Acting: Central to a Director's Cinema such as American Independent Film

To illustrate that performances warrant the same attention given to other filmic elements, the essay demonstrates that acting can be crucial even in director-centered independent films. The analysis focuses on performances in Matewan (John Sayles, 1987), which belongs to the first "golden age" of American independent cinema and is by a recognized independent film director. It explores the neo-naturalistic conception of character that grounds Matewan's performances. It also analyzes aspects of performance identified by Prague School theorists, gesture-signs (social gestures) and gesture-expressions (individual uses of gestures), showing that in Matewan key information about the characters and their world is conveyed by the gesture-signs selected and the qualities in actors' individual gesture-expressions.