It’s characterized by naturalistic acting and dialogue (sometimes improvised), low-budget film production, an emphasis on dialogue.
John Cassavetes is the first director I thought about, especially “Minnie and Moskowitz” and probably all his 70s stuff, but also Vincent Gallo’s “Buffalo '66” (not early, but a great movie), where you have Ben Gazzarra playing the father, who was part of the Cassavetes troupe, which is why I think Vincent Gallo got him on board.
There is a pretty good movie from 1976,
A young Jeff Goldblum & Christopher Walken with Ellen Greene provide some very natural dialogue as Shelley Winters at least provides method style acting.
One of my favorites! A 10/10
If you like Mazursky, I would recommend my favorite movie ever - “Harry and Tonto”
I know it pretty well. Art Carney was a genius. But while I like the movie, I don’t love it.
If I’m understanding the OP correctly, Clerks and Reservoir Dogs would fit this description.
It’s my contention that one of the major influences on movies like this is Woody Allen. His movies have low budgets and are full of dialogue. Allen was able to get major actors to appear in his films despite paying them low salaries, so they are surprisingly low in budget considering who is in them. Much of his films are about his main characters constantly talking. Indeed, they seem to be talking their problems to death rather than solving them. Allen wasn’t the first director/writer to have movies like this, but then mumblecore, like most genres, draws from various sources and is rather vaguely defined. Mumblecore - Wikipedia lists Allen’s film Manhattan as one of the genre’s sources.
Funny Ha Ha is a 2002 American film written and directed by Andrew Bujalski. It has been described as the first mumblecore film. The film was shot on 16 mm film on a very low budget. It deals with the lives of people in their twenties as they try to come to terms with life after college and confront the responsibilities of adulthood, if only to put them off for as long as possible.
I would consider neither of these as mumblecore. Smith and Tarantino use highly stylized scripted dialogue. “Naturalistic” is not something I would accuse either of being.
So Robert Altman films aren’t Mumblecore because he had a decent budget to work with?
You could take any movie genre and invent a variant based on being a low budget movie.
I don’t think Altman had many high budgets… Some of my very favorite movies are “Nashville” and “McCabe & Mrs. Miller”, but they’re very stylized and interesting.
“Secret Honor” is a movie with one character (Nixon)… It’s not a GREAT movie, but very unique.
What is stylized about Nashville? It may be more interesting subject matter than some things, but Altman’s style was very indirect filming, like an eavesdropper on the conversation, and the dialogue is incredibly realistic as it’s done by the actors because they do have a real conversation.
I am having difficult understanding what is distinct about Mumblecore. The references to other movies don’t seem to point out a common style, or anything new since maybe the 60s. I’m willing to find out, but it seems odd that no one can present a concise and clear definition of what this is except to point to a couple of directors and movies.
I think the term “mumblecore” isn’t very clear. About all I can say about it is to distinguish it from the genres that it’s most distinct from. One of those genres is comic book movies. Another is movies in the Star Wars and Star Trek universes. Another is any of the Indiana Jones movies. Mumblecore is anything that’s as far as possible from those films.
There’s a small but distinctive subgenre that might be deemed “mumblecore sci-fi.” (Primer, Computer Chess, Safety Not Guaranteed…)
Norman Mailer’s Wild 90 from 1968 would probably fit – all dialog was improvised and nearly all of it was staged in a single room, with no postdubbing the sound.
It’s also a terrible movie (3.9 on the IMDb).
Mumblecore is not strictly about being low budget or just being improvised. Altman is certainly an influence as is Cassavetes. The mumblecore directors were inspired by the earlier filmmakers who started independent films. Altman had intimate dialogue and an indy sensibility but he made big movies with big themes and big stories. Mumblecore has navel gazing 20 and 30 year olds mumbling about their relationships. Defining what a mumblecore movie is becomes difficult because it’s mostly a pejorative and many of the directors that are considered mumblecore reject the term.
It centers around 16 or so characters, with a lot of cutting, editing to symbolize “Americana”… I just thought of one screen when one is crying, then it cuts to laughter. Early on, the characters aren’t really immersed, but little by little, we see “connections” (I know PT Anderson was influenced by this movie when he made “Magnolia”). Some also look at it as a musical. Lots of settings and movements. “Secret Honor” is a different story, though.
American Graffiti?
Not even close.
It looks like my post was eaten by the boards. I’m glad it was short. Let’s try again:
Laws of Gravity (1992) I haven’t seen it since the mid 90s, but I remember that I was amazed at how real it seemed. My friends absolutely hated it. Comments at IMDB all remark about how realistic the movie was.
I searched for it on my Roku, and it’s only available for rent right now. I’m surprised it’s not free somewhere.
If it was free that means some company would be paying for the rights to show it. Not very economical for an obscure movie. Very early Edie Falco. I’ll have to try it out.