Originally posted by Captain Virgil Hilts
See Rules #4, #7
I've seen a fair bit of independent films... I have an opinion about their motivation.
- They aren't interested in commercial success. They aren't following some formula. The movies aren't generally made to be entertaining, though they occasionally are.
- They are often dark and often troubling. You and I and most everyone we know would look at a story like "Houndog" and think, "How horrible! I can't imagine anything so terrible." The film maker that made this film went the other direction. He not only imagined it, he filmed it.
- The films absolutely lack a mainstream perspective. They are all too often about things that we just don't talk about in a "polite" society.
- The films almost never have a hero. They quite often have normal people doing heroic things. Likewise, the films almost never have a monster. They have normal people doing monstrous things.
I find that independent films are typically about humanity, warts and all... not the people that we wish we were. The people that we are, the people we don't want to see when we escape to the theater.