Opposition to Mainstream Fantasy

Before describing Cavell’s practice of philosophical film criticism in detail, I consider two other important film criticism approaches that could be used to understand how the indie response films represent a response to blockbuster fantasy. First, American Independent film criticism, a film culture-based method of criticism, analyzes how the filmmaking styles of indie films present alternatives to the values expressed in mainstream cinema. Within this framework, indie fantasy films can be thought of as offering alternatives to the action-oriented spectacles of blockbuster fantasy. Second, fantasy film criticism, a genre-based method of criticism, explores the utopian potential of fantasy films and their ability to portray alternative social arrangements that may stimulate the imagination of viewers. This type of criticism is primarily concerned with analyzing the fantastic or magical content of films. For reasons articulated in this chapter, I do not believe that these approaches provide effective criteria for determining what makes specific indie or fantasy films “oppositional.” Consequently, they are limited in their ability to explain how the indie response films provide an alternative vision of the filmic relationship between reality and fantasy.