Opinion: New World Cinema?

If you haven’t read Dave’s article on Kevin Smith’s Red State (link here) then stop now and watch the attached video. It covers a lot of what this piece is about.

The world of cinema has changed a great deal in the last 50 years. Writers and directors once thought to be the dregs of Hollywood now run everything, being classically trained is not a required tick on a background check and producers and large corporate companies now reign supreme.

Or do they? Kevin Smith seems to think that the times are a’changing. People now seek the Internet for answers over the newspaper, bloggers and podcasters are the new media controllers, not governed by money or exclusives and understandably corporations fear this. So much so that when a director like Kevin Smith (who embodies everything that is anti-establishment) announces that he will not be choosing a distribution company for his new film and instead doing the leg work himself, the ripples of this are felt around the world.

Though this movement can be seen as radical and dangerous, the reality is that this is no different from the online music distribution fiasco started by musicians like Radio Head or Trent Resnor a few years ago. If you take The Man out of the equation you turn heads really quickly. Then, start pulling out pieces from the bottom of the industry and everyone from the critics to the producers begin to think the world will come to an end. Now anyone who followed the fallout to this music industry experiment will know that the world didn’t end and music industry is still alive and well. Well, this situation is no different.

To ease your worries, this is not going to mean the death of the big budget blockbusters or the raping of the independent film industry, more likely it’s a return to the true meaning of the independent cinema. When you take out producers and marketing you begin to unleash true ingenuity and creativity (think Sam Raimi). Plus, this will only succeed if the content is good and will not mean a sea of new film makers turning to this as a business strategy, you need capital first. The more important reality is that most directors have neither the time or the money to pursue such a intense project and none of them have the power that Kevin Smith has. His internet army can influence trends with a single twitter comment and one would be stupid to assume that this did not factor into his decision to reinvent how we make movies. He doesn’t have advertising because he doesn’t need to. Between Podcasts, Blogs and his Twitter account, the man can do in 20 seconds what would take a PR company months to accomplish.

Personally, I strongly support his drive for independence, bold as it may be. If it works and is productive, he creates a new type of film making, free of the bounding shackles of fashions, formula and CG wise cracking dogs. If not, it could be the return of the video nasties. As a fan of movies both good and bad, I win either way.

– Josh