What is Independent Cinema?
As I mentioned, I’ve been thinking about the concept of independent cinema this weekend. This question informs the paper I’ll be delivering at the MLA conference in December. In my paper, which starts from The Jacket director John Maybury’s critical comments about the Hollywood film industry. Maybury, who wasn’t shy about criticizing powerful industry figures, describes The Jacket both in terms of the European art cinema and in terms of its “subtextual” treatment of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. In the paper, I’ll be exploring the film’s allusions to and reliance upon this “European art cinema” tradition, but I want to argue as well that the film’s ostensible status as an “indpendent” also needs to be explored (the film was produced by Warner Independents). So, here’s my question: What constitutes an independent film? I’ve been reading Chris Holmlund and Justin Wyatt’s fine collection of essays, Contemporary American Independent Film: From the Margins to the Mainstream, and I’m still not
