Out on the Ledge

A 15-year-old boy is befriended by the neighborhood pedophile. A team of transvestite volleyball players makes it to the national finals--in Thailand. A Jew becomes a Nazi and begins committing hate crimes.

Those are the subjects of three fall films--”L.I.E.,” “The Iron Ladies” and “The Believer,” respectively--that truly fit the label of “independent.” Independent films after all are expected to explore territory that’s considered too risky for mainstream Hollywood. But a survey of upcoming films reveals that the turf once clearly marked off as “indie” has become one very muddy playing field. The indie domain now takes in everything from edgy, offbeat fare to genre flicks (sci-fi, horror and thrillers) to star vehicles that could just as easily be released by major studios--and often is by their “art-house” distribution arms.

Consider these fall releases: a foreign-language film featuring a cast of unknown actors directed by a first-time Croatian auteur? That would be “No Man’s Land,” courtesy of United Artists/MGM. “Mulholland Drive,” a film by David Lynch that was simply too weird for ABC to air as a pilot, now shows up with an obscure cast under the auspices of Universal Pictures. Twentysomething It Girl Kirsten Dunst takes a star turn in “The Cat’s Meow,” produced by Paramount Classics, one of Hollywood’s six “mini-majors.”

“I think indie films can deal with disturbing material that Hollywood studios don’t want to touch,” notes Bob Berney, president of IFC Films, which produces and distributes independent films. “At the same time, you have to deal with those pressures of ‘What are we gonna do Friday night?’ What’s tricky about all this is, there’s still that Friday night [mentality], even in the indie world,” he adds, referring to the focus on opening-weekend box office grosses. So what happens when a distributor or production company has a really risky film on its hands? Those in the indie world say the challenge is not so much in finding provocative movies--festivals are filled with them; the hard part is bringing them to market. One key hurdle many say: ratings.

Take the case of “L.I.E.” Jeff Lipsky, president of Lot 47 Films, the independent distributor for “L.I.E.,” believes the Motion Picture Assn. of America ratings board forces provocative directors into an agonizing corner: Alter the film to reach a wider audience, or stick to the vision and limit the movie’s distribution.

Lipsky is steamed that “L.I.E.” will open in Los Angeles on Sept. 28 with an NC-17 rating. From Lipsky’s vantage point, the film may as well come emblazoned with a skull and crossbones.

“In the past, I’ll confess, I’ve been guilty of exalting the NC-17 controversy to generate publicity for a film,” Lipsky says. “In this case, it’s just the opposite. People should not go to this movie with the expectation of seeing something dirty or lurid or graphic or prurient because they’re going to be grossly disappointed. ‘L.I.E’ has the audacity to show the good side of a pedophile. It’s full of complexities, which is what makes it so powerful and so disturbing.”

Lipsky recently swapped e-mails over the issue of censorship with filmmaker Todd Solondz, who encountered ratings hassles after he finished his new film, “Storytelling.” The movie has been bumped from an October release to early next year by New Line/Fine Line, whose corporate parent is AOL-Time Warner. Contractually required to deliver an R-rated movie, Solondz covered the objectionable scene with a red box. An audacious response, but one that Lipsky says points up a key difference between Lot 47 and companies like Fine Line, which specialize in art-house films under the umbrella of a larger studio and an even larger corporate parent.

If an R rating for “L.I.E.” would allow children to see the film if accompanied by a parent, why not ask “L.I.E.” director Michael Cuesta to comply with the MPAA guidelines? “We would never ask our filmmakers to make changes of any kind,” Lipsky says. (Solondz was not available for comment.)

“Raw Deal” is another film sure to raise a ruckus--if the public ever gets to see it. Initially slated for an October release by Artisan Entertainment, the documentary is in limbo pending legal clearances. The film incorporates actual home video to chronicle the gang rape of a woman at a fraternity party--or was it consensual sex? “Raw Deal” provoked considerable controversy when screened at Sundance last year.

Artisan’s executive vice president for worldwide marketing, Amorette Jones , declined to discuss “Raw Deal” specifically but says that in general, Artisan goes to bat for makers of edgy films, even if it means sacrificing access to theater chains that refuse to screen unrated or NC-17 rated material. “Requiem for a Dream” and last spring’s “Center of the World” were both released unrated. “As a studio, we chose to back up our filmmaker and his vision, which is why we happen to be the home to some product that other studios may not want to come near,” she says.

Not every one of its releases is an envelope-pusher. Artisan’s fall movies include the dark comedy “Novocaine” (Oct. 19), directed by first-timer David Atkin and starring Steve Martin. “We’ve always tried to maintain a broad mix where we do have that edgy specialized independent film but also are able to bring to the marketplace more broad-based releases,” Jones says. One of the most talked about films on this year’s festival circuit, “The Believer,” can be seen this fall--but not in theaters. Showtime will present the picture Sept. 30. Writer-director Henry Bean’s film portrays a Jewish boy who grows up to become a neo-Nazi who commits anti-Semitic hate crimes. Fireworks Pictures, a division of Canadian media conglomerate CanWest Global Communications Corp., picked up the film last spring after it earned the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.

Fireworks President Daniel Diamond pitched the film for distribution to the mini-majors. They all passed. “We did believe that a classics division of a studio could afford the picture, but the water was a little too deep,” Diamond says. “It was a frustrating experience, because here’s this highly regarded movie, yet people were too bothered by the material, for whatever reason, the quote unquote [Sen. Joseph] Lieberman influence, or stockholders, or personal sensitivities. It’s a tough picture, but nobody was doing this just to tick people off.” (The Showtime presentation will be followed by a theatrical release next year through IDP, a distribution company formed by Fireworks, Samuel Goldwyn Films and financier Carl Ichan’s Stratosphere.)

IFC Films President Berney stresses the indie film world’s role in discovering new moviemaking talent. “We want to work with people who really want to be doing this, as opposed to filmmakers who are just using independent film as a steppingstone to make Hollywood action movies.”

IFC Films is distributing first-time writer-director Patrick Stettner’s “The Business of Strangers” (Dec. 7), starring Stockard Channing and Julia Stiles, and “Together,” a film about life on a Swedish commune in the ‘70s, which opened Friday. The company gambles on smaller films, like last summer’s cannibalism documentary “Keep the River on Your Right,” because turning an immediate profit at the box office is only part of its strategy. Corporate synergy also comes into play. IFC Films is a division of the Independent Film Channel, which is owned by Bravo Networks, which is owned by Rainbow-Media, which is itself a subsidiary of Cablevision.

“The acclaim for a movie tends to go to whoever the distributor is,” explains Berney, who saw Fox Searchlight earn kudos for releasing the disturbing, critically lauded “Boys Don’t Cry” even though his sister company IFC Entertainment produced the film. “So the thinking is to have the IFC brand in the theaters, in the reviews, on the ads.”

Some synergies are obvious: building a library of films for the Independent Film Channel. Others are less tangible. “We have a high school football documentary in the fall called ‘Go Tigers,”’ Berney says. “And we have a lot of sports-related business--Madison Square Garden, partnerships with Fox Sports--so there’s a lot of interesting synergies to explore.”

Little known filmmakers count for support on maverick outfits like First Look Pictures and Strand Releasing, which is handling “The Iron Ladies.” But established film artists also turn to the indie world when they have personal projects that are too risky for corporate-owned studios. Veteran director Michael Radford, whose credits include “Il Postino,” spent years seeking a backer for “Dancing at the Blue Iguana” (Oct. 19). The problem: no script. Radford instead envisioned an experimental project that would draw on four months of improvisations and rehearsal to develop a story about a group of dancers at a San Fernando Valley strip club. The cast includes Daryl Hannah and Jennifer Tilly.

Enter independent producers Ram Bergman and Dana Lustig. “We don’t have any parent company,” Bergman says. “If we find something that we really want to do, we have to try to make it pay.” The team has been producing low-budget films since 1995, and stays afloat by making sure each film turns a small profit. “It’s our own belief that every movie should make money, whether a little or a lot,” Lustig says. “We work with the same investors over and over. We’ve been able to deliver for everybody.”

Getting a quirky film like “Blue Iguana” made is hard enough. Getting people to see it is even harder. Bergman and Lustig say it’s nearly impossible for independent companies like theirs to match the publicity and advertising budgets of corporate-owned studios. Steven Gilula, Fox Searchlight distribution president, sympathizes. “That’s a combination of envy and frustration on the part of the small companies. It costs a lot of money to break a picture. When we get behind a movie, we can make hundreds if not thousands of trailers, do the one-sheets, the advertising. We have the resources to reach the widest audience.”

Gilula co-founded the Landmark Theater chain, which numbered 149 art houses by the time he sold the company in 1998. Booking Los Angeles’ Nuart and other specialty theaters, Gilula remembers nurturing such films as Gus Van Sant’s heroin epic “Drugstore Cowboy” and David Lynch’s groundbreaking freak show of a film, “Eraserhead.”

In today’s overloaded marketplace, exhibitors can’t afford to lavish that kind of tender loving care on films that veer too far outside the mainstream, Gilula believes. “In the ‘80s and early ‘90s, there weren’t as many films being made,” he recalls, “so we used to have less pressure. We could give each movie an extra week or two to see if it would catch on. The sad thing now is a lot of good movies, albeit small, can’t find an audience quickly enough. There’s more product, there’s less room in the theaters, so if a film doesn’t work right away, there’s another one waiting in the wings.”

To be fair, the mini-majors do sometimes step up on behalf of fringe material. Fox Searchlight plans a big push for “Waking Life,” Richard Linklater’s animated film set for Oct. 19 release. The movie flouts Hollywood convention, but not by breaking taboos. The sex and violence quotient is nil. Instead, “Waking Life” forgoes traditional plot in favor of something American moviegoers might find even more bizarre: philosophical discourse.

Says Linklater: “It kills me that ‘Waking Life,’ which to me is very otherworldly and timeless, is going to be out there in the world duking it out with whatever else opens that weekend. It’s nice to have people with a little bit of muscle, just a little bit, who can put an ad campaign together and get a film out there.”

Linklater also has “Tape” (from Lions Gate), starring Ethan Hawke, on tap for Nov. 2. Sums up Linklater: “84 minutes in a room, three people, real time.” A small film, right? “Hmmmmrrh,” mutters Linklater, obviously not thrilled with the designation. “Small? What does that mean? It’s humble in scale, yes, but the acting, the dynamics are first-rate.”

For Linklater, distinctions among major, mini and indie are moot. “I don’t even know what ‘independent’ is,” says the Austin, Texas-based filmmaker. “I don’t see any clear-cut definition, and that’s why I sort of resist that just because so-and-so’s distributing your movie means there’s some kind of expectation.” *