Yesterday, I started my reflection on the last decade of American Indie Film. I will conclude it tomorrow (I promise). Today, I wonder what opportunity did we miss over the last decade.
There wasn’t really ever a transfer of power in the film biz, was there? During the growth of AmerIndie, Hollywood remained a business of blockbusters. Yes, previously underserved audiences got full on banquets of offerings as the menu of filmed entertainments grew more diverse, but the clamoring hordes born from the niches didn’t climb the castle walls as some have claimed; the same power sat on the same throne as before. Fanboys & geeks were inevitably the masters once Hollywood embraced the logic of tent poles — so there is nothing surprising about their current reign. And yes, Hollywood’s current crop of top directors were born from that indie big bang of the nineties, but for those directors, Indie always seemed more like a training ground than sort of a manifesto. And the power in the Hollywood system, still rarely rests with the directors.
What is it that happened between Indie’s growth in the 1990’s and now? What did the last decade do to the hopes and dreams of The Indie Wave?
