Independent Visions: A Critical Introduction to Recent Independent American Film - Softcover

Lyons, Donald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345382498 ISBN 13: 9780345382498

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1994

Synopsis

“Independent Visions is an indispensable guide to the independent filmmakers who are changing how we look at movies. Donald Lyons writes with wit and passion.”—Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
 
Far from the big money movie machine of Hollywood lies the cutting-edge, artistically fresh world of American independent film. These independent filmmakers, working outside the formulas and constraints of the big studios, produce today’s most exciting and innovative movies. In Independent Visions, film critic Donald Lyons surveys the surprisingly vast array of these independents from across the country and dissects the fascinating careers of the men and women who made them, Including:
 
Joel Coen (Barton Fink) · Martha Coolidge (Rambling Rose) · David Cronenberg (Naked Lunch) · Abel Ferrara (Bad Lieutenant) · Carl Franklin (One False Move) · Leslie Harris (Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.) · Hal Hartley (Simple Men) · Jim Jarmusch (Mystery Train) · Spike Lee (Do the Right Thing) · David Lynch (Blue Velvet) · John McNaughton (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer) · Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi) · Nancy Savoca (True Love) · John Sayles (Passion Fish) · John Singleton (Boyz N the Hood) · Steven Soderbergh (Sex, Lies and Videotape) · Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs) · Gus Van Sant (My Own Private Idaho) · and many more!

About this title

From the Inside Flap

big money movie machine of Hollywood lies the cutting-edge world of American independent film. Follow critic Donald Lyons as he surveys today's most innovative and exciting movies and the fascinating careers of the men and women who make them.

From Booklist

About the only thing the 50-odd contemporary American filmmakers whom Lyons examines have in common is that they work outside the traditional Hollywood studio system. This allows them a much wider range of subject matter and stylistic approaches. Those subjects range from the genuinely outr{‚}e (Gregg Araki's Living End is about a pair of HIV-positive gay lovers on the lam) to the virtually mainstream--enough so, in fact, that many of these filmmakers, after earlier independent efforts, are now ensconced in the Hollywood system. Even if Lyons' blanket dismissal of Hollywood ("creatively as dead as the Manchus") leads hims to overstate the case for independent films, the diversity of the directors he covers--including women (Nancy Savoca), blacks (Spike Lee), and gays (Gus Van Sant)--proves his point that indy directors turn the camera on people and concerns that Hollywood has neglected. Although any such work is bound to omit some significant figures, Independent Visions is a surprisingly thorough overview of the state of independent filmmaking during the past decade and is made even more useful by the filmographies Lyons supplies for each director he covers. Gordon Flagg

Edition details

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0345382498
• ISBN 13: 9780345382498
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 356