In praise of indies, real and ‘almost’

Several years ago, when Clint Eastwood’s eclectic and exceptional “Unforgiven” was on its way to winning four Oscars, including best picture, an executive at Warner Bros. commented, “If that had been our picture, we would have ruined it.” The comment was not a little ironic, because technically “Unforgiven” was a Warners picture. What the executive meant was that if “Unforgiven” had gone through the normal development process that every studio, not just Warners, utilizes, all the quirky edges that made it memorable would have disappeared. It was only Eastwood’s personal clout that kept that from happening, that turned “Unforgiven” into the equivalent of an independent film.

That anecdote is relevant this year not only because Eastwood has an excellent new film, “Million Dollar Baby,” but because all the major studio productions good enough to be on this year’s 10 best list had protectors of one sort or another who kept them from being emasculated. The studio development process may be good for maximizing profits (though even that is highly debatable), but as a way to make a picture of quality it’s as bankrupt as Enron.

With the exception of Eastwood’s film, the Pixar-developed “The Incredibles” and the Jonathan Demme-protected “The Manchurian Candidate,” all the films on my list are either documentaries, independents, foreign language items or, most promising of all, the products of studio-owned subsidiaries like Fox Searchlight or Universal Focus. These companies are the wave of the future for serious cinema, making films that combine the sophisticated sensibility of the independent world with the kinds of budgets (usually $15 million to $25 million) that allow for a sane shooting schedule and some production flourishes.

The best of these films this year, and the best film of 2004, is Alexander Payne’s “Sideways.” Exactly written and directed with both warmth and precision, “Sideways” works beautifully on any number of levels, from the bawdily comedic to the genuinely heartbreaking. It is especially satisfying to witness Payne and his screenwriting partner, Jim Taylor, taking their work to increasingly accomplished levels, to see their films getting progressively more subtle, their comedy deeper, their themes more adult.

The rest break down as follows:

2. “The Incredibles.” Brad Bird, with Pixar’s unequivocal backing, has fulfilled the animator’s big dream of doing it all, creating the unprecedented film that is not just a grand feature-length cartoon but a grand feature, period.

3. “Million Dollar Baby.” Starring the director, Morgan Freeman and Hilary Swank and set in the harsh world of boxing, this is Eastwood’s most touching, most elegiac work, a film that has the nerve and the will to be as pitiless as it is sentimental.

4. “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film, much less a deeply felt romance, that irritated me so much before I fell in love with it. Movies that move us have an element of magic in them, and this Jim Carrey- and Kate Winslet-starring bastard child of Philip K. Dick and “It’s a Wonderful Life” is high on that list.

5. “The Five Obstructions.” Another unlikely triumph, this time from Danish co-directors Jorgen Leth and Lars von Trier. In only 90 minutes it asks you to reexamine both the nature of cinema and the sources of creativity, and it couldn’t be more fun to watch. Also one of a kind from Scandinavia is Norway’s inexpressibly droll “Kitchen Stories.”

6. “Primer” and “Tarnation.” One an elliptical but compelling dramatic feature shot, director Shane Carruth said, “for about the price of a used car,” the other a passionate autobiography put together by director Jonathan Caouette for even less, these were the pick of classically independent film, proof that talent doesn’t need money to flourish. Other unexpected independents include “Saints and Soldiers,” “Mean Creek” and the ineffable “The Saddest Music in the World.”

7. “Vera Drake.” Even by the standards of Britain’s Mike Leigh, whose work with actors is in a class by itself, the performance of Imelda Staunton as the title character stands out for its unexpected changes and its devastating power. A deeply felt, inexpressibly moving film. Other British-directed films worth a year-end nod are Jonathan Glazer’s ambitious “Birth” and Mike Hodges’ masterful “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead.”

8. “Fahrenheit 9/11” and “Control Room.” 2004 was the year of the political documentary and, as the man says, attention must be paid. Michael Moore’s film had virtues all but obliterated by the fuss it raised, and Jehane Noujaim’s look at Al Jazeera showed us that what we think we know may not be knowledge at all.

9. “The Manchurian Candidate.” Speaking of politics, Demme’s thriller joins sensational material, strong acting and uncanny relevance to produce an exceptionally intelligent entertainment. Demme, not one to just hang around, also directed “The Agronomist,” one of the year’s best documentaries.

10. “The Return” and “Goodbye, Lenin.” A brilliant old-style art film from Russia and a wryly comic political drama set in the former East Germany show that films from behind what used to be the Iron Curtain are back with a vengeance.

If there were room for more, I’d likely divide the space between two veteran directors at the top of their form: Michael Mann for “Collateral” and Martin Scorsese for “The Aviator.” Or maybe I’d split it between two wonderfully gentle films, “The Motorcycle Diaries” and the Franco/Georgian “Since Otar Left.”

There was no lack of quality films in 2004, you just had to know where to look.