Indie (culture)
"Indie," as commonly refered to regarding film, music and even business. It is an abbreviation for independent. The word has been used in this regard for quite some time, but only since the later 1990's to present day has the term not only developed into a genre, but into an able yet underground Subculture.
Overview
The avant-garde way of life and dress is often associated with the hipster (a term evolved from jazz muscians in the 20s) - intellectual and self-proclaimed reasonable thinkers.
Those assocociated with the Indie Sub-culture are often involved with the local art and music/dj scenes. They often are found in cafe's and books stores - and usually follow or are involved with independent films and/or alternative comics. Unlike previous generations of hipsters, they are rarely now associated with the jazz scene.
Music and film
Concerned lovers of the independent label's offbeat exports of music and films, is what gives the name to this culture. Since the late 1990s, indie rock and downtempo electronica, are closely related to their styles of music (sometimes associated with the "indie 'scene'" of japan), and those who follow the associated ultramodern fashions and tastes.
The Seattle scene became popular in the early 1990s, when bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, and the Screaming Trees had immense success with their music. This was unique since it signaled the first time in a long time that punk-influenece rock had become once again in vogue with the masses. Bands such as Pixies and Sonic Youth, who were not given much mainstream credibility up to this point, found themselves adored by new fans.
New York City (notably the neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn) has also been cited as a major scene for recent indie rock music with such bands as The Walkmen, TV on the Radio, Interpol, and The Strokes. Los Angeles' indie scene rides the wave of gentrification through Eastside neighborhoods like Koreatown, Silverlake, and Echo Park, which have given rise to such bands as Moving Units, Autolux, and Giant Drag.
As with any distinctive subculture, the believed typecaste is a fairly vague group that appreciates irony and self-deprecation.
List of some significant independent films
This headline was taken directly from independent films.
- Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino, 1991)
- Shadows (John Cassavetes, 1959)
- Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (Russ Meyer. 1965)
- David Holzman's Diary (Jim McBride, 1967)
- Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969)
- Pink Flamingos (John Waters, 1972)
- Eraserhead (David Lynch, 1977)
- Return of the Secaucus 7 (John Sayles, 1980)
- She's Gotta Have It (Spike Lee, 1986)
- sex, lies and videotape (Steven Soderbergh, 1989)
- Slacker (Richard Linklater, 1991)
- El Mariachi (Robert Rodriguez, 1992)
- Naked (Mike Leigh, 1993)
- Clerks (Kevin Smith, 1994)
- Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
- Bottle Rocket (Wes Anderson, 1996)
- Cube (Vincenzo Natali, 1997)
- The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sánchez, 1999)
- Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001)
- Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)
- The Passion of the Christ (Mel Gibson, 2004)
- Napoleon Dynamite (Jared Hess, 2004)
Common misunderstandings or arguments
Some may believe those in the "Indie Group" would be somewhat associated with emo, or "indie emo" which is more melodic and less chaotic in nature than its predecessor. The so-called "indie emo" scene survived until the end of the 1990s, as many of the bands either disbanded or shifted their style to the mainstream.
Another fallacy in the subject is in the way an "indie" person would dress. This also is a vague area, however, those proclaimed to be true hipsters do not dress in the "emo" style.