Little Miss Sunshine as Example of American Independent Cinema - Essay Example

? Little Miss Sunshine as Example of American Independent Cinema School Little Miss Sunshine Independent film in America is generally defined as any professionally shot feature length film that is created outside of the major studios of Hollywood. The assumption of this creation is that these films exist outside of the controlling influences of the established institutional structure and thus are more able to question the established social hierarchies. However, there is something of a misnomer in this assumption in that many of these feature films are actually produced or distributed by smaller subsidiaries of the larger houses, enabling them to be created with smaller budgets, are given lower budget marketing campaigns and smaller releases. This enables studios to 'test' more experimental films, taking the more successful of these to greater box office success without risking the reputation of the major sponsoring house. Film expert Bruce Kawin (1992) suggests that the term 'independent' has been used to refer to a wide variety of different types of film. There are those producers who are completely independent from the major studios, creating their films on their own and then selling studios distribution rights and those who create films on home video cameras and attempt to distribute or not on their own, both generally supportive of mainstream social power structures. While these are technically independent films, Kawin and others prefer using the term independent film to refer to producers who work outside the mainstream in terms of representation or as a means of strongly questioning the status quo and might instead be called the avant-garde. As a form of classification, the term 'independent film' has been applied most frequently to those productions which have an unusual, divergent or 'quirky' character. In attempting to pinpoint the concept of the independent film and its characteristics, some of the more common formal traits of independent films will be identified and then examined as they appear or don't appear within the film Little Miss Sunshine, an independent film that could be argued to represent a form of cross-over event between independent film and mainstream because of its social perspective. Some of the common characteristics of independent film in America can include its 'quirky' character, the sense of its message, a sense of innocence and/or irony in this message delivery, unique camera angles creating what might be considered amateur professionalism with carefully orchestrated characters and scenes and a generally lower degree of post-production editing. Thus, independent film can be characterized through its plot, technique, tone and social commentary. By 'quirky', most film experts intend to mean that the film conveys slightly odd renditions of the familiar mainstream tropes rather than completely radical swings away from what one might expect. These may take the form of an unusual combination of characters, slightly strange variations of relationships or objects or somewhat different methods of presenting the audio or visual material. What is unique about the 'quirky' is that it is, as James MacDowell claims, "crucially, a comic address that requires we view the fiction as simultaneously absurd and moving, the characters as pathetic and likeable, the world as manifestly artificial and believable" (2010: 4). While the world presented in independent film is strange and different, it is still presented as relatively safe and non-controversial. In keeping with this concept, MacDowell says many independent films will include musical scores that carry connotations of sweet and simple, high in repetition, higher on the musical register and frequently within a waltz time signature as a means of encouraging an association with childhood. A strong connection with the child-like or the innocent is carried throughout the visual presentation as well. However, other experts such as Jeffrey Sconce (2002) claim a strongly ironic or nihilistic approach within the independent film. While he criticizes others for taking too dark of a view of recent American independent films, Sconce argues that irony and detachment are strong elements of this film genre, producing films that are often filled with dark humor, negativity and a sense that life is meaningless. Through this examination of Little Miss Sunshine, it can be determined that there is a careful blending within independent film of both child-like innocence, harmlessly strange, dark irony and detachment, all of which are uniquely developed as a means of appealing to an emerging social perspective. The film Little Miss Sunshine essentially tells the story of a dysfunctional family attempting to pull itself together long enough for the youngest member of the family, pleasantly plump 7-year-old Olive, to pursue her long-time dream of competing in a beauty contest. The rest of the family consists of the mother Sheryl, who is trying desperately to support her family while her husband, Richard, attempts to market his newest motivational program, The Nine Step Refuse to Lose Program. Living with them is Sheryl's teenage son from a previous marriage, Dwayne. In typical teenage fashion, Dwayne has isolated himself from the rest of the family, adopting the nihilist philosophy of Nietzsche and refusing to speak to anyone else until he can get into the US Air Force Academy and become a test pilot. After being kicked out of his nursing home on allegations of dealing heroin to the other inmates, Richard's father Edwin is also staying with the family and has developed a close relationship with his young granddaughter. As the film begins, Sheryl is on her way to pick up her brother Frank, a homosexual expert on Proust. Proust is significantly a writer dedicated to the exploration of the rise of the middle class and therefore a hopeful counterpoint to Dwayne's Nietzsche (Fall, 2010). In spite of the hopeful quality of Proust's writings, though, Frank is highly depressed after having been dumped by his lover for his academic rival and the recent winner of the coveted MacArthur Grant. His stay with his sister and her family is the required condition for him to be released from the hospital following a failed suicide attempt. With this collection of not-so-unusual but not mainstream disparate characters, the family sets out on their 400 mile trek to Olive's beauty pageant using the only means of transportation available to them given their current budget constraints - the cramped space of a mechanically-challenged yellow Volkswagon mini-bus. The story told is of the family's journey to California and ends with Olive's performance at the pageant. The film qualifies as an independent film on many counts. To begin with, it is the first produced feature-length screenplay written by Michael Arndt and it was independently produced by the husband-wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. The script was purchased by independent film producer Marc Turtletaub after disagreements occurred with the original studio over whether the film should be shot in Canada. Instead, the film was created mostly in Arizona and California, the original settings of the screenplay. It was screened for the first time at the Sundance Film Festival, a common venue for independent films, and did so well that its distribution rights were sold in a bidding war for $10.5 million. It was at this point that the film began its cross-over into more mainstream Hollywood channels. Although the film opened on only seven screens, typical for indie films of this nature, this was quickly expanded by the following week to 58 screens and again in the third week to 1,600 screens which more closely approximates that of mainstream Hollywood. Using a common strategy of independent film to create audience but again expanding it to a grander scale than normal, Fox Searchlight, the distribution company for Little Miss Sunshine, utilized a very aggressive preview schedule in order to build word of mouth for the film prior to its release. In the end, the film grossed $60 million at the box office (Reuters, 2007). As an independent film, it won best director, best feature and best first screenplay at the Independent Spirit Awards, but it also won an Oscar for best supporting actor and was nominated for best film and best supporting actress at the Hollywood Academy Awards. Its presence in both award categories emphasizes its status as a cross-over film even given its independent roots. Perhaps because of this cross-over effect, Little Miss Sunshine has been criticized as a potentially programmatically quirky film, calling into question its status as an independent film. This perspective is aided by the fact that the film was distributed by Fox Searchlight which is a subsidiary company of Twentieth Century Fox and thus firmly rooted within Hollywood mainstream. The perspective is also aided by the film's tremendous success at the box office, as if all independent films are necessarily marginalized and therefore incapable of reaching such success. However, given the understanding that independent film is not only film produced by an independent film company but also as a film following some specific trends, it is possible to trace how this film easily falls within the classification of an independent. For example, the concept of 'quirky' is fully applicable to nearly all elements of the film. Quirky can be understood as an element of tone which Douglas Pye describes as "the pervasive evaluative and affective orientations implied by the film" (2007: 76). Each of the characters contribute to this quality. Olive is slightly overweight, clearly 'nerdy' with her large spectacles and her studious nature and, although her dream is to compete in a beauty contest, she engages in none of the conformist activities required to turn her into the 'Barbie doll' figure typically associated with such endeavors. Richard is brittle in his conformity to his interpretation of society's demands yet he struggles against his conception of winners and losers in his love for his family and his understanding that none of them quite measure up to ideal expectations. Dwayne is the typical moody teen, but his obsession with Nietzsche, his clear goal of becoming a test pilot and his vow of silence all exist outside of the typical stereotype of his age and gender. Edwin is a far sight from the expected grandfather figure and clearly breaks the mold by being the character addicted to drugs. Frank also breaks the stereotype in that he is not a happy gay man but is instead suicidal, and yet he clings to an optimistic view of life in general that completely contradicts his own internal strife. Sheryl comes closest to being a 'normal' character, but the demands on her energy and patience have her worn to almost giving up. Even the Volkswagon bus operates as a character within the film, adding yet another quirky element to an already highly quirky performance. Viewing the film from a social perspective clearly places it within the realm of the independent genre. According to Sconce (2002), contemporary independent films are designed to appeal to a very specific population group. These are essentially young to middle age educated urban individuals who can be classified under the umbrella of Generation X. This group is post-Baby Boom generation and does not subscribe to the Baby Boom ideology but is pre-Generation Y and was not raised with the technological revolution of the internet. Sconce (2002) says they have "retreated into ironic disengagement as a means of non-participatory coexistence with boomers and their dominance of the cultural and political landscape" (355). To accomplish this feat, this generation developed a major theme of cynical detachment from subject matter that becomes reflected in independent film, often as a sense of nihilism. Others, such as Jim Collins (1993), suggest that this simply masks a deeper pursuit of the authentic in rejection of the virtual, artificial worlds created by both Baby Boomers and Generation Y. In combining these approaches - the nihilistic and the sincere - MacDowell (2010) turns to the concept of romantic irony to describe how independent films such as Little Miss Sunshine speak to the social environment of this social period. This concept, and the social group to which it appeals, is perhaps best illustrated through the blending of ironic and sincere in the teenage character Dwayne. Although he idolizes the nihilistic underpinnings of Nietzschean thought which has come to represent much of the postmodern worldview, Dwayne resists its isolating tendencies as he slowly becomes reengaged with the family group and discovers meaning in the concept of family emotion and solidarity. His full transformation doesn't occur, though, until after Dwayne accepts his color blindness and the destruction of his personal dreams. In the same way, Richard, who is obsessed with conforming to the ideal image of a winner, ironically comes to grips with the fact that his family does not meet up with this ideal and yet is perfect to him and thus reaches a point of sincerity he has been lacking. In its tendency to uphold the message of family togetherness and unity, the film seems to uphold the mainstream Hollywood ideals, and yet it does so through denying these ideals in order to accept a much more varied image of family that embraces and accepts individual quirkiness rather than demanding conformity. These messages of togetherness, cohesiveness and individual uniqueness are conveyed as much by the formal elements of the film as they are by the storyline and the social elements that inform it. One of the defining trends of independent film is its tendency to establish long shots of highly choreographed or established scenes and its tendency to use awkward camera angles to capture characters in the act of doing something mildly embarrassing or unusual. This unique formal element is put into practice right at the beginning of the film with its sudden extreme close-up on Olive's face. This close-up is so extreme that all that can be discerned in the image is the child's eyes behind the oversized spectacles balanced on a small nose and the flickering reflections on the glass indicating the images she sees on the television. There is no attempt to place the audience within the scene and no attempt to introduce the character before the audience is placed so significantly within her personal space. As the scene broadens out to reveal this slightly overweight little girl carefully studying and practicing the reactions of a recent Miss America pageant winner, the camera shifts its perspective numerous times, always from unusual places - first from below and in front of the child, making her look even larger as her hand rests naturally on the bulge of her stomach, then from her right side to show her bulging profile, again from in front as it becomes clear this child dreams of being the woman on the television and finally from behind her, again revealing her unsuitable shape for this dream, exposing the irony of the story. Meanwhile, the soundtrack is playing a repetitive chord in a steady beat overlaid by a simple melody in keeping with the child-like innocent quality identified as being associated with the independent film. Irony is again introduced with the introduction of Richard's voice as he gives his presentation, announcing that "there are two kinds of people in this world - winners and losers" as the film's audience continues to watch Olive watching the TV and pretending to be a beauty queen, forcing this audience to make the judgment on Olive as to which of these she must be. Yet this ironic detachment from the characters is not maintained throughout the film, becoming used less and less as the family begins to pull together. This enables the director to send messages of isolation and cohesiveness throughout and thus skillfully blending ironic distraction and sincere interaction to a point where it becomes difficult to separate the two. In doing so, the audience demographic is able to resolve the internal paradox of the generation without quite being able to explain how. While Little Miss Sunshine has been called into question as to whether it is an 'authentic' independent film, an analysis of the film from both a social and formal perspective shows it is strongly in line with many of the elements identified as being characteristic of this filmic genre. More than the simple fact that it was produced by an independent studio, written by a first-time screenwriter and directed by a relatively new director team, this film directly speaks to a portion of the population that views itself as being disaffected by the mainstream and finds a means of resolving some of the conflict within this demographic. By skillfully combining detached irony and sincere sympathy, Little Miss Sunshine demonstrates how it is possible to have both a cohesive family unit and a group of wildly different, slightly eccentric individuals living peaceably together. Conformity is not required for acceptance nor is non-conformity a guarantee to individual happiness and freedom of expression. In making this statement, the film both agrees with and goes against the grain of the mainstream Hollywood message. References Collins, J. and Radner, H., 1993. Film Theory Goes to the Movies, Psychology Press. Fall, S., 2010. The 14-Minute Marcel Proust: A Very Short Guide to the Greatest Novel Ever Written. Durham, NH, Fallbrook Press. Kawin, B., 1992. How Movies Work, University of California Press. Little Miss Sunshine (film), 2006. Fox Searchlight Pictures. MacDowell, J., May 2009. Notes on Quirky, American Independent Cinema: Past, Present, Future, Liverpool, John Moores University, 1-14. Pye, D., 2007. Movies and Tone in J. Gibbs and D. Pye (eds), Close-Up 02: Movies and Tone/Reading Rohmer/Voices in Film, London, Wallflower Press, 1-80. Reuters, 25 Feb. 2007. 'Little Miss Sunshine' wins indie film awards. Reuters US. Sconce, J., Winter 2002. Irony, Nihilism and the New American 'Smart' Film, Screen 43(4), 349-69. Read More