Page-turners and stocking stuffers. By David Hudson November 10, 2003 - 10:16 AM PST Stuff these. Peter Biskind, the boomerish former editor of Premiere and American Film, has a way with buzzwords when it comes to titling his books: Seeing is Believing: How Hollywood Taught Us to Stop Worrying and Love the Fifties. Or: Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-And-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood. And coming in January: Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film. If Easy Riders in particular is any indication, we can expect not only comfortably liberal commentary on the social context of this "rise" but also the juicy "down and dirty" on who smoked or snorted what when, who's slept with whom how often and who still owes how much to whom. I, for one, am looking forward to it. The problem for gift-givers, though, is that January comes after Christmas. So while we all wait for the lowdown on those wild and crazy Weinsteins and that party animal Geoff Gilmore, I thought I'd offer a few recommendations for that friend or loved one (or self) who enjoys American independent films of that increasingly distant era so much that she not only watches them but likes to read about them as well. These three books aren't new, their authors are not out on promotional tours, but, judging by how well I've worn out my own copies over the last couple of years, they've definitely proven both useful and fun. Celluloid Mavericks: The History of American Independent Film. By Greg Merritt. 416 pages. Thunder's Mouth Press. Frankly, this one was not all that fun the first time through. Greg Merritt's writing seems choppy and sloppy as he whiplashes from film to film, director to director, but in fact, he writes quite well. I'm guessing he simply wrote various passages at different times, possibly in different states of mind, and eventually strung them all together, and voila!, a book. But it's probably also because he crams so much information onto each page that trying to take it all in at once is just plain futile. That said, it should be read from beginning to end, even if you have to do so in small portions. Because there's an important argument here, namely: The history (and that is a "The" in the subtitle, despite the "A" on the cover) of American independent film does not begin in the 1980s. That ought to seem obvious enough, but if you were to read only the other two books (and Biskind's as well, evidently), you could easily get the impression that Generation X came up with a radical new idea and a handful of heroic pioneers ran through umpteen credit cards each to realize it. For the first time. Ever. Merritt's book is more than three quarters through before we even catch our first glimpse of Park City, Utah. He begins in 1896, actually, which is only partially fair since there were hardly studios yet to declare one's independence from. But the struggle for control over film production and distribution was already hot and heavy with Thomas Edison's company and two others, Biograph and Vitagraph at each other's throats. The fun begins. From there, it's a gallop through the century in the company of filmmakers who either refused to compromise their visions or simply never made the cut within the studios. In other words, filmmakers who were either too good or too bad for Hollywood, and a few, like Ida Lupino, Robert Aldrich or John Cassavetes, who managed to balance both worlds. Once you've plowed all the way through to 1999, you'll probably find yourself going back to this book again and again. It serves terrifically as a volume of reference, divided as it is, first, chronologically, and then, within each of these periods, into sub-chapters with bold headings such as "Documentary," "Avant-garde" or "Sexploitation." You can slice and dice this thing in more than a few different ways, and it's when you isolate Merritt's comments on specific films that you realize the guy really does know how to turn a phrase; just not several in a row. Cinema of Outsiders: The Rise of American Independent Film. By Emanuel Levy. 565 pages. New York University Press. If you're looking to sink your teeth into the specific era we think about when we say "American indies," this is the one. It's telling that Merritt's other book is a practical how-to on filmmaking, while Emanuel Levy's got books under his belt on Andrew Sarris, George Cukor, the Oscars and even Israeli nationalism. We dwell longer here on the films and their makers, do a bit more pondering about it all, but fortunately, Levy never goes all academic on us, either. He focuses on the mid-80s through the 90s, though he does reach back to about 1977 when he needs to, and he's a little faster and looser about including "semi-independent" films than Merritt is. He has to be because he's interested in each director's work as a thematic whole, so when he turns to, say, Jonathan Demme or Kathryn Bigelow, there are going to be a few ventures now and then to the other side of the tracks. There's no front-to-back requirement on this one, no overriding narrative arc. Instead, Levy offers hefty chapters such as "The New York School of Indies," "Female/Feminist Sensibility" or "The New Gay and Lesbian Cinema." You can come and go as you please, dipping in wherever your curiosity draws you - and it will. Sample a sentence on Abel Ferrara and before you know it, you'll have read the whole sub-chapter, the pages on Scorsese that precede it and those on Tarantino that follow. And maybe missed your bus as well. Levy really is that sharp and engaging. Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes: A Guided Tour Across a Decade of American Independent Cinema. By John Pierson. 384 pages (editions vary). Miramax Books. Stop me if you've read this one. But if you haven't, it's about time. For a producer's rep, John Pierson spins a catchy, at times, even riveting yarn. And what is a producer's rep? Basically, a go-between, somebody who hooks up a filmmaker with real money, usually for a specific project, and takes about five percent somewhere along the way. Pierson more or less wrote the rules along the way throughout the period he chronicles here, the mid-80s to mid-90s. It's here that you see "first-hand" that there really was something unique about those days between Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise and "Indiewood," the eventual takeover or demise of all too many truly independent production houses in the late 90s. If Merritt's book is an important and necessary antidote to the swooning mythologization of that era, Pierson's is a reminder of just how exciting and adventurous it was for those who took the leap, and yes, also a reminder of the impact filmmakers he worked with, such as Spike Lee, Michael Moore, Errol Morris and Kevin Smith, actually had on the industry. They did shake things up, no doubt about it. Besides the often amusing peeks into the savvy and/or insecurities of each of these personalities (chapters alternate with excerpts from an interview with Smith, for example; it's padding, but it's entertaining padding), Pierson also offers some both-feet-on-the-ground insight into how these movies got made. Not in the form of set reports or discussions of camera angles or film stock, but in terms of financing, the deals scrawled on napkins that led to formal contracts, that sort of thing. Which, in the case of indie films, can be even more of a make-or-break matter than it is for a studio project whose worst fate might be floating around indefinitely in development hell but never given up on entirely. That said, if you or whoever it is you're thinking of giving to are looking for info on the actual nuts and bolts of all this, that is, if you're thinking of actually producing a movie, I'd recommend instead Christine Vachon's Shooting to Kill: How an Independent Producer Blasts Through the Barriers to Make Movies That Matter. There, you can look at some actual budget breakdowns, marketing plans on a dime and so on. Pierson reproduces a budget or two as well, but more for comic than utilitarian effect. The real purpose of his book is to tell some you-won't-believe-what-happened-next stories, and he's got plenty. Most of all, he captures the spirit of an all-too-brief phase in American film history and leaves you wondering who'll be shaking things up next and how. back to past articles >>> Index Stuff these. back to past articles

David Hudson lives and writes in Berlin. February 6, 2007. Mark Savage & the D.I.Y. Aesthetic by Jeffrey M. Anderson February 3, 2007. Seeing the Humor in Sexual Identity by Michael Guillen January 29, 2007. Smokin' Aces with Joe Carnahan and Jeremy Piven by Sean Axmaker January 26, 2007. Include Me Out: Interview with Farley Granger by Jonathan Marlow January 25, 2007. Grindhouse: Chapter Four - The 1960's by Eddie Muller January 19, 2007. Charles Mudede: Zoo Story by Andy Spletzer January 19, 2007. Mark Becker: Merging the Personal and the Political by Sara Schieron January 19, 2007. Micha X. Peled: The Lives of the Sweatshop Youth by Hannah Eaves January 16, 2007. Djinn: A Taxi Driver Dreams of Perth by Jeffrey M. Anderson January 12, 2007. Clint Eastwood: Flags and Letters From the "Good War" by Jeff Shannon view past articles