Intermediality in Contemporary American Independent Film. Doctoral Thesis, Northumbria University
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Citation: Mack, Jonathan (2015) (Indie)mediality: Intermediality in Contemporary American Independent Film. Doctoral thesis, Northumbria University. This version was downloaded from Northumbria Research Link: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/31604/ Northumbria University has developed Northumbria Research Link (NRL) to enable users to access the University’s research output. Copyright © and moral rights for items on NRL are retained by the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. Single copies of full items can be reproduced, displayed or performed, and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided the authors, title and full bibliographic details are given, as well as a hyperlink and/or URL to the original metadata page. The content must not be changed in any way. Full items must not be sold commercially in any format or medium without formal permission of the copyright holder. The full policy is available online: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/policies.html (Indie)mediality: Intermediality in Contemporary American Independent Film J. Mack PhD 2015 1 (Indie)mediality: Intermediality in Contemporary American Independent Film Jonathan Mack A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Northumbria at Newcastle The Department of Media and Communication Design October 2015 2 Abstract (Indie)mediality: Intermediality in Contemporary American Independent Film Intermediality has become an umbrella term for a heterogeneous group of concepts as diverse as the creation of an entirely new medium and the mere quotation of a work from one medium in another. Intermedial analyses of specific film texts have appeared sporadically but have shed remarkable light on the influence of other media on film narrative, structure and visual style. This PhD takes intermediality to be, as Irina Rajewsky describes it, instances in which film ‘thematises, evokes or imitates elements or structures of another, conventionally distinct medium through the use of its own media-specific means.’ Using this definition as a starting point, this project applies the concept of intermediality to films that deal specifically with arts and media within their narratives, or that are adaptations from another medium, across the American independent cinema landscape since 1990. In this way, a typology of media interaction and intermediality within film texts is developed in relation to their relative position in the American ‘indie’ tradition. Although the thesis uses a primarily industrial definition of ‘independence’, this work also applies a number of criteria constituting a particular ‘indie’ aesthetic to these films, as outlined by experts in the field like Geoff King and Michael Z Newman. This enables additional links to be identified in regard to whether intermediality is utilised differently in particularly ‘alternative’ or more ‘mainstream’ film content. This methodology has demonstrated that intermediality plays a significant role in many American ‘indie’ films strategies of differentiation from the mainstream. Additionally, correlations have been discovered such as particular distributors’ preference for contacting specific types of media, as well their willingness (or otherwise) to engage in such potentially alienating and experimental content as intermediality and metareference. 3 Contents Page Acknowledgements 5 Author’s Declaration 6 Chapter 1: Introduction 7 Chapter 2: Intermediality So Far 27 Chapter 3: American Independent Film 75 Chapter 4: The Independents 102 Chapter 5: Miramax and New Line in the 1990s 148 Chapter 6: Miramax, New Line and Lionsgate After 2000 196 Chapter 7: Major Studio-Owned ‘Indie’ Distributors 246 Chapter 8: Conclusions 292 Appendix 1 315 Appendix 2 316 Appendix 3 319 Appendix 4 323 Bibliography 326 4 Acknowledgements This thesis represents the culmination of work begun during my MRes at Northumbria University in 2011, and furthermore a change of career begun in 2008. First of all I would like to express my gratitude to Northumbria for awarding me a full scholarship for the entirety of my postgraduate research. The faith shown in me by the institution, and by the excellent academics of the film department, enabled me to pursue my dream. More specifically I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Russ Hunter. Through my time as an undergraduate, a Masters student and finally a Doctoral candidate, he has provided me with more than anyone could expect from a lecturer, tutor and supervisor. His help, advice, guidance and motivation, not to mention calming words when I was feeling less composed, made this thesis possible. I am enormously grateful for his excellent supervision and friendship. While my mother Lorraine and my Grandmother Nora will unfortunately not be able to read this thesis, they unquestionably made it happen as much as I did by giving me the support I needed to start down this path in the first place. My written thanks could never be enough, but here they are anyway. To my friends who put up with my incessant ranting about things they couldn’t care less about, Sarah, Richard, Lozz, Gabriella, Naz, your constant willingness to distract me helped this process immensely. Finally I must thank my wife Lara, who continues to be the primary driving force behind absolutely everything I do. That is no less the case with this thesis, which thanks to her endless patience, compassion and understanding is as much her achievement as mine. 5 Author’s Declaration I declare that the work contained in this thesis has not been submitted for any other award and that it is all my own work. I also confirm that this work fully acknowledges opinions, ideas and contributions from the work of others. I declare that the Word Count of this Thesis is 82,694 words. Name: Jonathan Mathew Mack Signature: Date: 1 October 2015 6 Chapter 1 Introduction The ways in which different media types reference, adapt and interact with one another has become one of the most lively and contested areas of academic discussion in recent years. While film studies may have embraced the term somewhat later than contemporary work in the fields of literature, theatre and painting, ‘intermediality’ is now occupying a central role within that discussion. One of the key figures of work to-date on intermediality, Ágnes Pethő, founded a new annual conference devoted entirely to the notion in 2013 as part of an ongoing and wide-reaching project focusing on Eastern European cinema due to be complete next year.1 This in addition to a spate of recent publications by Street & Yumibe (2013), Minier & Pennacchia (2014), McGill (2014) and Donald (2014) among others, clearly demonstrate that intermediality is enjoying a surge of popularity within film studies. These interventions, however, also serve to highlight just how complex and divergent different definitions of intermediality are, with each applying a significantly different conception of the term to different areas and facets of film. This recent work also shares a common focus with many other intermedial studies conducted over the last twenty years on specifically non-American film, in these cases British, European and Asian cinema.2 Ana M. López (2014) has recently called for more intermedial work to be applied to the Latin American film landscape for example, but it seems the time is right for a broader and more comprehensive application of 7 the notion of intermediality to arguably the World’s most visible and influential cinema. Beyond this more recent work, intermediality has been the focus of repeated attempts at definition and re-definition over the last twenty years, partially as a result of the concept drawing equal attention across a number of medial disciplines. Much of the work of leading figures in the intermediality conversation like Werner Wolf, Irina Rajewsky and Marie- Laure Ryan has been carried out regarding narratology within literature for example. Nevertheless, the concept has made the transition to film studies thanks largely to these scholars, as well as others like Joachim Paech and Ágnes Pethő. Intermediality now presents both a unique challenge and an enormous opportunity to film studies by offering a new way of conceptualising and analysing the relationship film has with other media, as well as its ability to incorporate those media as centrally important features of most people’s lived experience in the twenty-first century. The potential value of intermediality as a tool for film analyses was powerfully and succinctly stated by Rajewsky in 2005: The sustained success and growing international recognition of the concept of intermediality, therefore, point less to new types of problems per se than (at least potentially) to new ways of solving problems, new possibilities for presenting and thinking about them, and to new, or at least to different views on medial border-crossings and hybridization; in particular, they point to a heightened awareness of the materiality and mediality of artistic practices and cultural practices in general (Rajewsky, 2005: 46). It is precisely these ‘new possibilities of presenting and thinking about’ medial border crossings and contacts that this thesis will seek to uncover within the broad and varied field of American independent film. 8 Both intermediality and American independent cinema are incredibly complex terms with vast amounts of existing scholarship detailing both definition and application spanning numerous approaches in various contexts. Chapters 2 and 3 of this thesis will seek to draw much of this work together in order to provide an overview of the landscape in which these terms will be used going forward. Put simply, this thesis takes intermediality to be instances of medial ‘border crossing’ in which film attempts to evoke the sense of another medium. This is achieved by recreation, reproduction or explicit referencing of formal or narrative elements generally associated with other media. In this sense it is possible to identify particular instances of intermediality, as well as a broader narrative intermedial concern, within specific film texts.