For years, much of the film industry has considered Sundance as a ’90s legacy, one most famous for launching the festival that cemented a market for American independent film. However, the seeds for that phenomenon were sown in the previous decade.
Hollywood raced into the ’80s with its blockbuster juices flowing, as the box-office sensations of “Jaws” and then “Star Wars” rejuvenated the studio confidence in mass-market commercial storytelling, and the prospects of small-scale independent filmmaking seemed more marginalized than ever. Enter Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute, which launched its first feature film lab in 1981, and created a seminal resource for working outside the system still unparalleled in the U.S. today.
In the midst of the studios getting a second wind, Redford felt unnerved. Though the movie star made a successful pivot to directing with “Ordinary People” in 1980, he had long felt that Hollywood underserved movies made with an economy of means.
Hollywood raced into the ’80s with its blockbuster juices flowing, as the box-office sensations of “Jaws” and then “Star Wars” rejuvenated the studio confidence in mass-market commercial storytelling, and the prospects of small-scale independent filmmaking seemed more marginalized than ever. Enter Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute, which launched its first feature film lab in 1981, and created a seminal resource for working outside the system still unparalleled in the U.S. today.
In the midst of the studios getting a second wind, Redford felt unnerved. Though the movie star made a successful pivot to directing with “Ordinary People” in 1980, he had long felt that Hollywood underserved movies made with an economy of means.
- 8/14/2023
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
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