Visionary Film: The American Avant-Garde 1943-1978

by P. Adams Sitney

Critics hailed the first edition of Visionary Films as the most complete work written on the exciting, often puzzling, and always controversial genre of American avant-garde film. Now P. Adams Sitney has revised and updated his classic book with a detailed study of major achievements made in the last decade.

Genres: Film, Art, Nonfiction, Theory, History

480 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

P. Adams Sitney was a historian of American avant-garde cinema. He was known as the author of Visionary Film, one of the first books on the history of experimental film in the United States.

Reviews

[Evan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Back when I was first getting into movies seriously in the late '70s this book was one of maybe three out there widely available in libraries that actually covered the landscape of independent, non-narrative film; the works of Brakhage, Deren, Snow, and so on. I have to admit, I didn't understand all of what Sitney was talking about -- for one thing, these movies were simply not readily available to see back then, unlike today -- and the other, my concept of movie art was still developing and enslaved to the narrative preferences we're mostly weaned on. I see that Sitney was able to update this first attempt (published around 1974) into a later edition in 2000, which I haven't seen. Apparently he was able to excise some extensive descriptions in the later edition since it no longer had to be the book of record, as the films have since become easily available via video and online.
Not sure how to rate this, so I'll split the difference.

kr, eg '19

[Evan Pincus · Rating 2 out of 5]

Starts with Meshes of the Afternoon (Fair - don’t we all?) and spends most of its time focused on films that come out of that tradition - the “trance film,” the “romantic film,” the “mythopoic film”. Love lots of the movies discussed here but am frustrated by the way, say, Harry Smith’s transcendent hand-painted animations are touched on briefly while his image-driven cut-up animations are dissected for themes and intertextuality. This does have a structural and formal analysis of Brakhage’s Dog Star Man, but it seems more interested in reading images, which is not an approach I find myself utilizing when watching Dog Star Man or other films written about. Obviously an essential reference of the early days of the movement, and the book that codified Structural Film (a near-footnote despite the fact that Frampton and Snow blow practically everyone else out of the water), but I might be a bit too much of a formalist at heart to jive with Sitney’s criticism.

[Tentatively, Convenience · Rating 4 out of 5]

By the time I read this bk, it was already famous. This, & "Expanded Cinema" (wch I still haven't read) still stick out in my mind as the most influential bks on the subject of experimental film. Perhaps I cd add "Film As A Subversive Art" to that duo - but I suspect that one's more obscure. Anyway, my memory of this bk is pretty vague - maybe Sitney coined the term "structuralist" - wch stuck, but not always to the individual filmmakers' satisfaction. Whatever the case may be, I remember this as being pretty insightful & thorough. If there weren't always so many unread bks to read for the 1st time, it wd be tempting to reread this one & rediscover the passion of its era.

[Mikey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just saw Adams speak at Harvard Film Archive, and his talk/screening was great. Unfortunately I didn't think his writing carried the same energy when I went back and reviewed this book. Of course it's an essential text regardless, but right now the Scott Macdonald books are what get me excited about film and filmmaking.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Detailed discussion of the work of experimental American filmmakers like Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage and Kenneth Anger. Very few reproductions of images from the films, however.

Acquired 1985
Cheap Thrills, Montreal, Quebec