William Cusick‘s Pop Meets The Void (2015) is what independent film should be: an alternative to mainstream cinema, as opposed to a low budget imitation of Hollywood fare.

Cusick sees the artist as in revolt against common sense and repressive conventions of the social order. The musician protagonist of Pop Meets the Void encounters the fingernails-down-chalkboard inquisition that almost every artist endures from bourgeoisie muggles: “Are you a real artist or do you just wanna be?” Fill in the appropriate follow-up blank: “Are you famous? Are you rich? Do you have a recording contract with a big label? Have you published a book? Have you acted in a real movie, like the ones from Hollywood? Have you sold a painting for a million dollars yet?” Followed by “So, what’s the point?”

German Expressionist painter Franz Marc astutely addressed the artist’s encounter with the bourgeoisie in an entry from the famous “Blue Rider Almanac”: “It is strange that people should value spiritual treasures so differently than material ones. If someone conquers a new colony for his country, the whole country rejoices for him and does not hesitate to take possession of that colony. Technological achievements are met with the same rejoicing. On the other hand, if someone should think of giving his country a spiritual treasure, it is almost always rejected with anger and irritation; his gift arouses suspicion and people to try and do away with it. Why new paintings and why new ideas? What can we buy with them? We already have too many old ones.”

Painter Paul Gauguin advised young artists to worry less about the finished work and locate sacrament in the artistic process. This is Cusick’s spirit. He retreats and takes the role of artist as hermit, keeping his music attic-bound. As a hermit, his worldview encompasses the artist as misfit prophet.

The narrative of artist as contrarian to the world has been around as long as there has been artists, and will continue until the artist goes the way of the dinosaur. If Cusick had merely followed an orthodox route, his film would be dishonest and pedestrian. Cusick knows such a retreat must inspire a genre-rejecting, authentic composition, and Pop Meets The Void‘s fantasia qualities make it a startling work that validates the narrative as both immortal and relevant. History does not exist. Rather, the artistic expression is fluid. Marc sees continuity as opposed to an historical valve which shuts on and off: “Cezanne and El Greco are spiritual brothers, despite the centuries that separate them.” We can, of course, subscribe to the maxim there is nothing new under the sun, but Cusick stubbornly refuses to be fence-bound, charismatically imprinting his own process.

Criticizing the historical development of cinema, Luis Buñuel wrote: “Moving pictures merely repeat what we have been told for centuries by novels and plays. Thus, a marvelous instrument for the expression of poetry and dreams (the subconscious world) is reduced to the role of simple REPEATER of stories expressed by other art forms.” Cusick utilizes the liberty of dreams to convey boundless paradoxes presiding in the asphyxiating mirage of adulation and celebrity.

Smarter still, Cusick forgoes the aloofness which often permeates and hinders the surreal aesthetic. In ambitiously attempting to construct something akin to a Mahlerian universe, Cusick does not shy away from bathos. If it is all-encompassing, then his work must be imbued with all facets of the mortal experience. Pop Meets The Void is coarse and sleek, opaque and diaphanous, textured and emotional, a visual work about music. As the late composer Pierre Boulez advised: “We must be cultural omnivores and raid all the art forms to enhance our own medium.” Cusick’s impetuously earnest effort does just that, and is a List contender.