Top 5 Indies

Today a new Blair Witch film opens. I know I never asked for a sequel, but the first The Blair Witch Project was such a huge sensation when it came out in 1999, I guess it was inevitable. Not only was Blair Witch one of the most successful indie films ever made, it popularized the "found footage" film style. Often unknown actors perform into a handheld camera, creating a modern verite feel that brings a sense of reality to everything from horror, to sci-fi, to comedy.

I'm not a fan. These movies usually make me seasick- and the sound design is so "real" I have to pull out my ear horn and listen really hard to figure out what is going on. But my opinion aside, Blair Witch gave a boost to the indie scene that is undeniable.


Indie films have always had an influence on mainstream films, so here are my picks for Top 5 Indie Films:

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

George Romero is the father of the modern zombie movie. No, really. He is.

With his 1968 horror classic Night of the Living Dead, Romero popularized the idea of zombies being dead cadavers that rise from the grave and stalk living humans for their flesh. Before this film, there were zombie movies- as early as White Zombie (1932), but the zombies tended to be the product of Caribbean voodoo. Witch doctors could turn someone into a mindless zombie who would do their master's evil bidding.

There are definitely variations on this theme- for instance aliens raise the dead to try and take over the world (or at least as much of Southern California as Tor Johnson and Maila Nurmi can manage) in Ed Wood's "worst movie ever" classic Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959). But typically the zombies in movies were a product of an evil villain using otherworldly means to produce the terrifying- though slow-moving- undead.

What Romero does in NOLD that is so fascinating is that he turns the cause of zombie-ism from a personal to a social peril. In NOLD the dead rise en masse due to some sort of radioactive contamination. What's worse- is once someone has been bitten, they then become contaminated and transform into one of the flesh-eating creatures.

This contagion spreads quickly and soon your friends and neighbors (and in one horrifying scene your young daughter) are mindlessly turning against you. As the group of survivors that we are following cower in a farmhouse, they listen to the radio news reporting mass murder and cannibalism, the reanimated horde outside the door threatening to break-in and devour them. The only hope is of a military intervention with enough firepower to mow down this constantly advancing inhuman swarm.

It doesn't take a brilliant sociologist to see the fears of the 1960's in this movie. The Cold War; the nuclear bomb; the social upheaval of the Civil Rights Movement, Women's Liberation, and the Sexual Revolution- all of these cultural terrors are rolled-up into the seemingly unstoppable wave of chaos- an image of our culture literally devouring itself.

Of particular interest is Romero's choice of leading man Ben- African American actor Duane Jones. In a house full of white people, Ben is the only one who seems to know what to do and to have the courage to do it. It was a bold step forward for Black roles- nihilistic ending notwithstanding.

NOLD would go on to make beaucoup box office- unheard of at the time for a movie made outside of the studios and would spawn a host of movies and now television shows. So you can thank or blame George Romero for that.






Pink Flamingos (1972)

Everyone's favorite Pope of Trash John Waters was only 26 when he made the movie that would bring him to national attention. Before Pink Flamingos, Waters made wild shorts and one full length feature with his crew of Baltimore actors, drag queens, and garden variety wack-a-doos. His work was popular on college campuses and at underground screenings, but nothing could prepare the world for the popularity of the pure filth that was Pink Flamingos.

Babs Johnson (Divine being divine) is proud to be the filthiest woman alive, so when fashionable couple Connie and Raymond Marble (David Lochary and Mink Stole) challenge her by sending her a turd in a box- it's game on. The laundry list of mind-boggling images is without peer in film history:

Babs' son Crackers (Danny Mills) having sex with a woman and a chicken, Raymond flashing innocent victims in the park with a sausage tied to his sausage, a literal lipsynching asshole, Babs licking the Marbles' living room furniture so it will physically reject them all while making it with her son, and of course there is the famous dog-shit eating scene that ends the picture.

Waters loves to poke fun at the rules of our world. This movie is just one long game of cultural chicken. Waters wants to see how far he can push our limits before we- what? Get up and leave? Throw our popcorn at the screen? Ban his film? Or tell our friends all about the disgusting movie we just saw so they will go see it? Plenty of people were turned-off, but the film developed a cult following that has only grown over the years.

Waters is unique in that his culture-poking is all in good fun- clothed in cheap suburban glamour and kitsch. He doesn't seek to change cinema- he just wants to be allowed to operate on the outskirts of the Hollywood system where he can film an old lady sitting in a playpen eating eggs and not have to worry about it winding up on the cutting room floor. As his later work gained more mainstream acceptance, his sharp wit seemed to lose some of its edge- probably a victim of the very system he had sought to avoid. But we will always have Pink Flamingos to remind us what can happen when a director gets to play by his own rule-less rules.

Mean Streets (1973)

Today Martin Scorsese is one of the lords of film directing, able to make big budget bio-pics starring Leonardo DiCaprio in between shining his Oscar (only one???) and re-watching The Red Shoes (1948). But in 1972 he was just another NYU graduate with a film camera and a Mean dream.

Scorsese's breakout film was based in part on childhood stories he'd heard and seen on the streets of Little Italy in New York City. Mean Streets stars then newcomers Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel as a pair of American-Italian boys who are looking to get ahead any way they can. Charlie's (Keitel) goal to get in with the mafia is hindered by his unhinged friend Johnny (De Niro) whose big mouth and big gambling debts are a constant source of trouble. The film becomes a crisis of faith between an inborn Italian Catholicism and friendship, and the allure of the American dream achieved at any cost. It is a theme Scorsese has returned to many times.

The look of Mean Streets is no frills- much like the dimly-lit world it depicts. Scorsese mainly shoots with a handheld camera that brings the audience right into the film's action.

The poolhall fight scene is stunning- the camera swirling around the room as people punch and fight- dizzying us as the punches dizzy the fighters while the Marvelettes croon "Please Mr. Postman." It's an extraordinary melding of filming technique and story- a case study that modern handheld directors should watch more closely. The characters spew profanity amidst their natural-sounding dialogue immersing us further in what feels like a real place full of real people.

While many people love Scorsese's Goodfellas (1990), I feel Mean Streets' smaller production values lend themselves better to the grubby world of mafia wannabes. These are little men striving for a greatness that only exists through the pain and victimization of others. Triumph is always achieved on the backs of others and never lasts. Today's mafia king is tomorrow's crime scene.

Ultimately released by Warner Brothers, Mean Streets would be one of the last "little" movies Scorsese would make.

Blood Simple (1984)

Joel and Ethan Coen were really excited to write and direct their first movie, Blood Simple. But how could they raise the money necessary to make it happen? They came up with the idea of shooting a short two-minute trailer-like version starring themselves that they could take from living room to living room convincing potential donors to back the finished film- raising money like a couple of directorial Girl Scouts. Luckily for us- their plan worked!

Blood Simple is the Texas take on the modern noir. Mr. Marty (the perfectly grumpy Dan Hedaya) suspects his wife Abby (Frances McDormand in the first of many Coen Brothers roles) of having an affair with one of his bartenders, Ray (John Getz) and hires a private detective (M. Emmett Walsh) to get the goods on them. This starts in motion a succession of fuck-ups, double-crosses, and murders that result in a bodycount and a particularly gruesome incident involving a knife and a window sill.

The Coen's cinematic style is on full display here with the lighting strategy of shadows and neon applied to the backrooms of cheap Texas bars and seedy motels instead of the streets and alleys of urban America. The characters in a Coen noir usually aren't very competent and frequently make situations worse than we could have ever imagined- showing us that crime doesn't pay- not necessarily because justice intervenes- but because it's almost impossible to do correctly.

While not as laugh-out-loud funny as their next film Raising Arizona (1987), Blood Simple contains the dark comic elements that the Coen Boys have become famous for and is a blueprint of sorts for what they would achieve later with their Oscar-winning hit Fargo (1996).

Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995)

There is one scene in Todd Solondz's Sundance Award-winning dark comedy Welcome to the Dollhouse that has always stuck with me. Dorky outcast Dawn "Weiner Dog" Weiner (the perfectly cast Heather Matarazzo) walks into her seventh grade lunchroom with her lunchtray and looks around for somewhere to sit. She is rejected at every turn, ultimately having to sit alone before being accosted by a group of cheerleaders questioning whether she's a lesbian.

My seventh grade Harrison Junior High PTSD kicks in every time I see Dawn and I viscerally understand what this poor girl is going through.

It's not just teen a-holes that make Dawn's life a living hell. Her parents don't get her and don't understand why she can't be as adorable as her younger sister Missy- who takes every possible opportunity to torture Dawn while whirling around in a tutu. Dawn's "boyfriend" starts their relationship by threatening to rape her- and afterwards only meets with her in secret. She is so desperate for any kind of attention, she complies.

But her heart belongs to dream-y older rock band boy Steve Rodgers (Eric Mabius) who is so far out of her league that not even a prayer shrine devoted to him can change the outcome of this doomed crush.

Dollhouse is full of moments where the despair and the over-imaginative hopes of a teen who doesn't belong come all-too-accurately to life. But unlike some of the films of the teen fish-out-of-water genre, Solondz doesn't go for the "it gets better" ending. There is no "nerd-y but lovable girl gets the cool guy who is more than his looks" moment for Dawn.

She is trapped in a suburban life that she will never really be part of. Her only hope is of someday escaping to another town- but if my reaction to this film is any indication, you never really escape.



So those are my favorite Indie films. What are yours?