Rise and fall.

No one but staff at Simon & Schuster and Peter Biskind himself had seen a copy of Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance and the Rise of Independent Film until this past weekend, but already, at least two reviews are out.

Whose first impressions could you possibly want more than those of indieWIRE's founding editor? In all its various evolutionary phases, that publication has probably been following indie film more closely than any other. And Eugene Hernandez does not disappoint. His piece is not so much a review as a primer of what those of us who've been eagerly (maybe even a bit perversely) anticipating this book can expect. He's even called Biskind up to check on a few hot points and to get him to nail the gist:

"I found myself saying [on a book tour] that the independent scene carried the torch of the 70s, in the 90s," Biskind told indieWIRE. Yet, those familiar with Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls will notice a different approach to this decade. It is not about the films, it is about the business of the movies, that's the story that, according to Biskind, defined the 90s. "This is a distribution and marketing story."

It's the story we've needed between covers for a while now. John Pierson's Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes is fine and fun, but it's also a first-person narrative that unravels too early, that is, when Pierson seems to go sour on the scene. As for the films themselves, well, we do already have at least a few of those books. We've needed a single wide perspective on the entire arc of the story (and this one takes us all the way up to the screener ban brouhaha, evidently), if for no other reason than to try to see more clearly what went wrong. As Hernandez interprets Biskind, we don't have to squint too hard: "Indeed, the book could have just as easily been titled, The Rise of Miramax and the Death of Independent Film."

In a surprisingly bland review for the New York Observer, Christopher Carbone suggests simply adding "and Fall" to Biskind's subtitle. Carbone does pinpoint Biskind's appeal in a parenthetical observation that follows the only sentence in all the book's 500+ pages both reviewers quote:

"Judged by one of its original, loftier goals, an institute to help outsiders, Sundance has failed," Mr. Biskind writes. "Women, Native Americans, African-Americans, and the poor still don't have equal access to the camera." (Mr. Biskind's book is testimony to his impressive range: He switches easily between rank gossip and pious sentiment.)

Related reading: Back in April 2000, Peter Biskind talked to seven key players in the whole indie thing for The Nation. The participants: Allison Anders, Alexander Payne, Kimberly Peirce, John Pierson, David O. Russell, Kevin Smith and Christine Vachon.

Posted by dwhudson at January 7, 2004 9:32 AM