt Disney, who of course founded one of the biggest companies not just in cinema, but the world was once a small independent producer with an interest in the new idea of animation.
Other examples of early independent filmmakers in America include Orsen Wells, Alexander Korda, and Walter Wange, but one of the most pivotal independent filmmakers of the early years and possibly of all time is Charlie Chaplin. Born English, Chaplin got his best success overseas in America where the films he made including The Great Dictator, Modern Times, The Kid and City Lights gained widespread notoriety and put Chaplin’s name i
nto the houses of many Americans. Despite Chaplin’s films not being entirely independent, being early examples of big Hollywood productions, Chaplin not only
starred in his films but wrote, directed, produced, and scored all his own movies, a DIY attitude that almost defines what Independent Cinema is.
By the 1950s, the influx of film students, post-war angst and the beginning of rock and roll, young power, and the downfall of tradition all contributed to the increase of American Independent Cinema and new, younger filmmakers dipping their feet in new, unexplored aspects of films.
The 1950s saw the rise of horror and sci-fi pictures, two genres that to this day are infamous with independent cinema and leading this new independent movement were filmmakers like Ed Wood, who crafted all he could from huge science fiction and horror ideas working with a limited budget, with movies like ‘Plan 9 From Outer Space’ and ‘Bride Of The Monster, Wood is often called one of the worst directors of all time, but he has since grown a major cult following in later years, enough so for a movie to be made about his like, by Tim Burton.
Jim Knipfel writes about Wood's impact in one of his blogs, “People can chortle at Wood’s pictures all they want. The latest Star Trek or Batman or Superman reboot, the next Will Smith movie, the next five DeNiro comedies, yeah, yeah, yeah. 30 years from now no one will know and no one will care. But they’ll still be watching Plan 9 for whatever reason and they’ll still be having a good time.”[1]
Another big player in early American independent cinema was John Cassavetes who released his debut movie ‘Shadows’ in 1959 and would go on to make a string of films in the 1960s synonymous with American Independent Cinema, including The Dirty Dozen, The Killer, Faces, and Rosemary’s Baby. One of Cassavetes's biggest admirers was Martin Scorsese. ‘Scorsese admires Shadows so much that he hasn’t watched in since the first time, once explaining, “I’ve gone back and reseen many pictures I love over the years, but Shadows I needed to see only once. Sometimes it’s like that. It hit me like a lightning bolt, and I don’t want to touch that flash of recognition I had 50 years ago.”[2]
By the late 1960s cinema had changed in many ways. As younger more experimental filmmakers like Jack Nicholson, George Romero, William Freidkin, and Francis Ford Coppola started making their first movies – adult themes and imagery started being explored much more frequently in American film. This ultimately led to the MPA rating system being introduced in 1968, officially disbanding the idea that cinema was for everyone, creating age-related restrictions for different films.
This in my opinion was one of the major moments in American Independent Film as the new restrictions caused Hollywood production companies to limit the amount of adult-orientated films they were releasing, fearing loss of profit due to smaller audiences. This in turn created a niche market of 18+ theatregoers perfect for the edgier themes that American independent film was exploring at that time.
In my next blog I will be discussing the stylistic choices, history, and inspiration I take away from possibly the most critically acclaimed Independent Films of All Time, George A. Romero’s, ‘Night of The Living Dead’
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