A two-word description of American filmaking: No center. Hollywood, the old center, is still there. But now it’s just the place to go to get the money, and later, to pick up your awards. Films are made where the story is: Texas, North Dakota, or a glacier in Finse, Norway. Filmmakers live where they want to live; mostly Northern California — it looks like from here in Northern California.

Is the craft any better for the change? Yes, if vigor, diversity, new talent, are what is wanted. If the films themselves are sometimes disappointing, we can still look forward to reading about why they didn’t quite meet their mark. See Eleanor Coppola’s Notes (about the making of Apocalypse Now), a particularly scorching example.

The success of Notes points up another remarkable aspect of the current filmrhaking scene: the manufacturing has become as interesting as the product. Just as novels reach an audience filled with aspiring novelists, movie theaters seem to be jammed with future filmmakers, all wanting to know: “How was it done?” Once they find out, will there be room at the top for more George Lucases and Francis Coppolas? Those are exceptional successes. And the outer reaches, the riskier reaches of filmmaking — documentary, shorts, animation — are getting riskier every day. Jean Renoir dreamed of film becoming as plentiful as sketchbooks. Not likely, when every aspect of filmmaking is energy-intensive and the funding comes from the driest of venture capital pools. And yet daring films continue to be made. Witness Northern Lights, Goodnight Miss Anne, and Word is Out. These are powerful films made by strong individuals or groups of individuals. They are not adaptations; they were conceived as films. It’s not an unhealthy time for film making. The center may be gone, but there’s much life around the edges. We may see fewer films but better.