4REEDOM is not free, as you may
have heard. And since by definition
“independent” means “free from
outside control; not dependent on
another’s authority,” independent
moviemaking always comes at a steep price. A por-
tion of that price is the energy it takes to muster the
imagination, audacity, and resources, financial and
otherwise, that conjure our movies into existence.
The balance of that price is our health and hap-
piness in the face of daunting
obstacles, near-constant disap-
pointment, and absurdly long
odds. That’s what this column is
about—the absurdity of what we
do, and why we do it anyway. We
don’t talk about that enough.
Gathering the resources
required to make a movie usu-
ally means tradeoffs, sacrifices, compromises and,
above all, currency. It’s been that way since the
godfather of independent film, John Cassavetes,
was trading acting days on the sets of other
producers’ movies he detested for directing days
on the sets of his own movies he loved. He cobbled
those labors of love together over time and when
he was finished, he fought to get them seen.
Fifty years later, with the advent of cheap
production tools, digital distribution, and global-
ization, there are more resources and opportuni-
ties available to moviemakers than in the entire
previous history of the moving image. A seemingly
infinite number of screens exist in the world, and
they all need 24/7 content. The amount of money
being spent on content is astounding. Netflix has
$15.7 billion in commitments for new content
deals. Hulu has $2.5B in commitments for original
programming this year. Amazon spent $6B on pro-
gramming last year. And now Apple and Facebook
are committing untold billions to acquiring and
producing original content. It’s undeniable that
the demand for original content has never been
stronger. But between those facts and the facts
on the ground in our lives there’s sometimes an
uncomfortable cognitive dissonance.
As Fellini famously said, “You exist only in what
you do.” If I had to draw a picture of the daily life
of an independent producer, the old IFP logo that
depicts Sisyphus pushing the giant film reel up the
mountain is one that’s so apt as to be cliché, but
that doesn’t make it any less true. Another mythical
metaphor that might be as appropriate is starving,
thirst-ravaged Tantalus, who can neither reach theISSUE NO. 132, VOLUME 26
SUMMER 2019
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CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
CARLOS AGUILAR, JEREMY ARNOLD,
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INTERNS
SOPHIE JONSSON,
SARA ROMANO, IZZY STROOBANDTstream at his feet nor the fruit just above his head.
That’s how this new universe of voracious screens
feels to many moviemakers—just beyond their
grasp. And yet it’s not, of course. Plenty of folks are
getting projects made, sold, and distributed. How,
then, does one not lose heart in the meantime?
What we do as independent producers
so often feels just plain absurd. In Camus’
The Myth of Sisyphus, the absurd is defined as a
divorce between the rational mind and the irrational
universe. Camus says that the primary source of
man’s despair is the silence with which his pleas for
happiness are met. So how do we keep going when
the result of our daily labor often seems maddeningly
trivial and unfulfilling, our progress glacial, our ef-
forts constantly bringing us back to the beginning?
Sisyphus is punished by the gods for his im-
pudence, made to slave over a difficult, purpose-
less task for eternity. And yet Sisyphus scorns his
sentence, thus conquering it. Camus says that happi-
ness and absurdity are “two sons of the same earth.”
Sisyphus’ spurning of his god-given punishment,
and his subsequent enlightenment, is his absurd
victory, because “There is no fate that cannot be sur-
mounted by scorn.” It is scorn that drives Sisyphus
to consciousness above his punishment. If the rock
is designed to be our tragedy, the moment we tran-
scend its design and become aware of its limitations,
we are no longer beholden to it and we can dismiss
its absurdity. What was previously a struggle toward
the mountaintop, only to tumble down again, can
now be enlightenment and serenity. This conscious
decision to embrace life and scorn the gods is the
Sisyphusian mark of freedom. He controls his fate
because he fully understands his existence and
embraces it, just as we independent moviemakers
must understand that the finish line fallacy keeps us
from embracing the joy of the process. The journey
is the reward. There is no busting through the white
tape at the end of the run, after which all the pain
will be released. The truth is that there is no finish
line. Orson Welles once said, “The only reason any
story has a happy ending is because they stop telling
it before the end.” If that doesn’t make you smile, I
don’t know what will.
We should wallow in the absurdity. As Mark Manson
puts it in his book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck,
satisfaction with life is about finding better
problems to have. You enjoy solving problems, so
you assume you’d enjoy solving all your problems
forever. But without problems you can’t enjoy solv-
ing them. Satisfaction is born of pain. Let’s reframe
the endless suffering that is moviemaking—and
life—into something else: a never-ending abundance
of worthy problems to solve. Since there is no end
to problems, we have an unlimited potential for
satisfaction available to us every day.
Sisyphus reaches a higher plane where
gods are rendered powerless and huge rocks are
raised. He concludes that all is well. “The struggle
itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s
heart.” Even in a universe that rejects our calls for
meanings and happy endings, Sisyphus
is still smiling. And if he can do it, so can we.
Happy moviemaking. We’ll see you this fall. MMMM NOTEBOOK
BY TIM RHYSSUMMER 2019 MOVIEMAKER.COMF
SISYPHUS
SMILES... AND
WE SHOULD, TOO