HIGH FIVE
KAREN KOREN, director of Edinburgh’s Gilded Balloon, selects her favourite comedy double acts.
1 French 8- Saunders Because they are women. very funny and working in a world of mainly men. They used to do The Tube in the early 80s and I loved them.
2 Mel & Sue They were ex- Canibridge footlights and came out of the Fringe. Sue is very clever and Mel is charming.
3 Rowan 8. Martin Because of The Laugh /n show in the 70s. It was the best comedy on the box at the time.
4 Laurel 8: Hardy Classics. they entertain all generations.
5 Morecambe 8: Wise I grew up with them and still think their shows are TV classics.
EDWIN MORGAN, Glasgow’s Poet Laureate chooses his five favourite pieces of gay writing.
1 Song Of Myself Walt Whitman. A long. ambiguous. fascinating poem which includes the immortal line: 'Unscrew the locks from the door, let's all come Out'.
2 The Thief’s Journal Jean Genet. The Frenchman's most autobiographical novel which makes a very clear link between the sexual outlaw and the criminal.
3 A Boy’s Own Story Edmund White. An American adolescent boy worries about being labelled. This was one of the first gay novels to break out of the ghetto and reach a general audience.
4 Trumpet Jackie Kay. The first novel from the Scottish lesbian poet. Gripping and moving. it's about the discovery that. on his death. a jazz trumpeter has been hiding his true identity: he had been born a woman.
5 Gilgamesh Anonymous. The
earliest poem in existence from Babylonia BOOOBC.
.THE OPINION
Independence daze
As mainstream cinema continues to cannibalise its own formulaic successes, the independent sector world- wide just goes from strength to strength. Long may it live. Words: Paul Dale
ndependent film was inyented in 1967. Well.
not really. but just for the sake of argument
go with me on this. As Peter Biskind points out in his fantastic book Iiasy Riders. Raging Balls: ‘In 1967. two moyies. Bunnie And ('lyde and The Graduate. sent tremors through the industry. Others followed in quick succession: 200] and Rosemary's Baby in 1968. The Wild Bunch . . . and Easy Rider in 196‘). M *‘A *S‘E‘H and Five Easy Pieces in 1970. The French Connection . . . and McCahe And Mrs Miller in 1971. The Godfather in 1972. Before anyone realised it. there was a moyeinent.‘
These fabulous auteurs — among them Peter Bogdanoyich. Francis Ford Coppola. Warren Beatty. William Friedkin. Martin Scorsese and. most importantly John (‘assayettes — worked within and outside the studio system but always on their own terms. Along with their European counterparts — John Boorman. Ken Russell. Nicolas Roeg. Roman Polanski and Milos
These fabulous auteurs worked within and outside the studio
Was Blair Witch the saviour of indie film or an excuse for the suits to crush creativity?
and Joint Sayles in the [TS kept the indie fire going. but it was not until Stcyen Soderbergh‘s l989 sex. lies and videotape that the mainstream Hollywood cinema big boys began to sit up again and take notice. This tiny film. made on a minuscule budget by some jumped- up unknown. had actually made more money than the latest studio opus; not only that. but it had won eyei‘y award going. Since then. l'K cinema — aided by l5iliiil5our. BBC Screen and Lottery Funding — has gone into freefall. In the States. it is The Sundance Film l-‘estiyal and the internet which has championed independent cinema.
This brings us to The Blair Hitch Project which is. as writer liddie (‘ockrell puts it. ‘the ' breakout independent
successes‘. It took SHllm on a budget placed somewhere
system but on their own terms. below Sli)().()()(l: in
Forman — they wrote the bible on independent filmmaking. Visceral. exciting and warlike mainstream cinema began to mutate into high an.
By the mid-80s. howeyer. high art had become high concept with a retarded midget and a bearded accountant running the show in
Hollywood. By churning out braindead guff
like Top Gun and Beverley Hills (‘01). producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckhcimer set a template for the next twenty years. Meanwhile. in the UK we were so creatiyely stifled under a subsidy-slashing Thatcher goyernment that we didn‘t actually notice how bad Flashdanee really was.
Mayerick heroes like Bill Forsyth in the UK
WHAT DID YOU THINK? Girlfight.GFT.Glangw
Christopher Student
The fight very Similar to those in Raging Bull.
8 THE LIST 26 Apr-10 May 2001
Luca
Eur-kick bOxer She had beautiful Cy GS and she was fighting in real life as well as in the ring.
terms of profits to costs
ratio. it has outstripped
eyery other film in history. As a result. Sundance has allegedly been turned into a hotbed of headhunters searching for the next Myrick and Sanchez (the Blair Wife/t makers) in the vain hope that they can get them on a contract and sap all their creativity. or at the yery least buy the distribution rights on their unfinished graduation films.
As out of touch as usual. Hollywood’s besuited agents of formula will probably have their heads in the trunk of some spooky tree when the next glowing light comes out of the independent left field.
Disagree? react@list.co.uk
Jessie Fergus Student rm (1;, ~07 Bflillatlt. lt lt was uplifting
and realistic. ‘."/ori‘.eri should flock along to see it instead of Bridget Jones.
made me want to go out and DOX.