In defense of the genre, independent films are indeed, the good ones anyway, a godsend for cinephiles who prefer narrative over spectacle, cohesiveness over piecemeal work, and personal vision over screen writing-by-committee, which unfortunately, thanks to the popularity of video games, and perhaps, Internet porn, marks them as elitists. While some people are sincere about their movie love, others have cultivated their dilettantism into a snobbery that results in a kind of vertigo, when the Hollywood/independent binary of movie-making is concerned. They lose perspective. Such zealotry for the DIY ethos causes selective blindness when the ideologically loaded viewer settles down in the darkness and looks up at the glow of the show. Only an indie is capable of diffusing an afterglow throughout the aesthete's mind. He equates amateurism with quality, not talent, which is why that most banal of questions, "How much did your film cost?" inevitably gets asked at any Q and A session following a film festival screening, all over the world, is beside the point, if the filmmaker's mis-en-scene signifies the abyss.
In "Baghead", at one such Q and A session, the filmmaker of "We're All Naked", a micro-indie shot in black and white, which ends with a man and woman exposing themselves, brazenly declares that a grand can lead to a quality piece of art, superior to the product put out by Hollywood. He's obviously one of those true believers who drank the kool-aid. Surrounded by like-minded organizers and moviegoers, this friendly environment nurtures an unwarranted egotism in the filmmaker. The director is so pleased with himself, so sure that he created a masterpiece, this merciless undressing of megalomania in the independent film-making world verges on cruelty. The excerpt from "We're All Naked" suggests that he's something worse than a hack(the worst thing you can call a director of major-studio fare); he's a rank amateur, without an iota of talent. His magnum opus would be booed at Cannes, probably at Sundance and Telluride, too. But at the Los Angeles Underground Film Festival, he receives polite applause, because its audience is clued into the premise that the movies are gonna be s***; they understand that it's more about the process than the finished product. These people leave such screenings empowered with the belief that anybody can make a movie. People like the two couples in "Baghead", none of whom seem to actually love the craft of film-making. They're just out-of-work actors looking for a way to promote themselves.
Mumblecore, a recent sub-genre of independent film that bastardizes the John Cassavetes aesthetics of personal relationships with neo-realism signifiers such as real locations and non-actors, goes suddenly meta on us in "Baghead", the moment when Michelle(Greta Gerwig) tells Matt(Ross Partridge) about her teen-slasher dream, which convinces him, against protests from Catherine(Elise Muller), his on-and-off girlfriend, that their movie isn't going to be about relationships. Needless to say, a film that features a homicidal maniac with a paper bag, instead of a hockey mask, is the most bankrupt of idea, but this "Friday the 13th" rehashing gets the green light, because Matt wants to sleep with Michelle. Chad(Steve Zissis) agrees with Matt, since he too covets Michelle, and wants to flatter her visionary idea of shooting the same movie that any idiot with a digital camera would make.
In the film's most pointed scene, in which the two genres intersect, a paper-bagged man, whom Michelle presumes to be Matt, comes into her room, but keeps his distance from the topless girl by an open door, as she waits for him in her bed. As horror, the covered man, lit only by the light from the moon, looks menacing, because we're conditioned to expect the man to bring harm to Michelle. But seen as a mumblecore film, this seeming intimidation by the stranger, is actually hesitation, because Matt(if it is Matt) doesn't want to hurt his relationship with Chad, who truly loves Michelle. "Baghead", in other words, deconstructs the horror film, through mumblecore. In another scene, Chad, then Michelle, fake their disappearances, as a test to see if Matt and Michelle would get it on in their absence. Again, Chad's friendship is important to Matt, so he resists temptations and adjourns to his room. When both Chad and Michelle bust into Matt's room while he's "spanking the monkey", so to speak, it's a moment of perfect amalgamation between the two genres, in which the horror is startling like a slasher pic(as if Matt is going to be hacked to pieces), but a horror in the personal sense, a personal horror(being caught with a d*** in your hand), that's more mumblecore than a genre film.
Ultimately, the film is never written. "Baghead" turns into a homage to "The Blair Witch Project", in which the quasi-documentary is recognized as an accidental forerunner to the whole mumblecore movement(sort of like how Weezer's "Pinkerton" birthed emo), by reverting mumblecore back to horror, which was what Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez had in mind(they just wanted to make a scary movie). To the film's credit, a digital camera pointed at a knife-wielding man from a seemingly random angle, does create some tension, still, even though this film language of reality is no longer fresh like it was back in 1999. And the screaming helps. That's the key. The quality behind the cacophony of human desperation was the determining factor to this payoff moment, where life and death hangs in the balance through a shaking camera.
In "Baghead", at one such Q and A session, the filmmaker of "We're All Naked", a micro-indie shot in black and white, which ends with a man and woman exposing themselves, brazenly declares that a grand can lead to a quality piece of art, superior to the product put out by Hollywood. He's obviously one of those true believers who drank the kool-aid. Surrounded by like-minded organizers and moviegoers, this friendly environment nurtures an unwarranted egotism in the filmmaker. The director is so pleased with himself, so sure that he created a masterpiece, this merciless undressing of megalomania in the independent film-making world verges on cruelty. The excerpt from "We're All Naked" suggests that he's something worse than a hack(the worst thing you can call a director of major-studio fare); he's a rank amateur, without an iota of talent. His magnum opus would be booed at Cannes, probably at Sundance and Telluride, too. But at the Los Angeles Underground Film Festival, he receives polite applause, because its audience is clued into the premise that the movies are gonna be s***; they understand that it's more about the process than the finished product. These people leave such screenings empowered with the belief that anybody can make a movie. People like the two couples in "Baghead", none of whom seem to actually love the craft of film-making. They're just out-of-work actors looking for a way to promote themselves.
Mumblecore, a recent sub-genre of independent film that bastardizes the John Cassavetes aesthetics of personal relationships with neo-realism signifiers such as real locations and non-actors, goes suddenly meta on us in "Baghead", the moment when Michelle(Greta Gerwig) tells Matt(Ross Partridge) about her teen-slasher dream, which convinces him, against protests from Catherine(Elise Muller), his on-and-off girlfriend, that their movie isn't going to be about relationships. Needless to say, a film that features a homicidal maniac with a paper bag, instead of a hockey mask, is the most bankrupt of idea, but this "Friday the 13th" rehashing gets the green light, because Matt wants to sleep with Michelle. Chad(Steve Zissis) agrees with Matt, since he too covets Michelle, and wants to flatter her visionary idea of shooting the same movie that any idiot with a digital camera would make.
In the film's most pointed scene, in which the two genres intersect, a paper-bagged man, whom Michelle presumes to be Matt, comes into her room, but keeps his distance from the topless girl by an open door, as she waits for him in her bed. As horror, the covered man, lit only by the light from the moon, looks menacing, because we're conditioned to expect the man to bring harm to Michelle. But seen as a mumblecore film, this seeming intimidation by the stranger, is actually hesitation, because Matt(if it is Matt) doesn't want to hurt his relationship with Chad, who truly loves Michelle. "Baghead", in other words, deconstructs the horror film, through mumblecore. In another scene, Chad, then Michelle, fake their disappearances, as a test to see if Matt and Michelle would get it on in their absence. Again, Chad's friendship is important to Matt, so he resists temptations and adjourns to his room. When both Chad and Michelle bust into Matt's room while he's "spanking the monkey", so to speak, it's a moment of perfect amalgamation between the two genres, in which the horror is startling like a slasher pic(as if Matt is going to be hacked to pieces), but a horror in the personal sense, a personal horror(being caught with a d*** in your hand), that's more mumblecore than a genre film.
Ultimately, the film is never written. "Baghead" turns into a homage to "The Blair Witch Project", in which the quasi-documentary is recognized as an accidental forerunner to the whole mumblecore movement(sort of like how Weezer's "Pinkerton" birthed emo), by reverting mumblecore back to horror, which was what Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez had in mind(they just wanted to make a scary movie). To the film's credit, a digital camera pointed at a knife-wielding man from a seemingly random angle, does create some tension, still, even though this film language of reality is no longer fresh like it was back in 1999. And the screaming helps. That's the key. The quality behind the cacophony of human desperation was the determining factor to this payoff moment, where life and death hangs in the balance through a shaking camera.