Customer Reviews:
Seen 'em all? Read this book. Otherwise..........2005-10-15
I enjoy reading about film, and had previously read (and enjoyed) "Shooting to Kill" by Christine Vachon and David Edelstein and "Down and Dirty Pictures" by Peter Biskind, so I thought I this would be a great book for me.
I haven't seen many of the "classic" indies detailed in the book (i.e. Slacker, She's Gotta Have It, Go Fish, etc.), so I had trouble understanding (and sometimes paying attention to) parts of Pierson's book. I did learn a lot (and I'm happy about that), but I was also confused much of the time. It would have certainly helped if I would have seen the movies he was detailing. He didn't write the book for people like me. He probably wrote it for people with already strong backgrounds in independent film.
I predict it's a really good read if . . . you have seen loads (i mean loads!) of indie films since the "Stranger Than Paradise" (1984) and you already know about the directors and distributors of the post-1984 indie scene.
If you don't feel like your an industry expert just yet, trying reading "Shooting to Kill" or "Down and Dirty Pictures." They assume much less about the reader. Then watch the "classics" mentioned in these books. Then read this book. You'll appreciate it much more.
Revised version published as Spike Mike Reloaded.......2005-04-22
Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes was revised and published in January 2004 under the title: Spike Mike Reloaded. It contains a new foreward by Kevin Smith, new chapter by John Pierson, and a new dialogue between the two of them.
If You're Going to Sundance ..........2004-04-17
The "A Guided Tour Across a Decade ..." portion of the title is a little misleading to some.
While he talks to and about Kevin Smith, Quentin Tarantino, Michael Moore, Jim Jaramusch, Spike Lee and others, and while it's a first account of the American independent film movement circa 1990s - this is NOT a book about their films (either as analysis or critique) or them (as directors and their techniques or merely celeb gossip).
This is a book about the trials and tribulations of being a producer's rep.
There are two types of people who should read this book and would find it useful.
If you plan on directing or producing a movie - consider this book a MUST READ - film distribution 101 reading.
He talks in relevant detail about representing some of the most important American independent films of the 1990s including SHE'S GOTTA HAVE IT, CLERKS, ROGER & ME and others. While he gives an almost day-by-day blow of some of these films as they travel from film festival circuit to deal making to publicity tours - the real value is are the details about the process that one can expect as an independent film maker.
Now, a decade later, many things have changed (especially the financing numbers and studio/distribution situation today versus the 1990s) - what hasn't changed is the overall process of what you might encounter and expect. Here's a great opportunity to read what they encountered and what lessons you might learn from them.
The detailed summary on a deal-memo and points that they negotiated regarding the distribution contract and revenues from distribution and home video - are worth the price of a USC Film School class (not the whole education - the books not that great - just a excellent class :-)
If you are a film fanatic and want to learn a portion of the nuts and bolts of the process of film festivals and independent distribution - you should find this book of interest.
Why only three stars? Deduct one star for ... this book would've been more interesting if we got more of a first hand account from the directors and their feelings during the process along with John Pierson's.
Deduct another star because the industry and the financial numbers and the players have changed so the details of the situations are not very useful.
But the foundation of Sundance and other buzz-worthy festivals reached the public eye during this period so if you're going (or thinking of going) to Sundance, Toronto, et al - get up to speed on all that's transpired so far.
Again, this is a MUST READ for aspiring directors and producers. For others, it all depends on how interested you are in the history of the business process of indepedent film-making ...
too much horn-tooting.......2001-07-24
What could've been a good guide to modern indie film is bogged down by Pierson's relentless and self-serving tooting of his own horn. Who cares?!? What we really want is the inside story of all these independent films and filmmakers. Pierson seemed to lose track of who the stars of his book should be. I also found the author's writing and his overall knowledge of movies to be lacking. A much better book on the same broad topic is "Celluloid Mavericks" by Greg Merritt, which covers the entire history of American independent film from a much more literate and balanced perspective.
Definitely for Kevin Smith fans.......2000-07-17
Although I'm a big fan of indie films, I found this book a bit dull. Not that I'm looking for a typical Hollywood put on the glitz and glamour type of book, but the book basically deals with how the author put together financing and got distribution for some indie films. It definitely could have been told in a more exciting way. The best thing about it is the interviews with Kevin Smith that are interspersed through the first half or so of the book. Then, they drop off, and I did as well. The author is definitely a huge fan of Kevin Smith, which is great, as there are a lot of Kevin's journal entries included about when Clerks was at Sundance. If you like Kevin Smith, this is a good read, if only for the interviews and the chapter about Clerks. If not, then well...you might like it, but it's a little dull. If you haven't seen Slacker, Go Fish, Roger and Me, Clerks, She's Gotta Have It, Amongst Friends, Reservoir Dogs, etc., then you might have a hard time as well.
Book Description
"The most detailed and up-to-date book on independent cinema, an invaluable reference work." -Molly Haskell, The Washington Post
"Thoughtful and substantial" -Stuart Klawans, The Nation
"At a time when independent American films are more visible and important than ever before, this is an invaluable study. Emanuel Levy's writing is wise, passionate, and amazingly well-informed." -Roger Ebert
"Levy gives us a comprehensive examination of the American independent film movement, with a level-headed, in-depth assessment of the movies it has produced. This is an indispensable text for anyone who wants to understand the independent world." -David Ansen, Newsweek
"The time is ripe for an intelligent, informed, well-organized book on the world of independent cinema-and Emanuel Levy has given us just that." -Leonard Maltin
A Los Angeles Times Bestseller
The most important development in American culture of the last two decades is the emergence of independent cinema as a viable alternative to Hollywood. Indeed, while Hollywood's studios devote much of their time and energy to churning out big-budget, star-studded event movies, a renegade independent cinema that challenges mainstream fare continues to flourish with strong critical support and loyal audiences.
Cinema of Outsiders is the first and only comprehensive chronicle of contemporary independent movies from the late 1970s up to the present. From the hip, audacious early works of maverick David Lynch, Jim Jarmusch, and Spike Lee, to the contemporary Oscar-winning success of indie dynamos, such as the Coen brothers (Fargo), Quentin Tarentino (Pulp Fiction), and Billy Bob Thornton (Sling Blade), Levy describes in a lucid and accessible manner the innovation and diversity of American indies in theme, sensibility, and style.
Documenting the socio-economic, political and artistic forces that led to the rise of American independent film, Cinema of Outsiders depicts the pivotal role of indie guru Robert Redford and his Sundance Film Festival in creating a showcase for indies, the function of film schools in supplying talent, and the continuous tension between indies and Hollywood as two distinct industries with their own structure, finance, talent and audience.
Levy describes the major cycles in the indie film movement: regional cinema, the New York school of film, African-American, Asian American, gay and lesbian, and movies made by women. Based on exhaustive research of over 1,000 movies made between 1977 and 1999, Levy evaluates some 200 quintessential indies, including Choose Me, Stranger Than Paradise, Blood Simple, Blue Velvet, Desperately Seeking Susan, Slacker, Poison, Reservoir Dogs, Gas Food Lodging, Menace II Society, Clerks, In the Company of Men, Chasing Amy, The Apostle, The Opposite of Sex, and Happiness.
Cinema of Outsiders reveals the artistic and political impact of bold and provocative independent movies in displaying the cinema of "outsiders"-the cinema of the "other America."
Customer Reviews:
Very comprehensive, maybe too much?.......2006-12-29
This book is quite comprehensive, and appears to be one of the better ones in its genre. It covers a lot of directors and explains the contexts in which they worked quite adequately. The index/timeline features in the back are a nice touch for people doing research.
The only thing I really disliked about this book was the author's tendency to go on and on about a director's particular film--just when you think he's said enough about the movie, a few more paragraphs follow, which after a while one ends up wanting to skip over. I can see where this might be a useful feature, but for me it tended to break up the continuity of the text.
Cinema of Outsiders.......1999-12-12
"CINEMA OF OUTSIDERS: The Rise of American Independent Film"
A BOOK REVIEW by Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
Emanuel Levy, "Cinema of Outsiders: The Rise of American Independent Film," New York: New York University Press, cl999, 601pp.
Emanuel Levy among those who prefer the challenging, edgy, sometimes outrageous movies that are released outside of the Hollywood studios' network. The author of six books with yet another, a biography of critic Andrew Sarris, in the works, Levy is a senior editor with "Variety" magazine. He does not at any time come right out and declare his partiality to the indies, but his passion for the concept of non-mainstream cinema (or at least for the good ones) surfaces on every page. Ironically, "Variety," the slick trade publication for the entertainment industry which regularly promotes and writes about the biggies, should be the last place Levy wouldembrace as a home. Yet the critic--who
habitually knocks out prescient reviews of the latest pictures using that publication's popular jargon such as "pix," "thesps," and "helmers"--has an overall contempt for the safe, for the movies made strictly to appeal to the lowest common denominator and therefore bring in the big bucks for the studios. This is not to say that he glorifies the entire independent ouevre. Discussing three hundred films albeit not in great depth, Levy gradually unfolds to the reader what he likes and what he does not among indies released from 1977 to the present and has the same disdain for poor quality individualistic films as he has for the blockbusters. He derides the studied, the predictable, the simplistic, the not credible, the subjects which are inadequate for full-length treatment, the charmless, the absent-of-wit--all the deadly sins for which blockbusters are often culpable.
The bulk of the 601-page text is taken up with an encyclopedic survey of indie films released during the past thirty-two years, the sort of scan you can find in most of the popular annuals which capsule-review cinematic output in alphabetical order. Neither alphabetical nor chronological, Levy's book treats the films thematically. Chapters have such titles as "Fathers and Sons," "The New York School of Indies," "The Resurrection of Noir," "Challenging Stereotypes," "The New Gay and Lesbian Cinema," "Female/Feminist Sensibility," and "The New African American Cinema." This body of commentary makes the book a must for public libraries and for the home bookshelves of all who have a passion for thoughtful, cutting-edge movies. While much of what Levy says is duplicated by Leonard Maltin, Roger Ebert, and David Thomson in annuals and studies that review and comment upon the pictures and their makers, Levy's commentary provides a distinctive voice, one which extols the independent movies to a greater degree than
do the other popular critics. I would have preferred that he downplay the laundry list of films in favor of presenting even more detail about trends in current cinema and the effect of these films on the audience and on the previously-ignored segments of the population regularly dealt with by these movies.
Copyright Harvey S. Karten
Book Description
From the prestige films of Cagney Productions to recent, ultra-low budget cult hits, such as Clerks and The Blair Witch Project, American independent cinema has produced some of the most distinctive films ever made. This comprehensive introduction draws on key films, filmmakers, and film companies from the early twentieth century to the present to examine the factors that shaped this vital and evolving mode of filmmaking. Specifically, it explores the complex and dynamic relations between independent and mainstream Hollywood cinema, showing how institutional, industrial, and economic changes in the latter have shaped and informed the former.
Ordered chronologically, the book begins with Independent Filmmaking in the Studio Era (examining both top-rank and low-end film production), moves to the 1950s and 1960s (discussing both the adoption of independent filmmaking as the main method of production as well as exploitation filmmaking), and finishes with contemporary American independent cinema (exploring areas such as the New Hollywood, the rise of mini-major and major independent companies and the institutionalization of independent cinema in the 1990s). Each chapter includes case studies that focus on specific films, filmmakers, and production and distribution companies.
Customer Reviews:
a continual struggle.......2006-11-08
Perhaps you are tired of the analysis of the Hollywood mainstream; of the blockbusters made by the large studies. This book offers a contrast. Describing how the modern Hollywood studio system arose since the 1920s. And how from the early years, there arose a split, with smaller studios occupying a precarious niche. But in this niche, those studios sometimes produced unique, distinctive movies. In recent years, the best known example cited by the book is the Blair Witch Project.
A constant theme is the struggle by the small studios to stay in business, and stay independent. The large studios might sometimes buy out a successful small studio. The economics of budgeting even a so-called low budget movie have always been uncertain. Along with the vagaries of getting a movie distributed to enough theatres, and trying to break out of the art house niche.
Book Description
The independent sector has produced many of the most distinctive films to have appeared in the U.S. in recent decades. From sex, lies and videotape in the 1980s to The Blair Witch Project and New Queer Cinema in the 1990s and the ultra-low budget digital video features of the 2000s, indie films have thrived, creating a body of work that stands out from the dominant Hollywood mainstream. But what exactly is "independent" cinema?
In American Independent Cinema, Geoff King argues that independence can be defined partly in industry terms but also according to formal and aesthetic strategies and by distinctive attitudes toward social and political issues, suggesting that independence is a dynamic rather than a fixed quality. Chapters focus on distribution and relationships with Hollywood studios, narrative and other formal dimensions, approaches to genre, and alternative sociopolitical visions. King also traces the history of the independent sector from the days of early cinema through the beginning of the 21st century.
Book Description
The Rough Guide is the essential companion for anyone interested in American Independent, low-budget and maverick filmmaking. The book looks at the deep-reaching history of American ''indie'' cinema in all its guises, from its earliest incarnations in the 60s and 70s to the growth of indie avatars (Sundance & Miramax) and even considers where it is today. It explores the definitions of ''independent'' film in terms of both aesthetics and means of production and comes complete with a canon of the 50 greatest American ''Indie'' films of all time.
Book Description
Since the explosion in low-budget filmmaking in the 1960s, the "independent" film scene has produced some of the most innovative and successful films of recent years, such as Easy Rider and The Blair Witch Project. But how independent is independent cinema today? And what are the artistic and economic concerns that separate it from Hollywood?
Contemporary American Independent Film is a comprehensive examination of the independent film scene. Exploring the uneasy relationship between independent films and the major studios, contributors trace the changing ideas and definitions of independent cinema, and the diversity of independent film practices. They consider the ways in which indie films are marketed and distributed, and how new technologies such as video, cable and the internet have offered new opportunities for filmmakers to produce and market independent films.
Turning to the work of key auteurs such as John Sayles and Haile Gerima, contributors ask whether independent filmmakers can also be stars, and consider how indie features like Boys Don't Cry and Shopping for Fangs address issues of gender, sexuality and ethnicity normally avoided by Hollywood.
Average customer rating:
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Black Frames: Critical Perspectives on Independent Black Cinema
Mbye B.Cham , and
Claire Andrade-Watkins
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0262530805 |
Book Description
The emergence in recent years of a significant corpus of highly-acclaimed films by people of African descent in different parts of the world heralds a new era in the history of film. This collection of eight original essays by noted scholars, critics, and practitioners of independent Black cinema offers a rare global and systematic examination of what is unique and what is common to the making of films in English-speaking ("Anglophone") Africa, in the United States, and in Britain.
Jim Pines examines the history and contemporary dynamics of production, distribution, and screening in Britain. James Snead looks at images of Blacks conveyed by independent Black filmmakers in America, and Manthia Diawara surveys Black filmmaking in Anglophone Africa.
Three essays provide a particularly informed, provocative, and creative reflection on the aesthetics of Black film and in doing so present a formidable challenge to modernist and Western notions of aesthetics: Kobena Mercer's identification of "interruption," "creolization,"and "carnival aesthetics" as key aspects of the dialogic imagination of independent Black film in Britain; Teshome Gabriel's creative presentation of what he describes as the "traveling" or "nomadic" character of Black independent film practice; and Clyde Taylor's iconoclastic assault on the very notion of aesthetics itself.
Distributed for Celebration of Black Cinema.
Book Description
American Independent films have to many observers provided the only experimental and distinctive voices in recent US cinema. Now an increasingly pervasive influence on contemporary European cinema and mainstream Hollywood, a whole generation of innovative and idiosyncratic American film-makers including Steven Soderbergh, Todd Haynes, Hal Hartley and Jim Jarmusch emerged during the critical and commercial renaissance of the late 1980s and 1990s.
Jason Wood's guide defines and outlines a personal but representative selection of a hundred recommended American independent films. Listing titles such as 'sex, lies and videotape', 'Blood Simple', 'Pulp Fiction', right up to 'Donnie Darko' each entry includes a plot synopsis, a commentary on the film's significance, production and exhibition history and cross-references to other films.
Jason Wood's expert but concise selection, part of the new BFI Screen Guides Series, is an informative map to one of the most vital areas in the contemporary film-making scene.
Book Description
An inspiration to European film-makers and to mainstream Hollywood, US independent cinema has blossomed in the late 80s and 90s with an enormous variety of idiosyncratic and challenging cinema coming to the fore.
Sight and Sound magazine has captured much of the excitement of this vital, intelligent and often quirky cinema as it happened. This book, part of a new series of Sight and Sound Readers, combines interviews with directors, features on major genres and reviews of some of the key films released derived from the pages of the magazine. The editor Jim Hillier adopts a broad definition of US indie film including material on the Coen brothers, Quentin Tarantino, Gus van Sant, Jim Jarmusch, Rose Troche, Todd Haynes, Hal Hartley and many more besides.
Books:
- Star Pilot (DK READERS)
- Steve McQueen The Last Mile
- Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting
- Study Guide for American Cinema
- The Art of The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings)
- The Artist as Monster: The Cinema of David Cronenberg
- The Developing Person Through the Life Span (paper)
- The Devil's Candy: The Anatomy of a Hollywood Fiasco
- The Filmmaker's Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for the Digital Age
- The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky: A Visual Fugue
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Shooting to Kill
Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film
Independent Feature Film Production: A Complete Guide from Concept Through Distribution
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood
American Independent Cinema
