Avant-garde film in the United States
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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| - | The United States had some [[avant-garde film]]makers before[[ World War II]], but as a whole pre-war experimental film culture failed to gain a critical mass. | + | The [[United States]] had some [[avant-garde film]]makers before[[ World War II]], but as a whole pre-war experimental film culture failed to gain a critical mass. |
| In 1947, the [[Art in Cinema]] film series began at the [[San Francisco Museum of Art]], which screened a number of significant experimental films. | In 1947, the [[Art in Cinema]] film series began at the [[San Francisco Museum of Art]], which screened a number of significant experimental films. | ||
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The United States had some avant-garde filmmakers before World War II, but as a whole pre-war experimental film culture failed to gain a critical mass.
In 1947, the Art in Cinema film series began at the San Francisco Museum of Art, which screened a number of significant experimental films.
Meshes of the Afternoon by Maya Deren is considered to be one of the first important American experimental films. It provided a model for self-financed 16mm production and distribution, one that was soon picked up by Cinema 16 and other film societies. Just as importantly, it established an aesthetic model of what experimental cinema could do. Meshes had a dream-like feel that harkened to Jean Cocteau and the Surrealists, but equally seemed personal, new and American. Early works by Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage, Shirley Clarke, Gregory Markopoulos, Willard Maas, Marie Menken, Curtis Harrington and Sydney Peterson followed in a similar vein. Significantly, many of these filmmakers were the first students from the pioneering university film programs established in Los Angeles and New York.
They set up "alternative film programs" at Black Mountain College (now defunct) and the San Francisco Art Institute (formerly California College of Fine Arts), most notably. Arthur Penn taught at Black Mountain College, which points out some of the popular misconceptions in both the art world and Hollywood that the avant-garde and the commercial never meet.
