I watched four movies the other day, and it was a wide variety at that. This is my favorite time of year — the time when film festivals entice me to binge on numerous occasions for numerous days in a row. Yet, I am entering this season, with some real dread: a fear that my most recent conclusion will soon be verified. I know I can never get enough movies but at the same time I think we need to halt much of what we are doing — if not making the films, then some of the ways we go about it.
For the first time in about twenty five years, I have had a year off from truly producing. I am not trying to earn the lion share of my income from generating new work, and after being slave to that dictate for so long, it is a welcome relief that hopefully grants me some new perspective. Nonetheless, I still define myself as an indie producer, and as such now damn myself as well as all my comrades when I look at our culture, its results, and I attempt to see things as they really are.
Indieland is cursed. We are sick and infected. We have been beaten down, sliced, diced, and drained of the great life force. Sure, I see beacons of hope — tough bastards kicking against the pricks — but they sure as hell ain’t the rule (not that they every really were — but they have grown fewer and farther between). I am trying to see the forest, and thus have to shield my eyes from the bright lights that shine every year. Like trinkets, they distract, and we can not allow ourselves to surrender our land for some pox-infested blankets. What is the big picture that we are all part of? Can any of us not blame ourselves?
Indieland has been fooled. We have been slowly tricked to think that it is good enough to just get it our damn movies made. It isn’t and that’s some of the problem. It’s claimed that compromise is the name of the game, but that compromise is the start of an insidious corruption that spoils the fruit long before the harvest.
The process determines the results. And it is a process that we have allowed to be defined by compromise. We choose the director that can sell , give a bit on that casting decision, base the ending on what worked before, put the big head on the poster, and above all explain and simplify and deliver the goods. We do what has been decided as financially prudent — and that is often far from being artistically brave.
And we do so willingly because we all know it is so friggin’ hard and we are so fuggin’ fortunate to earn a living making creative work. Along the way we tell ourselves it is okay. And like us, the audience does too, because these are real stories up there on the screen. They are not robots, or monsters, but the stuff like us — and that’s what really is scary. The monster is not fiction. The demon is inside of us. It is everywhere and omnipresent. We need our Roddy Pipper glasses now more than ever.
I know that as I surrender to this latest wave of festival fever dream delirium, I am going to find those films that pop. The remarkable always surfaces. There will be five or so films that remind me of the love and power, beauty and truth, the uncanny and the wonder that has fueled my veins for so long. I am thankful for those films and particularly those that delivered them, those that found the way to resist or ignore and not compromise, who kept reaching higher than needed and know to say no. Fuck, that’s hard. And thank all that is for those — because we need them. We need them desperately. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Economic disaster, industry-wide re-corrections, rising real estate prices, the desire to have a family, insecurity, fear and uncertainty — I get it. We need to work. We can’t live in worry. If we are going to get to the great, we have to bide our time until, but still… do those ends justify the means? Watching so many movies to get to the few that justify, it seems like we are all settling too often.
And because it rarely comes as one large decision — there’s no satan to take your soul in a single trade — we give over our ambition in a series of slow drips. I hear it from virtually every producer I speak to: “Yeah, we had to ______ to get it made.” We say yes to that first request in the order to build the relationship. The second yes may not even hurt. Soon it is a river and they never stop asking. We have no life raft; no path through the rapids. Drowning they say is one of the less painful ways to go; it may even be somewhat blissful…
For twenty five years I had to get a movie made — every year. Not just one mind you, but really two. Each year. Once, when I marveled at a friend’s output and he said four kids and a mortgage are truly inspiring. The bills have to get paid sooner than even our dues.There our responsibilities. And obligations. So many reasons why we say, yes; so many reasons to compromise and get it made now.
I don’t think any producer (or director or writer) entered the business to just make movies. I think we all planned to make great ones. But the toil and strife wear down our hide and the need to survive requires a compromise. And then another. And another. And so on and so on and so. Soon we can not even recognize what we are doing. Instead of leading the culture forward with works of great ambition, we are destabilizing all of humankind with our willingness to compromise.
We have to remind ourselves: it is not enough to just get a movie made. We have to really make them great.
I only want to work with those who are good collaborators, but sometimes the best relationships start by saying “no”. When I fell in love with cinema, it felt overrun with crazed geniuses, and now it seems like everyone now instead knows how to make sound business decisions. I long prided myself with the claim that all my films (okay… most of my films) felt like they could only have been made by the director who directed them. That claim, as well as the one, that every director I produced would say they got the best film they were capable of getting, helped me have a good night sleep virtually each and every night. Yet, is that enough in these times?
Is it enough that the director gets “their movie” and communicates their individual voice? Are we getting enough from our current crop to make us realize how truly awe-inspiring life can be? Isn’t that what art and culture are supposed to be? Something that not just helps us not just recognize where we are are but also where we really want to be? How can that ever be when even our independent work starts to take on a sameness that the market equates with risk mitigation?
How do we stay fueled with the passion to take each film further when we always have to pay the bills ?
Is it that American film work is entirely market dependent for both it’s financing and revenue? Recognize that being market dependent is something entirely different than audience dependent. We don’t let audiences make success any more; our ecosystem pre-dictates what will “work” and not. When the business structure dictates most of what gets made, and that business is based on risk mitigation first and foremost, it is not a surprise that sameness and lameness are the menu’s only items. An ambitious culture of any sort requires not just visionary artists but visionary financiers.
Personally I don’t think it ever makes sense to depend on there being excellent individuals for anything — and that is where we are now in terms of independent films. If we don’t have excellent individuals we don’t get excellent work — and we can’t rely on that. We need to build structures that don’t depend on our generative creative people to consistently compromise to get their work made. We need to build a structure that allows visionary work to burst forth on a regular basis. And I don’t believe that will ever be possible in a system that is dependent on the individual to be the force that rises above the dreck. It requires we build a system that fortifies the individual to stand firm in their reasonable demands, knowing they are part of a larger community — and does not require those who control the purse strings to consistently second guess themselves and live primarily to cover their ass.
There is a method that allows artist to strengthen their convictions, investors to recognize vision is the best formula for success, and the art to be the instigator for good business. We don’t need to allow ourselves to be corrupted by pursuing our hope to earn a living doing what we love. I will talk about that more next week…
Note: This is that post that I was referring to:
http://trulyfreefilm.hopeforfilm.com/2013/09/10-reasons-we-need-staged-film-financing.html
