SMELLS LIKE INDIE SPIRIT

Doing the hard work, so you don't have to film consultant Jason Wood has produced an engaging guide to 100 American Independent Films. Michael Dwyer salutes an eclectic, engaging selection.

IT'S that time of year again. The first "For your consideration" ads have appeared in the film trade press, plugging contenders for Oscars next February, and we are entering the season of the lists. Getting in first is Jason Wood, an English freelance film consultant who has produced and directed documentaries on Krzysztof Kieslowki, Hal Hartley and Atom Egoyan.

Wood has compiled his choice of the key US indie productions in the British Film Institute publication 100 American Independent Films, a pocket-sized paperback, which, running to 260 pages, may prove too bulky for most pockets.

In his introduction, Wood traces the history of the US indie back to the pioneering producers of the silent era, citing the textbook example of Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith, when they took control over their own work by forming United Artists in 1918.

"Independent cinema," Wood notes, "could be seen as a series of 'moments' that change according to the perspective of the beholder." In that context, he quotes Hal Hartley's observation that he has "never understood what people mean by independent", adding, "I know what they mean by low-budget". It became a badge of honour for some film-makers to claim the lowest possible budgets for their movies, and the book selects two prominent examples in Robert Rodriguez's El Mariachi and Kevin Smith's Clerks, which garnered reams of publicity by declaring budgets of just $7,000 and $27,000, respectively.

The book singles out the landmarks of the independent movement, from the groundbreaking work as a director by actor John Cassavetes - represented in the book's 100 films by Shadows and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie - to the influence of Miramax, the enterprising distributor that rewrote the indies rulebook before it was bought by Disney. That relationship, though fraught at present and possibly heading for divorce next year, proved highly influential in a business where success imitates success, and all the Hollywood studios went on to set up their own specialist divisions for movies that smelled like indie spirit.

Wood limits himself to a maximum of two films from any one director, and seven are deemed worthy of two mentions each - Spike Lee, Steven Soderbergh, John Sayles, Jim Jarmusch, Kevin Smith, Hartley and Cassavetes.

The book spans productions from 1953 (Herbert J. Biberman's Salt of the Earth) to 2001 (the cultish Donnie Darko), although the great majority of the movies are chosen from the fertile era of the 1980s and 1990s. Wood's far-ranging selection mixes genres from documentaries (a particularly strong choice includes Don't Look Back, Roger & Me, Sherman's March, Hoop Dreams and The Thin Blue Line) to horror movies (George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead and the phenomenon that was The Blair Witch Project).

Each film is covered over a pithy two pages, providing production information, basic synopsis and critical overview. Wood writes with clarity and enthusiasm as he makes the case for each of his inclusions, although, inevitably, readers may remain unconvinced by some of his selections and may query some omissions.

Even the authors of the book's preface - co-directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel, whose début film, Suture, makes the list - draw attention to the exclusion of Tom Laughlin's definitively independent 1971 drama, Billy Jack. McGehee and Siegel say that, for both of them, it was "a first and formative experience with American indie film-making", but they failed to persuade Wood to include it among his chosen 100 films.

One of the striking aspects of this compilation is the sheer number of first-time features included, and their remarkable quality - Terrence Malick's magnificent Badlands, Spike Lee's vibrant She's Gotta Have It, John Sayles's endearing Return of the Secaucus Seven, Joel and Ethan Coen's arresting Blood Simple, David Lynch's mind-boggling Eraserhead, David O. Russell's provocative Spanking the Monkey, Todd Solondz's unsettling Welcome to the Dollhouse, Steven Soderbergh's perceptive sex, lies and videotape, Susan Seidelman's assured Smithereens, John Singleton's powerful Boyz N the Hood.

Wood aptly quotes Soderbergh's acceptance speech at Cannes, when his low-budget drama was the surprise winner of the Palme d'Or in 1989 and he remarked sardonically: "It's all downhill from here". We are reminded of just how much promise and skill so many of those first-time directors showed - and, in some cases, of how much of that talent has been squandered and frittered away.

To Wood's credit, he makes space for a number of movies that have been neglected and unfairly overlooked down the years, such as Barbara Loden's Wanda, Monte Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop, Bill Sherwood's Parting Glances, Maggie Greenwald's The Kill-Off, Greg Mottola's The Daytrippers, Lodge Kerrigan's Clean, Shaven, and Shirley Clarke's Portrait of Jason - all highly distinctive works from imaginative directors who, in many cases, failed to get the opportunity to build on their evident ability.

Given that calculated eccentricity has been such a trademark of the indie movement, Wood quite properly adds such cherishably strange and entertainingly outrageous pictures as Paul Morrissey's Warhol-produced Lonesome Cowboys, John Waters's Pink Flamingos, Miguel Arreta's Chuck & Buck, and the recently deceased Russ Meyer's Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Anyone seeking fresh ideas for building up a home DVD library would be well advised to start with this book.