Abstract
Dating back over at least three decades there have been innumerable book-length studies focused on the relationship between film and television and many of the older titles, such as Tino Balio’s Hollywood in the Age of Television (1990) and Christopher Anderson’s Hollywood TV: The Studio System in the Fifties (1994) are namechecked throughout this collection. This new, wide-reaching edited collection from James Lyons and Yannis Tzioumakis brings the reader into the 21st century and is introduced by its editors as seeking to ‘understand the intersection of film and television [through a focus on] independent film and television within the US context rather than Hollywood and television more broadly’ (p. 2). The key to this collection’s success, as its subtitle suggests, is its focus on interdisciplinary approaches, concerned with industry, aesthetics, and medium specificity.
The book is separated into six sections, with the first three broadly covering the shift from independent film to television, taking into account historical, industrial and stylistic perspectives. The final three focus more explicitly on programmes which can be categorised as belonging under the umbrella of independent television (Netflix, Amazon etc), while also following the shift towards varying forms of web-based television and distribution.
In her chapter on the evolution of Indie TV since the 2000s, Alisa Perren usefully attempts to pin down what is meant by the term, ‘Indie TV’. She offers three ways in which it has been used by various critics, scholars and reporters over roughly a twenty-five-year period from the mid-1990s to the late-2010s. The first is as an industrial descriptor: ‘an “indie” is a production company or studio lacking a network counterpart’ and as a result of this, ‘an indie TV operation must rely on another company to finance and/or license its content’ (p. 62). Crucial to this descriptor is the lack of any distinction regarding a given programme’s aesthetics or status as a cultural object. There follows a discussion of indie TV as being related to short-form digital content like a web series. This descriptor presents indie TV as a ‘more inclusive form of television, incorporating underrepresented and marginalized groups both in front of and behind the camera’ (p. 62). Lastly, Perren describes what she calls the most prominent way indie TV has been discussed over the past decade: as a descendent of independent film culture ‘with a particular cultural positioning as well as specific viewing strategies and formal-aesthetic traits’ (p. 63). All three of these approaches, or modes of discourse, are used and interrogated throughout this collection.
The industrial side of indie TV is explored in an insightful chapter by Tom Fallows focused on the television produced by the Blumhouse firm. Fallows describes Blumhouse as ‘one of the many independent production companies that exists within the mainstream industry; not as an opposition or challenge to Hollywood, but as part of a bifurcated ecosystem’ (p. 119) which is reliant, as Perren notes above, on another company to distribute its output. The second descriptor of short-form, web-based digital content is surveyed in Maria San Filippo’s chapter, which is dedicated to the late Lynn Shelton. The chapter explores the work of the Duplass brothers, Joe Swanberg, and Shelton herself, and the ways in which ‘their forays into television adapted mumblecore’s production culture … and niche following to contemporary indie TV’s industrial modes, programming formats, and audience tastes’ (p. 155). Most interesting here is Filippo’s framing of Shelton’s time working as director-for-hire on some of ‘the most popular and highest-regarded comedies/dramedies of recent years’ (p. 165) including The Mindy Project (2012-2015) and The Morning Show (2019-). This pushed her ‘to lead by ceding control – summoning the … trust to embrace the interdependence and delegation necessitated by the ever-larger assignments’ (p. 165). Finally, discussion of indie TV’s aesthetic traits can be found in Michael Z. Newman’s chapter, ‘Prestige TV, Comedy, and the Indie Aesthetic’, which outlines the cringe aesthetic prominent in a number of recent comedy programmes such as Louie (2010-2015) and Girls (2012-2017). Newman concludes by suggesting that these programmes might best be considered as possessing a ‘post-sitcom style, taking some of the raw materials of the older genre and iterating on it’ (p. 204) in much the same way as independent filmmaking has operated for many years.
Given the breadth of the collection, this review hasn’t been able to come close to satisfactorily covering the wealth of material offered in this book. Take for example two wonderful chapters in the fifth section, on regional sensibilities in indie television. Here, Cynthia Baron focuses on FX’s acclaimed adaptation of Fargo (2014-) while Julia Leyda and Diane Negra explore the topic of therapeutic regionalism in relation to Amazon’s short-lived and criminally underseen, One Mississippi (2015-2017).
Indie TV comes highly recommended, with its wide range of chapter topics meaning there is something for everyone inside. The overall clarity of writing and clear organisation undoubtedly makes this work accessible to a non-academic reader, familiar with a number of the programmes explored here. It is also a crucial work for both students and scholars who are interested in and engage with contemporary television from industrial, sociological and aesthetic perspectives.