Not Hollywood, by Sherry B. OrtnerHollywood films tell lies. They are unreal, fake, entertaining. Independent films tell the truth. They are dark, depressing, angry, violent, edgy. Hollywood films represent America’s dominant culture.[1] Independent films critique this culture. This, Sherry Ortner writes, is how those involved in independent filmmaking understand their work. They describe their role as one of devastating, assaulting, beating up—even raping—their audience. As Ortner shows us early on, this sense of darkness and violence is pervasive in American independent film.
Ortner’s book comprises both film analysis and ethnography, each of which is emphasised in alternating chapters. Her analyses of independent films focus on their narratives in relation to films’ broader social, cultural and historical contexts (Ortner 2013: 7). The ethnographic component of the book includes participant observation at film festivals and on film sets, as well as observations from Q&A sessions or panel discussions with filmmakers, interviews with those involved in filmmaking and, finally, published interviews with filmmakers. The scale of the study is enormous: She watched around 650 (mostly) independent films, attended more that 100 live, close-up discussions between filmmakers and interviewers and interviewed 75 people for her research.
Incorporating all these sources, “Not Hollywood” explores the intersection of the media, neoliberalism,[2] generation and class in contemporary America. Ortner shows that independent film emerged strongly in America beginning in the 1980s, as a critique of both neoliberalism and the (increasingly unrealisable) American Dream. The films have a “fuzzy morality” (Ortner 2013: 143), reflecting the similarly fuzzy morality of neoliberal capitalism, where “amorality, immorality, and often illegality have come to seem ‘normal’.” (Ortner 2013: 145)[Read the rest of the article]: Not Hollywood, by Sherry B. OrtnerAuthor informationLara McKenzieResearch Assistant, The University of Western AustraliaOriginal article: Not Hollywood, by Sherry B. Ortner©2013 PopAnth - Hot Buttered Humanity. All Rights Reserved.
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