A Line of Sight: American Avant-Garde Film Since 1965

A LINE OF SIGHT: AMERICAN AVANT-GARDE FILM SINCE 1965

by Paul Arthur. University of Minnesota Press/216 pp./$59.95 (hb), $19.95 (sb).

Rather than chart a direct route through post-WWII experimental film practice, Arthur opts for an appropriately zig-zag approach. Following the trajectory laid out by David E. James' Allegories of Cinema (1989) and Lauren Rabinovitz' Points of Resistance (1991) close readings of key films (and, thankfully, extra-canonical work) collide with institutional history, critical maneuvers and a welcome embrace of counterculture. In fact, it is Arthur's sensitivity to the various permutations of American counterculture that makes this study of experimental film so productive. For example, in tracing out the avant-garde's historical commitment to resistance--from modernist inheritance to downtown bohemia to renegade regionalism to organized protest--A Line of Sight makes an interesting case: the theoretical framework was already in place when the time came for identity politics to challenge "entrenched" interests.

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Importantly, Arthur does not oversimplify or force this issue, and rightly points out that race has always been a consistent problem for the American avant-garde. Arthur's multivalent tactics could be explained away by the book's status as a compilation of essays, but his scholarship and theoretical chops trump any concern of this sort. A Line of Sight is a very welcome addition to the small but growing pile of histories dedicated to American avant-garde film.

JASON LIVINGSTON is a filmmaker currently residing in Ithaca, New York.

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