US Independent Film After 1989: Possible Films

The terms independent and indie hold instant recognition and considerable cultural cachet in contemporary film and popular culture. As a brand of American filmmaking and a keynote of critical film discourse, indie denotes specific textual, industrial and reception practices that have been enthusiastically cultivated over the last two decades, underpinned by a canon of highly visible films such asjuno, Memento and Slacker and by influential figures like Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson, Kevin Smith and Joel and Ethan Coen. Looking beyond the directors and works that have branded indie discourse in the 1990s and 2000s, US Independent Film After 1989: Possible Films attends to a group of 20 texts that have not been so fully subsumed by existing critical and promotional rhetoric. Through individual studies of films including All the Real Girls, The Exploding Girl, Laurel Canyon,jesus Son, Old joy, Primer and You Can Count on Me, leading cinema scholars consider how notions of indie practice, poetics and politics can be opened up to account for a larger body of work than the dominant canon admits. With particular attention to female directors, this innovative and comprehensive book explores the central tenets of indie scholarship while simultaneously emphasising the classifying processes that can limit it.