Description
Over the past fifty years, a unique hybrid genre of nonfiction cinema called the "avant-doc" has emerged in the world of independent film. Combining the unconventional techniques of avant-garde auteurs like Stan Brakhage with the verisimilitude of traditional documentaries, the avant-doc expands the way cinema captures and chronicles events. Drawing on firsthand interviews with nineteen of the form's chief practitioners and participants, Avant-Doc constructs an oral history that provides the first insider's perspective on the phenomenon.
About the Author
Scott MacDonald teaches film history at Hamilton College and Harvard University. He is the author of several books, most recently, American Ethnographic Film and Personal Documentary.
Reviews
A compelling achievement, Avant-Doc diagrams a new fluid geography of cinema, where traditional categories such as experimental,"documentary," and "fiction" dissolve. The insightful, probing conversations assembled so deftly here vaporize fixed cinematic modes. These filmmakers describe cinema as a living organism, pulsating in networks of politics, arts, philosophies, teachers, literature, communities, technologies, and aesthetics. * Patricia R. Zimmermann, author of States of Emergency: Documentaries, Wars, Democracy *
Scott MacDonald's groundbreaking and seminal new volume, Avant-Doc, illuminates correspondences between avant-garde cinema and documentary through a series of compelling interviews with major independent filmmakers and noted scholar Annette Michelson. This intimate and probing follow-up to MacDonald's Critical Cinema series creates a lively and deeply personal oral history. Avant-Doc broadens our understanding of connections between avant-garde and documentary film, while providing a rich treasure trove of research material that current and future scholars will find invaluable. * J.J. Murphy, author of The Black Hole of the Camera: The Films of Andy Warhol *
Book Information
ISBN 9780199388714
Author Scott MacDonald
Format Paperback
Page Count 472
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 635g
Dimensions(mm) 160mm * 234mm * 23mm
About the Author
Scott MacDonald teaches film history at Hamilton College and Harvard University. He is the author of several books, most recently, American Ethnographic Film and Personal Documentary.
Reviews
A compelling achievement, Avant-Doc diagrams a new fluid geography of cinema, where traditional categories such as experimental,"documentary," and "fiction" dissolve. The insightful, probing conversations assembled so deftly here vaporize fixed cinematic modes. These filmmakers describe cinema as a living organism, pulsating in networks of politics, arts, philosophies, teachers, literature, communities, technologies, and aesthetics. * Patricia R. Zimmermann, author of States of Emergency: Documentaries, Wars, Democracy *
Scott MacDonald's groundbreaking and seminal new volume, Avant-Doc, illuminates correspondences between avant-garde cinema and documentary through a series of compelling interviews with major independent filmmakers and noted scholar Annette Michelson. This intimate and probing follow-up to MacDonald's Critical Cinema series creates a lively and deeply personal oral history. Avant-Doc broadens our understanding of connections between avant-garde and documentary film, while providing a rich treasure trove of research material that current and future scholars will find invaluable. * J.J. Murphy, author of The Black Hole of the Camera: The Films of Andy Warhol *
Book Information
ISBN 9780199388714
Author Scott MacDonald
Format Paperback
Page Count 472
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 635g
Dimensions(mm) 160mm * 234mm * 23mm
