FOREIGN INDEPENDENCE

I was interested to note the ten directors chosen by Forbes magazine as their
‘Tastemakers’.

The list is as follows:

Pedro Almodóvar
Sofia Coppola
Alfonso Cuarón
Guillermo del Toro
Clint Eastwood
Alejandro González Iñárritu
Spike Lee
Richard Linklater
Michael Moore
Martin Scorsese

With the exception of Scorsese and Eastwood (the two most recent recipients of the Best Director Academy Award), there is a case that can be made that all the directors chosen are, in one way or another, ‘independent’ filmmakers. However, all of these ‘indie’ directors – apart from Almodóvar – are essentially working within the Hollywood system, and it is a sign of how integrated independent filmmaking has become with Hollywood that a magazine such as Forbes chooses such directors for its elite top ten.

The author of the Forbes piece, Elisabeth Eaves, intriguingly also puts forward the argument that, due to all the “money, talent and cultural influences converging on Hollywood from all over the world” we are seeing “the collapse of the old notion of a ‘foreign film.’ ” Eaves later clarifies her statement by explaining that there has been a recent “globalization of one of America’s most emblematic exports” – meaning that it is not foreign films that have changed, but rather Hollywood films.

With the recent success of films like Pan’s Labyrinth, Babel and Letters From Iwo Jima, it is clear that American filmgoers are no longer daunted by the prospect of seeing a film with subtitles.

Moreover, American directors are showing a willingness to make films in foreign languages. A case in point is The Pool, documentarian Chris Smith’s debut fiction feature which won the Special Jury Prize at Sundance in January. Although based on a short story by his friend and collaborator Randy Russell which was set in Iowa, Smith transposed the tale to Goa in India and shot the film in Hindi. Equally, the first film by L.A.-based writer-director Jason Cuadrado, Tales From the Dead, is a horror film in four parts which Cuadrado filmed with a cast of Japanese actors speaking their native tongue.

One of questions that arises from all of this is, with the growing number of foreign-language films being made by American or U.S.-based filmmakers, will there still be room in the marketplace for ‘genuine’ foreign films?