Underground film: A critical history

by Parker Tyler

Parker Tyler (1904-1974), one of the few great American film critics, was intimate with and enormously respected by many of the underground and experimental filmmakers of his time. In this book, Tyler evaluated the Underground in general and the seminal films in particular, covering the history and scope of the genre with insight and verve. Like Tyler’s Screening of the Homosexuality in the Movies is one of the masterpieces of cinema literature.

Genres: Film, History

248 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1969

Reviews

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

The key word in the title is "Critical," and thank god for that. Too often, reviews and histories of underground or avant-garde arts are little more than exercises in boosterism, friends championing friends. This seemed to be the case even more so in 1969 when the book was first published. In this book, Tyler himself says underground criticism of the time amounted to little more than blurbing. But despite friendships and alliances with many of the filmmakers he discusses here, he manages to cast a demanding and skeptical eye on the underground film scene. He was especially harsh on self-indulgent, narcissistic "pad films" (a now almost humorously dated term) and the lack of any real thought-out aesthetic sensibility behind them. Most heartening for me was the ambivalence he seemed to have for Stan Brakhage's films, and the honesty with which Tyler was able to write about this, despite an apparently fairly close relationship with the filmmaker. I recently rewatched Criterion's first Brakhage collection, and was put off by the essay included with it, as it amounted to little more than hagiography by a Brakhage friend and scholar, who took Brakhage's genius as a collective given, without offering sufficient context or explication. Tyler's obvious lengthy and serious engagement with the same material yielded much different and more complex thinking. I enjoy so much underground/avant-garde/whathaveyou art, music and film, but frequently feel conflicted about or just flat out don't care for much of it. It's rare to find a similar attitude in art or film historians, understandably, so it was nice to read a book by someone so fully engaged and knowledgeable about film who wasn't afraid to challenge prevailing attitudes and fashions of the time (and for the most part, now) for the sake of honest criticism and love of the medium.

Having reread the above, I make it sound like the book is something of a take down of underground film. It's far from that. There's plenty of praise and encouragement to go with the tsking. Tyler's just wise enough to know and brave enough to say not all "artists" are created equal. Like he says, "A thing way well be groovy but far from great."

[Jessrawk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite a meandering, uneven tome. At times, it delves quite deeply into ideas that *eventually* tie back in, but are a little too defuse for a so-called critical history of underground film. The author definitely has theories & ideas and (mostly) knows how to back them up & illustrate them. There is no doubt that they are knowledgeable about the subject matter.

The latter part of the text is infuriating, though. Why? It is literally this author telling these directors/artists what they should have done *instead* in their films. That has no place in film criticism. It was just plain weird. These are the choices the directors made; if you wish they had made different ones, you go ahead & make your own. (I have no special love for the mentioned directors; it was all just so jarring.)

Two extreme sticking points? Claiming Michael Snow is American (for someone so knowledgable, this is incredibly annoying) and repeatedly slagging Norman McLaren (how do you talk so glowingly about surreal & avant garden film while slagging him?!).

[Tentatively, Convenience · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the back of my (2nd) edition of Sitney's "Visionary Film" one of the reviewers claims that it's "the first serious book that I know of to be devoted to the subject." Well.. Parker Tyler's bk was earlier - & it's the 1st one I read. It's probably not as in-depth as the bks that followed but it still gets across the feeling of there being something important happening out there that's off the mainstream map - something hedonistic, critical, inspired, daring.. It definitely got me curious about all the movies I had little or no idea how to go about seeing. In the back, there's a list of films organized by yrs. Throughout the decades since I read this, I've periodically checked off the films that I've seen. There are still maybe a half to a third that I've missed. As w/ all Grove Press bks of the time, of wch I've read many, reading this left me w/ a feeling - a feeling of uncensored access to free thinking, a feeling that's still important to me to this day.

[Srikanth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tyler is, of course, articulate, erudite, unsentimental and nothing if not critical. At his best, he is a juggernaut crashing through the self-congratulatory vein of the Underground. He wrote the book in 1969 without the privilege of historical hindsight and his scope of vision here is pretty remarkable.

But the taxonomy he proposes in this book are, for me at least, are very narrowly specific as to have a wide use, not to mention, quite dated. I would need to know how his work influences contemporary writing about the Underground to assess it better.