The Revolution Is Dead, Long Live the Revolution

INDEPENDENCE in the movies is a cri de coeur and an occasionallyprofitable branding ploy, but mostly it's a seductive lie. For much ofAmerican movie history it has been shorthand for more aestheticallyadventurous films, bolder in form, freer in spirit and at times moreovertly political than those churned out by the Hollywood studios.Once we were one nation under the movie screen, indivisible, withliberty and Shirley Temple for all, but independent film gave us newways of looking, or so the story goes. Never mind that JohnCassavetes, the patron saint of independent cinema, struggled forattention and dollars for much of his filmmaking career