by Kelsey Kline
for Meteor Magazine ’96
[This is part of the re-release of Meteor Magazine from 1996. If you are considering submitting work, please use these as a rough guideline for style and content. Please see our Submission Guidelines.]
The nineties have seen the success of films such as Trainspotting, Lone Star, I Shot Andy Warhol, Hoop Dreams, Go Fish, Brothers McMullen, Crumb. Independent films have been rocketing their way out of the art houses to the big bucks silver screens. A lot of the production and publicity of these indies is assisted by the Sundance Institute, the camp for budding filmmakers that Robert Redford started in 1981. Sundance nurtures, advises and raises the Independent artists with the hope that they will have their films for all the world to see. But what happens when these films go big time and the filmmakers are gobbled up by the trend following studios? Do they lose the raw creativeness, fresh ideas and unique voices trying to attain commercial appeal? Does Sundance end up killing its own?
“Do limos and lunches on the lot entitle the studio to a leash?”
In 1969, a virtually unknown actor named Robert Redford was given a chance to play the role of the Sundance Kid in the western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The movie exploded at the box-office, winning an Academy Award and propelling 32 year old Redford into the Hollywood limelight.
Redford, who had been an aspiring artist before entering into film, always has a special place for independent artistic venture. Just over a decade after his acting debut, Redford had garnered enough clout in Tinseltown to create a place where he could discover and develop new talent and preserve the voice of independent film.
Studio interest in American Independent films at that time was relatively non-existent. New filmmakers were left alone to find their own funding, talent and distribution. The major studios considered these films to be experimental, underground or alternative, with no promise a box-office pay-off.
Enter Sundance. The most prolific sections of the Institute are the Screenwriters and Film-makers Labs.
After burrowing through over 1,000 submissions, a dozen writers are invited to the Institute’s Screenwriters Labs (January and June) to have their scripts read and critiqued by top Hollywood writers, most recently including Scott Frank (Get Shorty), Callie Khouri (Thelma and Louise) and Chris McQuarie (The Usual Suspects).
About half of those writers are brought back for a three week Filmmakers Lab (June) with a chance to use ‘resource advisors’ from different areas of production. Directors (James L. Brooks, Sydney Pollack), actors (Denzel Washington, Glenn Close), writers and cinematographers join to help critique the Sundance hopefuls.
Michelle Satter, head of the Feature Film Program says that gives writers and directors the opportunity to work in a safe environment. There is no financial meter ticking away, no deadlines to be met. Only the chance to have your script critiqued by the best in the business, and together, work creatively to make it the best possible piece of work.
Satter estimates that nearly 30% of the films produced as a result of the Sundance program land distribution deals. Some of the films include: Impromptu, Dogfight, Reservoir Dogs, Crush, Mi Vida Loca, Fresh, Corrina, Corrina, What Happened Was and Devil in a Blue Dress.
With such hip and fresh material being produced as a result of the Institute, it was only natural that Redford create a venue for these films to be shown. The Sundance Film Festival, now synonymous with independent film, began in 1984 when Redford brought the failing US Film Festival to nearby Park City, Utah.
Redford invited his famous Hollywood friends to Utah for the festivals, and the media followed. Each year, the festival grew in size, press coverage and popularity. There are now over 200 films shown at the ten-day festival, 500 press members and more than 6000 attendees. Along with Cannes and Venice, the Sundance Film Festival is one of the most popular showcases for the exhibition of independent cinema and the discovery of new filmmaking talent.
The most recent Sundance success story involves Lisa Krueger, a writer/director who went through the 1994 June Filmmakers Lab. Armed with her script Manny and Lo, she was introduced to a producer who agreed to make her film. It premiered at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival, and its distribution rights were quickly bought by Sony Pictures Classics.
Now all the major studios have either bought out or created divisions devoted to purchasing rights of Independent films for distribution in America. Acquisition executives flock to Utah to see what films will win the blessings of Sundance through awards and audience response.
A number of films shown at Sundance have had their distribution rights bought including: sex, lies and videotape, Slacker, Gas, Food and Lodging, Like Water for Chocolate, Reservoir Dogs, Go Fish, Hoop Dreams, Clerks, Brothers McMullen and Crumb.
At the 1996 Sundance Film Festival, the battle by studios over rights for distribution were highly publicized. It was reported by Daily Variety that Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein got into a shouting match with a rival studio at a popular Utah restaurant and was asked to leave. Days later, it was reported that Fine Line had won the rights to Shine, but Miramax secured international rights with Buena Vista. Castle Rock spent $10 million to score Spitfire Grill, a movie which didn’t even win an award at the Festival.
“The talented people with original ideas, quirky characters and non-mainstream topics can now land studio deals, but are forced to play by commercial rules.”
But herein lies the dilemma. What happens to these filmmakers when they are courted by the studio big bucks? The majors are notorious for exerting control over their films. This is clearly a contrast to the renegade, shoe-string, let’s-get-my-friend-to-hold-the-camera productions from which many independent filmmakers are born. Do limos and lunches on the lot entitle the studio to a leash?
Independent means to have a point of view, often a fresh voice, breaking the narrative structure that so often stifles creativity. Hollywood mentors in the Sundance setting can help put these into form. With few exceptions like Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, studios have clearly been cuffing their new talent.
Robert Rodriguez, director of the $7,000 El Mariachi, was courted by Columbia. It bombed, as did his follow-up From Dusk Til Dawn. Kevin Smith of Clerks fame goes to the majors on a two picture deal and his first outting Mall Rats is a laughable failure. We are still awaiting sophomore efforts from both Ed Burns (Brothers McMullen) and Steve James (Hoop Dreams).
Through the Sundance Institute, Redford has given over 150 writers and directors the opportunity to work with mentors and hone their skills in a non-threatening atmosphere. And with the Sundance Film Festival, he has exposed mainstream society to the world of independent filmmakers.
But ironically he has also helped kill the very spirit that he originally sought to foster — the talented people with original ideas, quirky characters and non-mainstream topics can now land studio deals, but are forced to play by commercial rules. Sundance fosters the independent freshman, but sends the sophomores to be smothered by the studios.
Copyright © 1996/2012 Kelsey Kline – Submission Copyrights reserved by author.
Copyright © 1996/2012 Meteor Magazine.
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