# Avant Garde Film [Wikipedia Link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avant-garde_film) ( 1920s – present ) ## Description The American and international avant-garde film tradition — filmmaking pursued outside commercial and narrative-industry convention, spanning trance film, structural film, and visionary film, from [[Maya Deren]], [[Stan Brakhage]], and [[Kenneth Anger]] to [[Su Friedrich]] and [[Jonas Mekas]]. Theorized foundationally by [[P. Adams Sitney]]'s *Visionary Film*, [[Gene Youngblood]]'s expanded-cinema framework, and [[Gilles Deleuze]]'s cinema philosophy. ## Key Tags #avant-garde-film #film-theory #experimental-film ## Essential Works - [[Expanded Cinema]] - Gene Youngblood's foundational text theorizing cinema, video, and computer art as technologies of expanded consciousness, cited extensively in avant-garde film theory - Sitney, P. Adams. *Visionary Film: The American Avant-Garde, 1943-2000* - the definitive historical survey of American avant-garde film - [[Light Moving in Time]] - William C. Wees's close study of the tradition's visual aesthetics ## Details ### Key Theorists - [[David E. James]] - historian and theorist of American avant-garde film's social and institutional contexts - [[Gene Youngblood]] - theorized expanded cinema as a technology of expanded consciousness - [[Gilles Deleuze]] - cinema philosophy (*Cinema 1*, *Cinema 2*) widely applied to avant-garde film analysis - [[P. Adams Sitney]] - author of *Visionary Film*, the field's foundational historical survey - [[Paul Taberham]] - cognitive-science approaches to avant-garde film, especially Brakhage's entoptic vision - [[R. Bruce Elder]] - theorist and filmmaker of structural film and the "absolute film" tradition - [[William C. Wees]] - theorist of avant-garde film's visual aesthetics ### Exemplary Practitioners - [[Andy Warhol]] - [[Barbara Hammer]] - [[Broughton, James]] - [[Bruce Conner]] - [[Curtis Harrington]] - [[Germaine Dulac]] - [[Harry Smith]] - [[Hans Richter]] - [[Hollis Frampton]] - [[Larry Cuba]] - [[Laurie Anderson]] - [[Jack Smith]] - [[John Whitney Jr.]] - [[Jonas Mekas]] - [[Jordan Belson]] - [[Ken Jacobs]] - [[Kenneth Anger]] - [[Maya Deren]] - [[Michael Snow]] - [[Nam June Paik]] - [[Oskar Fischinger]] - [[Paul Sharits]] - [[R. Bruce Elder]] - [[Stan Brakhage]] - [[Su Friedrich]] ### Related Concepts - [[Flicker and Entoptics]] - structural/flicker film technique and entoptic vision are central to the American avant-garde's formal vocabulary - [[Visual Music]] - overlapping tradition of abstract, music-synchronized avant-garde filmmaking (Fischinger, Belson, the Whitneys) ### Creative and Technical Practices - [[Drawn on Film]] - direct/hand-worked animation practice used by several avant-garde filmmakers gathered here ### Associated Movements or Institutions - Art in Cinema Society - San Francisco film society central to postwar American avant-garde screening culture (active 1946–1954) - Anthology Film Archives - archive and screening venue co-founded by Jonas Mekas, central to canonizing American avant-garde film (founded 1970) ## References ### Primary Sources Bibliography %% none yet %% ### Secondary Sources Bibliography Balsom, Erika. “VISION QUEST.” In _Artforum International_, vol. 56. no. 5. Penske Business Corporation, 2018. Camper, Fred. “Brakhage’s Contradictions.” _Chicago Review_ 47/48 (2001): 69–96. [https://doi.org/10.2307/25304808](https://doi.org/10.2307/25304808). Cook, Malcolm. “Visual Music in Film, 1921-1924: Richter, Eggeling, Ruttman.” _Music and Modernism, c. 1849–1950_, Cambridge Scholars Publishing Cambridge, 2011, 206–28. Cowen, Paul. “Expanded Cinema by Gene Youngblood.” _Leonardo_ 5, no. 3 (1972): 272–73. Davenport, Guy. “Brakhage’s Songs (1966).” _Chicago Review_ 47/48 (2001): 157–63. [https://doi.org/10.2307/25304812](https://doi.org/10.2307/25304812). Elder, R. Bruce. “The Structural Film: Ruptures and Continuities in Avant-Garde Art.” In _Neo-Avant-Garde_, vol. 20. Avant-Garde Critical Studies. 2006. [https://doi.org/10.1163/9789401203760_008](https://doi.org/10.1163/9789401203760_008). “Family_business_tony_pipolo_on.” n.d. Graf, Alexander, and Dietrich Scheunemann. _Avant-Garde Film_. BRILL, 2007. [https://doi.org/10.1163/9789401200035](https://doi.org/10.1163/9789401200035). Harmony, R Bruce. _MODERNISM AND THE ABSOLUTE FILM_. n.d. Hendricks, Jon. “Ontology of the Cinematic Lamella.” _Film Matters_ 6, no. 1 (2015): 12–15. [https://doi.org/10.1386/fm.6.1.12_1](https://doi.org/10.1386/fm.6.1.12_1). Hillard, Derek. “Walter Ruttmann’s Janus-Faced View of Modernity: The Ambivalence of Description in ‘Berlin. Die Sinfonie Der Groβstadt.’” _Monatshefte_ 96, no. 1 (2004): 78–92. Koc, Aysegul. “An Interview with R. Bruce Elder.” _CineAction_, no. 61 (March 2003): 34–40. MacDonald, Scott, Frank Stauffacher, and Art in Cinema Society, eds. _Art in Cinema: Documents toward a History of the Film Society_. Wide Angle Books. Temple University Press, 2006. “Metaphorsonvisio00brak.” n.d. Moritz, William. _18. Restoring the Aesthetics of Early Abstract Films_. n.d. O’Grady, Gerald. _Articulated Light: The Emergence of Abstract Film in America_. n.d. Paul Taberham. “Bottom-Up Processing, Entoptic Vision and the Innocent Eye in the Films of Stan Brakhage.” In _Stan Brakhage the Realm Buster_, with Marco Lori and Esther Leslie. John Libbey Publishing, 2018. Powers, John. _Technology and the Making of Experimental Film Culture_. Oxford University Press, 2023. [https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197683385.001.0001](https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197683385.001.0001). Sitney, P. Adams. _Visionary Film: The American Avant-Garde, 1943-2000_. 3rd ed. Oxford University Press, 2002. Smigel, Eric. “Metaphors on Vision: James Tenney and Stan Brakhage, 1951-1964.” _American Music_ 30, no. 1 (2012): 61–100. [https://doi.org/10.5406/americanmusic.30.1.0061](https://doi.org/10.5406/americanmusic.30.1.0061). Spielmann, Yvonne. “Paul Sharits: From Cinematic Movement to Nondirectional Motion.” In _Avant-Garde Film_, vol. 23. Avant-Garde Critical Studies. 2007. [https://doi.org/10.1163/9789401200035_012](https://doi.org/10.1163/9789401200035_012). “Stan_Brakhages_Autopsy_The_Act.” n.d. Taberham, Paul. “Bottom-Up Processing, Entoptic Vision and the Innocent Eye in Stan Brakhage’s Work.” _Projections (New York, N.Y.)_ (New York) 8, no. 1 (2014): 1–22. [https://doi.org/10.3167/proj.2014.080102](https://doi.org/10.3167/proj.2014.080102). Turim, Maureen Cheryn. _Abstraction in Avant-Garde Films_. Studies in Cinema, no. 32. UMI Research Press, 1985. Walley, Jonathan. “The Material of Film and the Idea of Cinema: Contrasting Practices in Sixties and Seventies Avant-Garde Film.” In _October_, vol. 103. no. 103. MIT Press, 2003. [https://doi.org/10.1162/016228703762874197](https://doi.org/10.1162/016228703762874197). Walley, Jonathan. “The Paracinema of Anthony McCall and Tony Conrad.” In _Avant-Garde Film_, vol. 23. Avant-Garde Critical Studies. 2007. [https://doi.org/10.1163/9789401200035_022](https://doi.org/10.1163/9789401200035_022). Wees, William C. “Beyond Metaphors on Vision: Stan Brakhage’s Unpublished ‘The Domain of Aura.’” _Millennium Film Journal_ (New York), no. 63 (2016): 40-. Wees, William C. _Light Moving in Time: Studies in the Visual Aesthetics of Avant-Garde Film_. University of California Press, 1992. [https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520408623](https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520408623). Youngblood, Gene. _Expanded Cinema_. CLUEB, 2013. [https://www.torrossa.com/gs/resourceProxy?an=3185580&publisher=FBO170](https://www.torrossa.com/gs/resourceProxy?an=3185580&publisher=FBO170). Youngblood, Gene. _Expanded Cinema: Fiftieth Anniversary Edition_. Fordham University Press, 2020. [https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/93/edited_volume/book/73621](https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/93/edited_volume/book/73621).