Restrained Cinema: The Deadpan

This is the first of my analysis of a category in film that I call Restrained Cinema. Restrained Cinema is a type of film style and film narrative that features certain characteristics that range from minimalist films to Deadpan comedies to the current style of Indy films. I'll cover with the best of my knowledge each of these areas starting off with what I call the problem of Indy film.

The Indy film is the independent film, the films that are produced outside the mainstream that still appeal the mainstream. In the beginning, most independent films varied in style and content. You couldn't compare a John Cassavetes to a John Sayles, two giants of the independent film. Cassavetes concerns with pragmatism and relationships wouldn't be on the same plane with Sayles' ventures in society and culture. The same could be said with the likes of Spike Lee, Steven Soderbergh, and Todd Haynes. The main features these directors have in common was the introduction of a new voice. Directors working outside the mainstream to do what they wanted to do on their own terms. In contemporary film, those terms are starting to become similar. Independent film has become the Indy film. And the Indy film has led to the Deadpan. The Deadpan is a recurring characteristic or to be more exact, a recurring film style that features either emotionally restrained characters who speak in stilted dialogue. They are then shot from the farthest distance possible so as that the audience cannot relate to them due to the detachment. On a visual, verbal, and emotional level this is what we get. And what we get is both an original idea and a new trend. The idea harks back to likes of Buster Keaton, Robert Bresson, Aki Kaurismaki, and Jim Jarmusch. The trend is what most Indy movies look like now. Take any of them. The main focus it appears is the awkwardness that each character feels. The dead end lifestyle they live. Lack of emotion that in the end damns them or delivers them if they lose it. It all sounds familiar, right? Rather than use examples and "name names," I've decided to make a list so you can point out the similarities yourself.

1) Restrained Direction (long shots, minimal camera movement, flat compositions, hard cuts)
2) Restrained Dialogue (stilted dialogue, laconic delivery)
3) Restrained Emotion (deadpan)
4) Three kinds of Plots (dead end slice of life, wacky misadventures)
5) Two kinds of characters (unemotional, awkward outcasts, energetic eccentrics)
6) Emotionally detached audience ("why should we feel?")

These characteristics is what's becoming popular with indy directors and audiences. The same folks who wanted to escape the world of mainstream excess and familiarity are creating a world of independent dearth and familiarity. It's becoming a niche in the world of cinema, and more than a niche it will become an establishment. This is what Indy film is. Independent film is film outside the mainstream. Indy film is film feigning that. A true independent film is completely outside the norm, a film not made with in a certain rule set. Indy film is creating a new rule set. That rule set is Emotional Detachment, or the Deadpan, and the Deadpan is a trend. Thus the problem of Indy film.

-Carlos F. Enriquez