Why Study Small-Town America in Film

Along with my other books, And the Winner Is: The History and Politics of the Academy Awards (1986) and John Wayne: Prophet of the American Way of Life (1988), my work is dealing with three of the most uniquely American symbols: the Oscar Award, John Wayne, and Small-Town America. To me, these three publications form some kind of logical, thematic unit, representing a decade of work on the American cinema.

On the Best-Seller List of the L.A. Times, Cinema of Outsiders: The Rise of American Independnet Film, is the most popular film book in the 90-year-history of NYU Press.

The emergence of a new cinematic force is not a coincidence: Promising directors come and go in cycles and Hollywood sets the context in which those cycles occur. Indies' recent prominence is directly related to Hollywood's abandonment of the making of serious, issue-oriented provocative films. Despite big budgets, in terms of artistic quality and originality, the studios release mostly minor films. Mostly committed to the production of big “event” movies, the studios leave room for small, mid-range indies. The best indies serve as a reminder of why, by turning its back on the real world, most of Hollywood fare seems tired and tiresome.