Oscar weekend is no longer the season of discontent for independent filmmakers. This year, Indies aren’t pressing their noses up against the glass, but racking up major nominations. The competitive independent alternative ushered in the ’90s by Hollywood’s own Robert Redford and by the brothers Weinstein at Miramax is a great, and often garbled American story.

Peter Biskind, longtime film critic and Vanity Fair contributing editor, writes that the life of an independent filmmaker can be “nasty, brutish, and short.” “It is paradise lost –all the sniping and narcissism and artistic undercutting of Hollywood, but with smaller stakes, salaries, and catering budgets.”

Hear about the rise and fall of the American Indie film.

Guests:

Peter Biskind, contributing editor to Vanity Fair magazine, author of “Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film,” and “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex, Drugs & Rock-’n-Roll Generation Saved Hollywood.”