Remember when Indie meant Indie?
Do you remember the early days of independent cinema? Those were the days of “Eraserhead” and “Mala Noche” and “Crumb” and “Pi” and “El Mariachi” and “Clerks” and even “Roger and Me.” Do you remember how exciting it was to see the dominant mode of production of our time, movie making, put in the hands of a normal person who could live next to you? Or could it even be you?
Remember when ten grand, maybe twenty if you cleaned out your bank account and maxed out your credit cards and asked all your friends and neighbors and relatives and even people you barely knew but bought drinks for? And it was worth it?
Portland independent filmmaker Andy Mingo wants you to know two things about independent film: first, it’s alive and well in Portland, Oregon, and second, there’s a difference between the history of independent film, the current corporate takeover of independent film and what he is calling True Independent Film.
Andy Mingo is the director of The Iconographer, a new independent feature being considered for the festival circuit this year. Written, directed and edited by Mingo, The Icongrapher was made on a budget of less than $20,000 with local actors working for his wife’s cheese, wine and lasagna bakery.
Mingo shot the entire movie on location in Portland, Oregon, from a local liquor store to a beach on the Sandy River, warehouses, car interiors, and strip clubs. The cameras came from grants and equipment loans from the Northwest Film Center. The actors knew each other from local productions and jobs and bars and a passion for doing something because you just can’t not do it. The music came from people Mingo had known for years. The sound technician had a day job. Almost all of them did.
The Iconographer’s story has one foot in independent film history and one foot in the territory Mingo calls True Independent Film. According to New York Times bestselling author Chelsea Cain, “The Icongrapher is personal, funny and incredibly smart, a little story with big waves that resonates on so many levels, from its perfect portrayal of family dynamics to its sociopolitical allegory. And there’s enough fake blood to keep things interesting.”
The true independent film, according to Andy Mingo, still works from the ground up and focuses on the small, human story. In addition to “The Iconographer,” Andy Mingo has written, directed, and produced six short films, which have appeared at various festivals and national screenings, including the Longbaugh Film Festival, Northwest Film and Video Festival, PDX Film Festival and Northwest Tracking. – Short Film Magazine V.11. Mingo is a professor of media studies at Clackamas Community College and the author of the novel East of Elko. He also runs Chiasmus Press, one of Portland’s award-winning independent literary presses. And he’s on a mission to advocate for true independent filmmaking.
Independent cinema used to exist. Unfortunately, in 2009 “Indie Cinema” has become another brand device for making big money movies sound… modern. The winners of the Sundance Film Festival feature Hollywood actors and deep-pocketed backers. Fox wears his “Searchlight” as a hipster mask. And Warner Independent Pictures? Actually? Let’s be honest. The corporatization of independent film has eaten it alive and turned it into something glitzy that consumers with enough money to spend can buy to impress their friends and feel… edgy. True Independent Film, according to Mingo, is both a return and a movement from the future.
2009 Portland, Oregon, well, we’re a petri dish. For example. Gus Van Sant did “Mala Noche” in 1985 for 20 thousand. It gained overnight fame on the festival circuit, with the LA Times naming it the best independent film of the year. It took “Drugstore Cowboy” and “My Own Private Idaho” to nail New Line Cinema, and the rest is history. So by all accounts, Portland should be an incredible breeding ground for more Gus Van Sant, and Indie Film in its prime in particular.
In most ways, it is. Independent filmmakers like filmmakers Andy Mingo and James Westby, documentarians Brian Lindstrom and Andrew Blubaugh, and experimental filmmakers like Miranda July and Matt Mcormick keep it real, according to Mingo, creating in the fires of True Independent Film.
It used to be that when people talked about independent publishing, music or film, independent art, they were mostly referring to art that subverted their genre. Not just in terms of content, style, and mode of production, but also in terms of diffusion to an audience and the disruption of capital. You could hear the best music in a rat hole downtown, music born from someone’s garage or from brave kids crouching in abandoned houses to practice their licks. You could get hooked on the best literature passing it from hand to hand on the street or in the bars or alleys. You could witness the renaissance of cinema at an arthouse theater for half the price of the Cineplex, and feel christened afterwards instead of covered in butter and chocolate.
But today, even trying to break into the film festival circuit that dots the country means having to compete with corporate-backed films made by already established filmmakers on big budgets with Hollywood actors and distribution going to the highest bidder. Movies like “The Icongrapher” basically take on the Hollywood studio industry. And there’s no way to bake enough lasagna to compete with that.
Still, filmmaker Andy Mingo insists that true independent film is still being made, and in fact might have the possibility of something that the corporatization of independent film can’t quite absorb:
look. Independent filmmakers have not gone away or stopped doing what they do. They just have a harder time getting seen than ever as “indie” has become such a market-driven genre. Don’t get me wrong, there are a number of great movies coming out of the corporate independent market. But a distinction needs to be made between those polished, well-financed products and movies that are made in the true spirit of real independent cinema. I don’t think less people should make their own movies. I think more people should.
It’s a feeling of hope right now. True independent filmmakers, just like people who can’t help but make music, can’t help but write the closet manifesto, survive in close-knit communities, grants, and dinners at each other’s houses. So even as we pay close to $8 these days to watch a blockbuster or check our mailboxes for Netflix’s next Oscar winner, I secretly hope Mingo is right:
There is no time to despair. In the darker days of 2009, when things have gone to shit, redefinitions are possible. It may be that there are more, rather than fewer, forms of art available. People are sitting in front of Mac computers. People have more and more access to cameras. With all that money on the line, entire careers wax and wane at the speed of light, and movies that don’t gross go under. True independent films are unsinkable, because they are tied to nothing but the people who make them.
For Mingo, True Independent Film “is exactly like a petri dish: things that are unique can grow. Things that normal people do have a way of…thriving dangerously.”