Great post. I feel fortunate to mostly work on authored cinema. The tradeoff is low wages too many times. But I wouldn't give up films like Be Here To Love Me, Day Night Day Night, White Girl, Entertainment, Nine Days or Ex-Husbands for anything. I feel among the lucky ones. But the filmmakers who made these films increasingly are having a harder and harder time making new ones.
We would have a much richer film culture in the United States, and far more truly authored films, if our country had a national film fund to support emerging film artists and filmmakers seeking to make their second, third and fourth features. Such a fund could also support script development, and provide for longer editing periods. But where would the money come from? I suggest a 10% tax on all industry profits - payable directly into the fund. Contrary to the claims of the AMPTP, this industry remains hugely profitable and lucrative - for the owners, if not the workers. A 10% tax, payable into the fund, would reap enormous creative dividends. Ted, if you attend the next AMPAS all wide meeting (Dec 2) virtually, why don't you ask a question or make a suggestion in this vein? They've heard anough from me at this point.
Right on, Michael! I am with you on being "among the lucky ones." As well the challenge that "the filmmakers who made these films increasingly are having a harder and harder time making new ones". The tax is an interesting idea, but not yet there for me. Also I see AMPAS as about celebrating the art of cinema -- not the business. I don't think it would be the effective organization to bring about such a change. I think it may need to be legislative... or legal...
Ted, I went to film school because I saw Paris, Texas when I was a teenager. I believed that indie filmmaking in the US was possible, not just financing but that people wanted to see more films like this. Unfortunately, that was not the case. As you express so well in this post, the authored film was marginalized by the industry, but you leave out the fact that audiences willingly sat by and ate whatever they were served. I bet you remember a film called Parting Glances with a very young Steve Buscemi, written and directed by Bill Sherwood. Bill was my teacher for one long wonderful sophomore year at Purchase. He told us "the supermarket indie films are coming" and he was dead right. Indies gave up making author films, and made indie thrillers, indie romantic comedies, indie genre remakes.... and audiences lost their appetite for them entirely. There was always Critereon or Cinema Village where you could watch the old "real"auteur films.... which left me the young and ambitious guy full of auteur ideas out in the cold. That never changed. Nowadays an authored film "makes people feel dumb" and is frowned upon as part of the great anti-intellectual sentiment in the US.
I became an expat almost 20 years ago - my most responsive audiences have been in places like Italy. But seriously, the elephant in the room is the American audience as much as the "system" that has put real indie filmmaking on the ropes for so long.
I do remember Parting Glances. I also think we can make authored films within the dictates of genre though. I got to AD on two Frank Henenlotter films (Frankenhooker & BasketCase 2). It's funny I think the American Art Film is what makes an audience "feel" smart, but you are right that most of the other schools of Art film make Americans "feel" dumb. I put quotes around feel, because I think neither are really true. We understand more than we can articulate, and know less than we confess. But art cinema is how much more could be known or understood if we only had better methods of appreciating it.... I guess but I just don't know.
I just saw films like Husbands and Woman Under the Influence and said "I WANT TO DO THAT!" Financing work like that with unknown talent these days? Good luck and you still have to deal with SAG. - -- find and AUDIENCE FOR FILMS THAT LIKE THAT THESE DAYS? Laughable....
Well said Marco, although I for one do not love "Woman under the Influence". I think the problem is also that in America we have these foul term we use (for marketing purpose like everything else in this country) and that is "art film". We need to better bridge the gap and make films that are both entertaining and commercial but also "artfully done". But that's just, like, my opinion, man. Sorry Ted, if I sound snarky. A little snark is OK, though, right? :)
I think there is a huge difference between a scrappy indie drama and an "art film" - these days "art film" is just an underhanded derogatory term that translates to "tedious, boring, self-involved dreck" which is truly unfortunate, and just a reflection of our simplistic society. 30 years ago, an art film was not tedious or boring or self-involved, it was just something new, something fresh, someone had reinvented the wheel.
I find neorealist auteur films to be entertaining, as well as deeply satisfying, profound even, and many were shot on minuscule budgets. I am so tired of being told that "you need to be commercial" to entertain. This goes right back to the audience issue. If they netflix and chill on the regular, you need to feed them cinematic baby food or they will get cranky.
A well-told story, with fantastic performances, thoughtfully crafted with camera and editing, sound and music. -when did that become a dirty word? When indie films became a low budget supermarket - dumbed down so they would "get commercial success". I remember when El Mariachi came out and I was mortified. all style, no substance, no story, no humanity - and it became the film every indie should be making. The audience is just as much to blame for elevating work like that.
I believe AMPAS can, should and must step outside of its self-reflective bubble and engage with the outside world. AMPAS does not exist in a political void. It has one important weapon - the power of persuasion. It also has another one - its power to confer Oscars. To me business and art are inter-connected - you can't have one without the other - unless art has a way of being funded and distributed apart from business, which is the whole point of a film fund not designed to make money, but to make art. What if the Academy, tomorrow, suggested to the heads of all the studios (and production companies) that they start paying 10% of their gross profits to the fund. Completely up to them. Voluntary. But if they decline, they also lose eligibility to compete at the Academy Awards.
Do you think the Academy would be that brave? 10% doesn't sound like a lot, but when I worked with folks on that side of the industry, I never got the impression they would want to invest that much into future development. I would love it if they did, but I think we'd have to continue to shift the culture of the industry in order to make something like that possible.
Hi Ted, OK, I finally bit the bullet and subscribed even though I still don't have my day job back (storyboard artist for big budget films/TV shows) thanks to the strike. At any rate, love your comments here about "authored cinema" and how it failed. Well, I don't "love" the comments but they are spot on. Meantime, I have a couple of great "authored cinema" scripts I'm developing and trying to get made if you...oh never mind. ;)
Wonderful post. Our strategy is to keep touring with our films. The first tour in 2019 we hit 18 cities. Three years later 50. Audience love talk backs and meeting the filmmakers in person. We haven’t made a profit yet but as you point out we are in for the long run. We collect emails at every screening - I explain to audiences that by giving us their email they enable us to be in direct touch verses a Facebook algorithm determining what they see and how they find out about my films. They free me up to create!
We foster relationships and our newsletters have a 50% open rate because of it.
I know of at least two other filmmakers who are doing the same back in my home county Bulgaria. We recently shared lists of independent movie theatres with each other and are building our own eco system for distribution in Bulgaria and the diaspora around the world.
Thank you for the marketing reminder too. We are putting I more and more emphasis there!
Would they be so brave? Who knows? But I think it's the right thing to do. I'm an Academy member and I've suggested this. Not making much progress yet, but I'll keep trying.
"Where" and "Fail" are interesting words. I'm not sure there is a place "where" authored cinema fails. I see authored film/television everywhere in our industry today. I can list a wide range of examples, if it helps the conversation. Though if we are talking about the "impact" authored cinema once had on our culture, perhaps it is better to ask "why" did authored cinema fail to maintain its cultural impact?
tbh - cinema (the act of going into a theatre to watch a film) still can have a visceral impact on us as a collective society, but I wonder if the immediacy and accessibility of streaming, television and social media, along with the mass expansion of close to real narrative forms perpetrated by genres like Reality TV have diluted the cultural impact "Authored cinema" once had.
There is just so much material out now that can capture an audiences attention before a person even wonders if they should go to a theater, I think that perhaps authored cinema didn't do anything itself to "fail". But there is just SO MUCH out in the narrative ecosystem today that the story environment is saturated with options. Authored cinema has had a harder time maintaining its cultural relevance because there are just too many choices.
Though I would argue, a film like EEAAO is a form of Authored cinema, as you define it, and in the last 5 years such cinema has been doing very well with audiences and industry.
Great post. I feel fortunate to mostly work on authored cinema. The tradeoff is low wages too many times. But I wouldn't give up films like Be Here To Love Me, Day Night Day Night, White Girl, Entertainment, Nine Days or Ex-Husbands for anything. I feel among the lucky ones. But the filmmakers who made these films increasingly are having a harder and harder time making new ones.
We would have a much richer film culture in the United States, and far more truly authored films, if our country had a national film fund to support emerging film artists and filmmakers seeking to make their second, third and fourth features. Such a fund could also support script development, and provide for longer editing periods. But where would the money come from? I suggest a 10% tax on all industry profits - payable directly into the fund. Contrary to the claims of the AMPTP, this industry remains hugely profitable and lucrative - for the owners, if not the workers. A 10% tax, payable into the fund, would reap enormous creative dividends. Ted, if you attend the next AMPAS all wide meeting (Dec 2) virtually, why don't you ask a question or make a suggestion in this vein? They've heard anough from me at this point.
Right on, Michael! I am with you on being "among the lucky ones." As well the challenge that "the filmmakers who made these films increasingly are having a harder and harder time making new ones". The tax is an interesting idea, but not yet there for me. Also I see AMPAS as about celebrating the art of cinema -- not the business. I don't think it would be the effective organization to bring about such a change. I think it may need to be legislative... or legal...
I agree. The change your asking for Ted is much better served coming from the legislative arena.
Ted, I went to film school because I saw Paris, Texas when I was a teenager. I believed that indie filmmaking in the US was possible, not just financing but that people wanted to see more films like this. Unfortunately, that was not the case. As you express so well in this post, the authored film was marginalized by the industry, but you leave out the fact that audiences willingly sat by and ate whatever they were served. I bet you remember a film called Parting Glances with a very young Steve Buscemi, written and directed by Bill Sherwood. Bill was my teacher for one long wonderful sophomore year at Purchase. He told us "the supermarket indie films are coming" and he was dead right. Indies gave up making author films, and made indie thrillers, indie romantic comedies, indie genre remakes.... and audiences lost their appetite for them entirely. There was always Critereon or Cinema Village where you could watch the old "real"auteur films.... which left me the young and ambitious guy full of auteur ideas out in the cold. That never changed. Nowadays an authored film "makes people feel dumb" and is frowned upon as part of the great anti-intellectual sentiment in the US.
I became an expat almost 20 years ago - my most responsive audiences have been in places like Italy. But seriously, the elephant in the room is the American audience as much as the "system" that has put real indie filmmaking on the ropes for so long.
I do remember Parting Glances. I also think we can make authored films within the dictates of genre though. I got to AD on two Frank Henenlotter films (Frankenhooker & BasketCase 2). It's funny I think the American Art Film is what makes an audience "feel" smart, but you are right that most of the other schools of Art film make Americans "feel" dumb. I put quotes around feel, because I think neither are really true. We understand more than we can articulate, and know less than we confess. But art cinema is how much more could be known or understood if we only had better methods of appreciating it.... I guess but I just don't know.
I just saw films like Husbands and Woman Under the Influence and said "I WANT TO DO THAT!" Financing work like that with unknown talent these days? Good luck and you still have to deal with SAG. - -- find and AUDIENCE FOR FILMS THAT LIKE THAT THESE DAYS? Laughable....
But everyone loves Woman Under the Influence.....
Well said Marco, although I for one do not love "Woman under the Influence". I think the problem is also that in America we have these foul term we use (for marketing purpose like everything else in this country) and that is "art film". We need to better bridge the gap and make films that are both entertaining and commercial but also "artfully done". But that's just, like, my opinion, man. Sorry Ted, if I sound snarky. A little snark is OK, though, right? :)
A little snark is appreciated, Karl. And yes "art film", "indie film", "content" and many more are all bad terms. We need to recapture the language.
I think there is a huge difference between a scrappy indie drama and an "art film" - these days "art film" is just an underhanded derogatory term that translates to "tedious, boring, self-involved dreck" which is truly unfortunate, and just a reflection of our simplistic society. 30 years ago, an art film was not tedious or boring or self-involved, it was just something new, something fresh, someone had reinvented the wheel.
I find neorealist auteur films to be entertaining, as well as deeply satisfying, profound even, and many were shot on minuscule budgets. I am so tired of being told that "you need to be commercial" to entertain. This goes right back to the audience issue. If they netflix and chill on the regular, you need to feed them cinematic baby food or they will get cranky.
A well-told story, with fantastic performances, thoughtfully crafted with camera and editing, sound and music. -when did that become a dirty word? When indie films became a low budget supermarket - dumbed down so they would "get commercial success". I remember when El Mariachi came out and I was mortified. all style, no substance, no story, no humanity - and it became the film every indie should be making. The audience is just as much to blame for elevating work like that.
Brilliant, thank you for the hope, as ever.
“Transmission” by JOY DIVISION released as a 7” Single in 1979 on the Independent Factory Records.
https://youtu.be/Kx3EqNYQklg?si=Md7R8Yn1rN9NtMQj
I believe AMPAS can, should and must step outside of its self-reflective bubble and engage with the outside world. AMPAS does not exist in a political void. It has one important weapon - the power of persuasion. It also has another one - its power to confer Oscars. To me business and art are inter-connected - you can't have one without the other - unless art has a way of being funded and distributed apart from business, which is the whole point of a film fund not designed to make money, but to make art. What if the Academy, tomorrow, suggested to the heads of all the studios (and production companies) that they start paying 10% of their gross profits to the fund. Completely up to them. Voluntary. But if they decline, they also lose eligibility to compete at the Academy Awards.
Interesting. But you would never get 10% from them. Though I would suggest asking. lol
I think if they knew they would never get an Oscar again, they'd come up with the money. What's 10% when you have billions?
Do you think the Academy would be that brave? 10% doesn't sound like a lot, but when I worked with folks on that side of the industry, I never got the impression they would want to invest that much into future development. I would love it if they did, but I think we'd have to continue to shift the culture of the industry in order to make something like that possible.
Hi Ted, OK, I finally bit the bullet and subscribed even though I still don't have my day job back (storyboard artist for big budget films/TV shows) thanks to the strike. At any rate, love your comments here about "authored cinema" and how it failed. Well, I don't "love" the comments but they are spot on. Meantime, I have a couple of great "authored cinema" scripts I'm developing and trying to get made if you...oh never mind. ;)
I will always give anyone who has financial hardship a free "paid" subscription. Just let me know if you need that Karl.
Wonderful post. Our strategy is to keep touring with our films. The first tour in 2019 we hit 18 cities. Three years later 50. Audience love talk backs and meeting the filmmakers in person. We haven’t made a profit yet but as you point out we are in for the long run. We collect emails at every screening - I explain to audiences that by giving us their email they enable us to be in direct touch verses a Facebook algorithm determining what they see and how they find out about my films. They free me up to create!
We foster relationships and our newsletters have a 50% open rate because of it.
I know of at least two other filmmakers who are doing the same back in my home county Bulgaria. We recently shared lists of independent movie theatres with each other and are building our own eco system for distribution in Bulgaria and the diaspora around the world.
Thank you for the marketing reminder too. We are putting I more and more emphasis there!
Would they be so brave? Who knows? But I think it's the right thing to do. I'm an Academy member and I've suggested this. Not making much progress yet, but I'll keep trying.
"Where" and "Fail" are interesting words. I'm not sure there is a place "where" authored cinema fails. I see authored film/television everywhere in our industry today. I can list a wide range of examples, if it helps the conversation. Though if we are talking about the "impact" authored cinema once had on our culture, perhaps it is better to ask "why" did authored cinema fail to maintain its cultural impact?
tbh - cinema (the act of going into a theatre to watch a film) still can have a visceral impact on us as a collective society, but I wonder if the immediacy and accessibility of streaming, television and social media, along with the mass expansion of close to real narrative forms perpetrated by genres like Reality TV have diluted the cultural impact "Authored cinema" once had.
There is just so much material out now that can capture an audiences attention before a person even wonders if they should go to a theater, I think that perhaps authored cinema didn't do anything itself to "fail". But there is just SO MUCH out in the narrative ecosystem today that the story environment is saturated with options. Authored cinema has had a harder time maintaining its cultural relevance because there are just too many choices.
Though I would argue, a film like EEAAO is a form of Authored cinema, as you define it, and in the last 5 years such cinema has been doing very well with audiences and industry.