Experimental Cinema, The Film Reader (In Focus: Routledge Film Readers)

Experimental Cinema, The Film Reader brings 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.

The Reader traces 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.

Sections include:

*Origins of the American avant-garde cinema - Explores the influence of the birth of experimental film, and considers the early work of filmmakers such as Maya Deren.

*The 1960s experimental film explosion - traces the development of the New American Cinema, examining the influence and work of key filmmakers such as Kenneth Anger, Jack Smith, Andy Warhol, Stan Brakhage, and collage filmmaker Bruce Conner.

*Structuralism in the 1970s - Identifies and discusses the main figures in Structuralist film including Michael Snow and Hollis Frampton.

*Alternative cinemas - Examines the work of recent filmmakers such as Isaac Julien, Julie Dash, and Barbara Hammer, and considers the future of experimental film.

Contents

1. The First American Film Avant-Garde, 1919-1945 by Jan-Christopher Horak

2. Notes on the New American Cinema by Jonas Mekas

3. The Woman Filmmaker in the New York Avant-Garde by Lauren Rabinovitz

4. Women in the Avant-Garde: Germaine Dulac, Maya Deren, Agnes Varda, Chantal Akerman and Trinh T. Minh-ha by Judith Mayne

5. Pop, Queer or Fascist? The Ambiguity of Mass Culture in Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising by Juan A. Suarez

6. Stan Brakhage - The 60th Birthday Interview by Suranjan Ganguly

7. The Perfect Queer Appositeness of Jack Smith by Jerry Tartaglia

8. An Interview with Carolee Schneemann by Kate Haug

9. The Flower Thief and The Film Poem: Warhol's Early Films and the Beat Writers by Reva Wolf

10. Walking on Thin Ice: The Films of Yoko Ono by Daryl Chin

11. Yoko Ono on Yoko Ono by Yoko Ono

12. Structural Film by P. Adams Sitney

13. Interview with Michael Snow by Scott MacDonald

14. The Films of Warren Sonbert by Phillip Lopate

15. Warren Sonbert Interview by David Ehrenstein

16. An Interview with Hollis Frampton by Peter Gidal

17. Re/Constructing Lesbian Auto /Biographies in Tender Fictions and Nitrate Kisses by Gwendolyn Audrey Foster

18. The Films of Sadie Benning and Su Friedrich by Chris Holmlund

19. Black Women's Independent Cinema by Gloria J. Gibson

20. Dark and Lovely Too: Black Gay Men in Independent Film by Kobena Mercer