There are really two kinds of flicks—what we now call generic Hollywood movies, and what we now call Independent films. Hollywood films—and this is crucial to screenwriters—all have in common this: they want to tell us truths we already know or a falsehood we want to believe in. Hollywood films reinforce, reassure. Independent films, which used to be called “art” films, have a different agenda. They want to tell us things we don’t want to know. Independent films unsettle.
