Experimental Cinema, The Film Reader

by Foster,Gwendolyn Audrey

• ISBN13: 9780415277877
• ISBN10: 0415277876
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-10-25
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Experimental Cinema, The Film Readerbrings together key writings on American avant-garde cinema to explore the long tradition of underground filmmaking from its origins in the 1920s to the work of contemporary film and video artists. TheReadertraces the development of major movements such as the New American Cinema of the 1960s and the Structuralist films of the 1970s, examining the work of key practitioners and recovering neglected filmmakers. Contributors focus on the ways in which underground films have explored issues of gender, sexuality and race, and foreground important technical innovations such as the use of Super 8mm and video. Each section features an editor's introduction setting debates in their context. The book concludes with a valuable filmography of key films available.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction: Toward a New History of the Experimental Cinema	1	(16)
PART ONE: ORIGINS OF THE AMERICAN AVANT-GARDE CINEMA, 1920--1959	17	(96)
Introduction	17	(2)
The First American Film Avant-garde, 1919--1945	19	(34)
Jan-Christopher Horak
Notes on the New American Cinema	53	(18)
Jonas Mekas
The Woman Filmmaker in the New York Avant-garde	71	(10)
Lauren Rabinovitz
Women in the Avant-garde: Germaine Dulac, Maya Deren, Agnes Varda, Chantal Akerman, and Trinh T. Minh-ha	81	(32)
Judith Mayne
PART TWO: THE 1960s EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA EXPLOSION	113	(112)
Introduction	113	(2)
Pop, Queer, or Fascist? The Ambiguity of Mass Culture in Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising	115	(24)
Juan A. Suarez
Stan Brakhage: The 60th Birthday Interview	139	(24)
Suranjan Ganguly
The Perfect Queer Appositeness of Jack Smith	163	(10)
Jerry Tartaglia
An Interview with Carolee Schneemann	173	(16)
Kate Haug
The Flower Thief: The ``Film Poem,'' Warhol's Early Films, and the Beat Writers	189	(24)
Reva Wolf
Walking on Thin Ice: The Films of Yoko Ono	213	(8)
Daryl Chin
Yoko Ono on Yoko Ono	221	(4)
Yoko Ono
PART THREE: STRUCTURALISM IN THE 1970s	225	(56)
Introduction	225	(2)
Structural Film	227	(12)
P. Adams Sitney
Interview with Michael Snow	239	(20)
Scott MacDonald
The Films of Warren Sonbert	259	(6)
Philip Lopate
Warren Sonbert Interview	265	(8)
David Ehrenstein
An Interview with Hollis Frampton	273	(8)
Peter Gidal
PART FOUR: ALTERNATIVE CINEMAS, 1980--2000	281	(58)
Introduction	281	(2)
Re/Constructing Lesbian Auto/Biographies in Tender Fictions and Nitrate Kisses	283	(16)
Gwendolyn Audrey Foster
The Films of Sadie Benning and Su Friedrich	299	(14)
Chris Holmlund
Black Women's Independent Cinema	313	(12)
Gloria J. Gibson
Dark and Lovely Too: Black Gay Men in Independent Film	325	(14)
Kobena Mercer
Select Bibliography	339	(6)
Index	345