Chicago's Notable Independent Films

Independent films create an outlet for serious filmmakers who use small budgets to recognize their large ambitions. Although many actors have turned to them as a source of "street cred," independent films are really the same kind of films as mega-studio movies but with a slightly offset production quality.

Often, when we think of independent film, we think of small prairie settings, deserts, rural towns or country backwoods. We rarely think of a metropolis. Contrary to this assumption, Chicago has been the setting for many independent films. It is one of the premiere locales where small art meets big city.

The coming-of-age story My Bodyguard (1980) was filmed in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood. In the story, Clifford Peache (Chris Makepeace) befriends and hires the school bully Ricky Linderman (Adam Baldwin, a Winnetka, Ill., native). Peache is challenged by Melvin Moody (Matt Dillon), a member of Linderman's gang, to fight Linderman. The movie features Chicago streets, from Diversey to Irving Park, that have since drastically changed. There is actually more of old Chicago in this independent film. In fact, the famous site of the Kwagulth Totem Pole is the setting for the film's climactic ending.

Another bildungsroman independent film set in the Chicago area is Lucas (1986). This time, a romance is the central driving force to the protagonist's development. A three-way love-triangle between Lucas (Corey Haim), Maggie (Kerri Green) and Cappie (Charlie Sheen) dominates and complicates Lucas's adolescent challenges and maturation. The brainchild of Highland Park's David Seltzer, this independent film highlights the northern Chicago suburbs. Outside of Lucas's modest mobile abode, sprawling lawns and large homes contrast the city lying due south.

On a more serious note, independent films in Chicago have the same propensity towards social analysis as major studio productions. Native Son (1986) is an independent film that beckons the viewer to ponder racial segregation, poverty, socio-economic disproportion, violence, sexual taboo and even the human existence itself in 1940s Chicago. Lifted from the pages of Richard Wright's novel and actualized by Victor Love, Elizabeth McGovern, Matt Dillon, Geraldine Page and Oprah Winfrey, Native Son is considered an independent film with more studio flair than the average independent film. Still, this version is a feasible adaptation of something less saccharine.

Even less sunny is Hoop Dreams (1994). This independent film documents two teenage NBA hopefuls, William Gates and Arthur Agee, who are recruited by a prestigious parochial school and compete for a chance to follow in the footsteps of Isaiah Thomas. However, this independent film reveals a desperate, harrowing fight for the American dream. If not for the obstacles, setbacks and doubts, neither boy could have realized his dream of leaving a bad neighborhood.

Though a documentary, Hoop Dreams was not nominated in either documentary category for the 1995 Academy Awards, but rather for Best Editing, which was instead won by Arthur Schmidt for Forrest Gump (1994).

Sensitive teen dramas, literary giants and plain old real life are only a few types of independent films dedicated to the Chicago film collection. There are many more reels of independent films set in Chicago, and whether they incite a good laugh, a tear, or in-depth discussion, they are worth a peek.