A Critical Cinema 3: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers (Bk. 3) (Hardcover)

~ Scott MacDonald (Author) "Amos Vogel is the only non-filmmaker I have included in the Critical Cinema project..." (more)
Key Phrases: recycled cinema, distance montage, condensed rituals, Ken Jacobs, New York, Flo Jacobs (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

With its antecedents, A Critical Cinema (Univ. of California, 1988) and A Critical Cinema 2 (Univ. of California, 1992), this book gives a detailed look at independent filmmaking. The filmmakers in these volumes strive to create new kinds of imagery, narratives, and audiences that challenge Hollywood norms. Here, MacDonald (film studies and American literature, Utica Coll.) expands the geopolitical range of the previous volumes, treating independent filmmaking as an international and multiethnic undertaking. Interviews with filmmakers from such countries as Armenia (Arthur Peleshian), Austria (Valie Export, Martin Arnold), India (Mani Kaul), and the Philippines (Nick Deocampo) are supplemented by a concise, informative overview of each filmmaker, together with film/videographies and selected bibliographies. British filmmaker Sally Potter (Orlando) is singled out for extensive attention. As with its predecessors, this volume belongs in all undergraduate and research libraries that support film studies.?Neal Baker, Ball State Univ. Lib., Muncie, Ind.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

A Critical Cinema 3 continues Scott MacDonald's compilation of personal interviews and public discussions with major contributors to independent filmmaking and film awareness. An informative exchange with Amos Vogel, whose Cinema 16 Society drew American filmgoers into a broader sense of film history, is followed by interviews reflecting a wide range of approaches to filmmaking. Sally Potter discusses her popular feature, Orlando, in relation to the experimental work that preceded it, and Canadian independent John Porter argues compellingly for small-gauge, Super-8mm filmmaking. Ken Jacobs discusses the "Nervous System" apparatus with which he transforms old film footage into new forms of motion picture art; Jordan Belson describes his Vortex Concerts, ancestors of modern laser light shows; and Elias Merhige talks about going beneath the "rational structure of meaning" in Begotten. A Critical Cinema 3 presents independent cinema as an international and multiethnic phenomenon. MacDonald interviews filmmakers from Sweden, France, Italy, Austria, Armenia, India, the Philippines, and Japan and examines the work of African Americans, European Americans, Asian Americans, and Hispanics. He provides an introductory overview of each interviewee, as well as detailed film/videographies and selected bibliographies. With its predecessors, A Critical Cinema (California, 1988) and A Critical Cinema 2 (California, 1992), this is the most extensive, in-depth exploration of independent cinema available in English.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 452 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (March 30, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520087054
• ISBN-13: 978-0520087057
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,205,258 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An essential view on Independent Filmmakers from thall World, November 9, 1998

By	Claude-René DE WINTER (Brussels, BELGIUM) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Critical Cinema 3: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers (Bk. 3) (Paperback)

(Please excuse my bad English: I'm a normally French Writer) As Historian writing a thesis about the Historical meaning of several peoples in the all World, I was very excited by the reading of interviews and documents concerning so much essential filmmakers from US, from EUROPE, from Asia, etc... It's very important for a searcher on movies historical interpretation to find so powerfull texts about directors and other filmmakers - out of the Studio era and influence. I will write more after having read the entire book I received by mail just today. But I confirm just now it's a capital contribution for my future University Thesis. I'm shure You will find here a basical documents anthology. Please tell me what You will think about. Claude-René DE WINTER Belgian Historian