In The New York Times, A.O. Scott looks at three indie films, "Tarnation," "Napolean Dynamite" and "Primer," and considers the future of the filmmakers who made them:
If American independent film, as we currently understand the term, has a founding myth, it is no doubt the story of a young man (only occasionally a young woman) who maxes out credit cards, borrows money from obliging relatives and enlists a bunch of friends in his brave quest to get his movie made. In most versions of the tale - which is by now almost two decades old and has frequently been the subject of the movies themselves - artistic vision and careerist ambition fit comfortably together.
A modest, unusual first film can serve as a calling card and a résumé builder - an entrée into the world of agents, studios executives and other people's money. For audiences, part of the attraction of seeing super-low-budget, out-of-nowhere first features certainly lies in the pleasure of seeing new careers taking root, and of wondering what these fledgling directors will do once they have real budgets to work with. But these movies - shot in places far away from Hollywood or Toronto, with casts who look more like ordinary people than movie stars - also hold out the deeper, more fragile promise of genuine newness. There may be comfort in seeing the same stories recycled again and again, but there is also boredom, which breeds a desire for surprise. Or, failing that, for novelty. In a pinch, we'll even settle for sheer oddity. And when we find it, we may worry that, as young filmmakers migrate from the margins to the mainstream, their precious, strange individuality may be compromised or lost.
