Karina on SpoutBlog

“There is, of course, cause for concern, and even alarm.”

These were some of the first words out of moderator Annete Insdorf, at the start of a panel called Snip Snip: Are Cutbacks in Film Distribution and Criticism Affecting Quality Filmmaking? in Telluride on Sunday. She ticked off all the alarming factors––studio-funded arthouse distributors like Paramount Vantage and Picturehouse are shutting down; marketing costs for the average film have risen to the $20 million range, which means that true indie distributors can’t compete; there’s a glut of films in both festivals and in theaters; print outlets dedicated to film have all but disappeared, and general interest publications have come to see critics as a luxury. She closed this listlessness-inducing laundry list with the question, “Will we simply have to read blogs to be informed about non-Hollywood cinema?” The distributors and journalists on the panel (including Michael Barker of Sony Pictures Classics, Anne Thompson of Variety and Scott Foundas of Village Voice Media) ended up taking this querie and running it into a lively, contentious debate. But first, Paul Schrader declared that he’s already heard the death rattle of cinema as we know it.

“Technology is leaving behind much that we are fond of,” Schrader warned. “I personally believe that movies are a 20th century art form, and they’re basically over.” Several times over the course of the session, Schrader expressed enthusiasm for short-form episodic work made on low budgets for small screens. Referencing the rise number of “professional” media makers who have jumped to the webseries format, Schrader announced that he’s currently planning a film that would exist in a couple of different versions: one feature designed for arthouses, and one “X-rated” version, cut into 12, 5-minute episodes, for viewing on cellphones and/or on the web. Schrader’s not planning to go this route because it’s lucrative, but because it’s what he sees as our inevitable future. “There’s [currently] no money in it, but it’s much better to gore the ox than to hold the ox that’s being gored.”

Schrader’s doomcasting right at the beginning of the panel established an extreme for the other speakers to work against. “Before Paul’s apocalypse takes place,” Danny Boyle said, “The star system may change a bit.” He noted that in the six months he was in India shooting Slumdog Millionaire, Will Smith was in Mumbai twice setting up various deals. He predicted that all stars and filmmakers will have to start seeing themselves as global brands–something that might be tough for the British. “We don’t deserve to make films,” Boyle said of his countrymen. “We make music, and we’re good at it, but we get what we deserve, really. Which is Harry Potter.”

Michael Barker, for his part, blamed the global economic crisis on any downturn in box office receipts, and denied that the actual act of distribution had become appreciably more difficult in recent years. “It’s always been difficult. Just the variables change.” He paused. “Paul, you’re killing me, man. I think the danger here is absolutism on any of these issues. I actually think distribution is more exciting now than it’s ever been–you have so many models.”

Barker went on to dismiss the notion that the current indie arm model is in crisis. “I can tell you, it was really tough before video to play these movies theatrically…Mark Gill said we have to work hard, but if any of us worked any harder our brains would fall out. Now, film criticism is in a great crisis. I think the internet has really hurt film criticism, because a blogger with no expertise is given as much weight as someone with enormous expertise.”

But the “sky is falling” meme wasn’t started by Paul Schrader, or even an evil blogger. Even Gill just gave a name to anxieties that have been plaguing the indie industry for awhile. It’s understandable that Barker would be skeptical of bloggers––they’ve certainly failed to give him the benefit of the doubt in the past––but it’s interesting that his company continues to acquire films with built-in appeal to web communities (The Wackness, Baghead, even Persepolis), but have so far been unable to appeal to those communities on the level of a Fox Searchlight, or even some self-distributing filmmakers. Right around the time Gill gave his now-infamous speech at the LAFF, Barker’s company’s experimented with a new model by releasing Baghead in Austin first –– a gambit which, despite the wide-spread support for the film from both bloggers and critics, failed. Baghead, even with the support of the major studio, has so far grossed about 60% of the final number netted by The Duplass Brother’s last film, the blog-boosted The Puffy Chair. Barker also noted that though he’s “seen more exciting filmmakers from around the world” recently than ever before, “I don’t feel that way about American independent film.” So maybe he’s going to stop buying them?

Barker noted that part of his problem with internet criticism is that he doesn’t know which sites to read. “I wish there was a way on the internet to find a site with great credibility,” he said. Though Scott Foundas expressed similar sentiment (I guess these guys haven’t heard of GreenCine Daily), not everyone on the panel was so down on web criticism. Anne Thompson noted that there are “great bloggers” out there, while agreeing on a need for better aggregation. “What I’m praying for is that someone puts together an indie film portal that puts everything in one community. And it will happen.” For her part, Columbia professor Insdorf noted that she recently published writing for the first time on the web, for Moving Image Source. “I suddenly realized there was an advantage to doing it online: we could embed a film clip! I am starting to realize that there are good ways we can do this.”

But not many. Schrader said he had once thought that if filmmaking didn’t work out, he could go on to become a full-time film critic. No longer. “It’s not really a living wage profession anymore.” Foundas nodded, “This is a part-time job that requires full-time work.”

Towards the end of the session, Boyle tried to counteract all the negativity. “We’re making it sound like a funeral,” he said. “You have to remember the younger generation. Remember when you were younger, and the old people were always moaning? People said that sound was going to ruin everything–”

Foundas cut him off. “It might have! I don’t think the verdict is in yet.”

Under discussion:

Learning Gravity  (2007)

Irish filmmaker Cathal Black, known for making movies that fluidly mix fact and fiction, documentary tropes and dramatic technique, has maybe found his ultimate subject in Thomas Lynch. Lynch, who describes himself in Black’s Learning Gravity as “a father, a husband, an undertaker,” is also a renowned poet and essayist whose writings inspired Alan Ball to create his HBO series, Six Feet Under. In the film, Lynch says his poetry grew out of a desire to “leave a record” for his children of what was going on in his head while he appeared to be “staring at your ear, preoccupied.” Poetry, he says, is his way of making his subjective interpretation of his life, work and family into something concrete, an “effort to act out in language those most unspeakable feelings.” It’s a philosophy and practice tailor made for Black’s hybrid style.

Moving from ruminations on the family business to Lynch’s personal confessions and back again, Gravity’s heavily stylized dramatizations are built around Lynch’s poems, which the author reads aloud. He appears in the film as himself, but he’s also played in some scenes by the slightly younger, trimmer Gary Hetzler. Lynch’s calm, measured voice, with just a hint of an accent (he indentifies himself as Irish-American, and his stories take place mostly in Michigan and on the Irish coast), support Black’s eerie, occasionally surreal images. There’s a lot here that brings to mind Gregory Crewdson, the contemporary photographer whose work so reliably inserts a sense of the supernatural into the everyday suburban. (Coincidentally or not, Crewdson photographed a promo campaign for Six Feet Under in 2003.)

Both Black’s visual style and Lynch’s unflappable narration help to temper the inherent quirk value to some of the stories (the couplet about the lady who though better of putting an ash-filled urn in the trunk and instead buckled it into the passenger seat; the corpse who tells his story as he’s being outfitted for the open casket), but the film gets its real weight from Lynch’s revelations on the inner lives of those who work in death. He describes learning the trade from his father as a teenager, and keeping himself busy with little details of preparing the corpse of a crime victim so as not to think about “evil.” As he ages, he gives up alcohol because he’s worried that his young son “fears” the man he turns into when he drinks, but finds relief in the renewed emotional sensations of sobriety, ultimately feeling “thankful” for the pain brought by his own parents’ death. If Learning Gravity has a fatal flaw, it’s that Black’s impeccable visuals rarely match that kind of visceral impact. It’s all so smooth and dream-like like sometimes it’s impossible to feel it.