Product Description

Of all art forms, filmmaking is the one most taken for granted: no sooner is an artistic or technical advance made than its salient features are employed in the harness of commerce. Yet, innovation is almost always the province of individual expression. Film at Wit's End presents eight artists who have electrified American independent cinema across four decades: James Broughton, Bruce Conner, Maya Deren, Jerome Hill, Ken Jacobs, Christopher MacLaine, Marie Menken, and Sidney Peterson. Each of these filmmakers' lives and work is brought into sharp focus as we enter the art scenes of New York and San Francisco during times of ferment and controversy. Film at Wit's End tells marvelous tales of serendipitous encounters, of life lived at the edge of social disapproval, and of the insistent development of an art form.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #925865 in Books
• Published on: 1991-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 183 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Adapted from classroom lectures, Brakhage's profiles of eight avant-garde filmmakers have a conversational, relaxed flow. If the tone is chummy and the frequent superlatives annoying, the narratives are nevertheless coherent. Among those we meet are Maya Deren, Voodoun priestess of Greenwich Village and well-known personality of the 1940s and '50s; Christopher MacLaine, chronicler of San Francisco's Beat movement; and Ken Jacobs, whose films include Soft Rain , Blonde Cobra , and Little Stabs at Happiness . Himself a filmmaker, critic ( Brakhage Scrapbook , etc.) and professor of film studies at the University of Colorado, Brakhage has been friends with all eight subjects. His personal insight into their lives deepens his understanding of their aims and techniques. Also here are Jerome Hill, Marie Menken, James Broughton, Bruce Conner and Sidney Peterson. Photos.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
A basic book in the canon of experimental cinema. -- Film Quarterly

Intelligent, warm and often highly personal tributes. -- Classic Images

Not only luminous...miniature biographies, but also social and cultural portraits of art-in-America. A fascinating collection. -- The Columbus Dispatch

About the Author
During his lifetime Stan Brakhage was himself one of the most influential of American independent filmmakers: from 1952 until his death in 2003, he created over 400 original works. His books on film include Metaphors on Vision, Film Biographies, Brakahge Scrapbook: Collected Writings 1964-1980, Essential Brakhage (selected writings), and Telling Time: Essays of a Visionary Filmmaker. Twenty-six of his films are available in a double-dvd Criterion set titled By Brakhage.