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New American Cinema

If historically the experience of Jonas Mekas and the directors gathered in the New American Cinema Group (NACG) is identified on the NAC label, in a much broader sense numerous other American filmmakers can boast of having contributed to a new American cinema '. On the other hand, independent , experimental art cinemaand avant-garde is certainly not a recent phenomenon in the United States; indeed, one can find admirable vestiges of it at least since 1927, in a film directed by Robert Florey and Slavko Vorkapitch, The life and death of 9413 - A Hollywood extra. But it is true that never as in the late fifties, in the midst of the great crisis of the film industry caused by competition from the fledgling television, did the voices of those who, in the United States, theorize and practice an idea of ​​cinema completely far from the typical Hollywood product.

Maya Deren, who distinguished herself with her avant-garde visual essays in the 1940s, continued her work on the organizational side in the following decade by founding the Film Artists Society (1953) and the Creative Film Foundation (1955). Those were the years in which Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin and Ray Ashley filmed The little fugitive (1953; The little fugitive), causing a sensation at the Venice Film Festival, and Kenneth Anger made Eaux d'artifice (1953) and Inauguration of the pleasure dome (1954-1956), shaking the underground cinema itself. And it was also the years in which a counterculture weekly was founded, "The Village voice" (1955), which would soon dictate law in the national artistic and intellectual milieu. The times were therefore ripe for a general theoretical elaboration and for a sort of group manifesto (even if of a real group, aware of itself as such, at the time it was still not possible to speak). In 1955 the young Lithuanian Mekas founded the magazine "Film culture", which would become the maximum point of reference for anyone who refused the Hollywood conception of cinema as an industry in favor of an artistic conception that, as Mekas himself wrote in his editorial of 4 February 1959, allowed less perfect but freer films. On the field of "Film culture" was born in 1960, bringing together thirty young filmmakers, the NACG, an aegis that was to welcome the new, avant-garde and experimental forces expressed by the young American cinema. conscious of himself as such, at the time he could not yet speak). In 1955 the young Lithuanian Mekas founded the magazine "Film culture", which would become the maximum point of reference for anyone who refused the Hollywood conception of cinema as an industry in favor of an artistic conception that, as Mekas himself wrote in his editorial of 4 February 1959, allowed less perfect but freer films. On the field of "Film culture" was born in 1960, bringing together thirty young filmmakers, the NACG, an aegis that was to welcome the new, avant-garde and experimental forces expressed by the young American cinema. conscious of himself as such, at the time he could not yet speak). In 1955 the young Lithuanian Mekas founded the magazine "Film culture", which would become the maximum point of reference for anyone who refused the Hollywood conception of cinema as an industry in favor of an artistic conception that, as Mekas himself wrote in his editorial of 4 February 1959, allowed less perfect but freer films. On the field of "Film culture" was born in 1960, bringing together thirty young filmmakers, the NACG, an aegis that was to welcome the new, avant-garde and experimental forces expressed by the young American cinema. which would become the maximum point of reference for anyone who refused the Hollywood conception of cinema as an industry in favor of an artistic conception that, as Mekas himself wrote in his editorial of February 4, 1959, allowed less perfect but freer films. On the field of "Film culture" was born in 1960, bringing together thirty young filmmakers, the NACG, an aegis that was to welcome the new, avant-garde and experimental forces expressed by the young American cinema. which would become the maximum point of reference for anyone who refused the Hollywood conception of cinema as an industry in favor of an artistic conception that, as Mekas himself wrote in his editorial of February 4, 1959, allowed less perfect but freer films. On the field of "Film culture" was born in 1960, bringing together thirty young filmmakers, the NACG, an aegis that was to welcome the new, avant-garde and experimental forces expressed by the young American cinema.

It is difficult to say to what extent the work of "Film culture" encouraged and favored alternative film products of that period. Of course, the two phenomena arose from the same innovative humus, from the strong leafy air that had been breathing for some time against the tyranny of the Hollywood model. Furthermore, it should not be forgotten that the formation of the NACG also denounced a parochial nuance, as a New York response to the Californian domination. Moreover, the counter-cultural drive that animated Mekas and the entire production of the NACG went far beyond the narrow cinematographic sphere. In the same years he had distinguished himself, for example, a literary movement - which would soon be called Beat generation - which had as its primary objective the renewal of North American poetry and fiction in a direction of greater adherence to the needs of revolt that concerned not only the expressive forms but the sex, individual morality and politics. It was inevitable that the two areas would end up meeting, and indeed for a time they worked in concert, obtaining the greatest (or at least the best known) result in film with Pull my daisy (1959) directed by Robert Frank and Albert Leslie, based on a screenplay by Jack Kerouac and with Allen Ginsberg on stage.

The activity of J. Mekas, flanked by his brother Adolfas, also included the cinematographic direction: Jonas signed Guns of the trees (1961; The rifles of the trees) and Adolfas Hallelujah the hills (1963; The magnificent idiots). But in some ways even more important was the activity of distributor: in 1962 in fact his group founded the Film-Makers Cooperative, soon strong of 4000 titles, which included all the experimental films in 16 mm, and which followed in 1964 the opening of a film library in New York. In the same years works like Jack Smith's Flaming creatures (1963), Twice a man (1964) by Gregory J. Markopoulos, Scorpio rising (1963) by Anger were made, very different films, which for this reason testify not only to the different personalities of their authors, but also and above all how little precise and rigorous the NACG theory was. In reality Mekas had no film model to offer. It is no coincidence that, while admiring Jean-Luc Godard, he carefully avoided theorising a North American version of the contemporary French Nouvelle vague, which was also attempting in turn to renew national cinema on theoretical bases not dissimilar, in their generality, from those of the NACG ; and indeed, sometimes he had harsh words towards him ("It is not so new, and it is not so different from the rest of French commercial cinema, or any cinema. If they are so conventional at twenty, imagine what they will be at forty ! "; Movie journal. The rise of a New American Cinema 1959-1971, 1972). On the other hand, not infrequently Mekas found himself praising not only Orson Welles,

In short, the NACG was certain of what it did not want, but had not drawn up a clear alternative proposal. If an imperative had at the basis of its idea of ​​cinema, this was above all of an economic nature: the production of low and very low budget films was not only a way to allow anyone to approach film creation, but it was also the guarantee of a potential for experimentation that high Hollywood costs excluded a priori, since they had to guarantee a large turnout in the first place. Moreover, the low cost almost necessarily implied that the creator of the film covered various operational functions, not only the direction but also the script and sometimes even the production. In this way the NACG gave concrete form to an ideal of author that Hollywood had excluded,

It is impossible to reduce or bring the NACG back to a single theoretical-practical matrix: the various personalities who fought there produced and directed works with very different characteristics, so that a study of the phenomenon can only refer to the personality, culture, the same idea of cinema cultivated by individuals. Harry Smith and his colorful geometries have nothing to do with Peter Gessner, completely alien to any formal interest and tied to a documentary concept of cinema. It should be noted that the two most interesting filmmakers traditionally connected by critics with the NACG, John Cassavetes and Shirley Clarke, were not actually among the main proponents. Cassavetes' second version of Shadows (1960; Shadows) attracted some criticism from Mekas, who however understood its importance, even if it did not give Cassavetes the honor of unreserved recognition; while only after her first major film on the world of heroin addicts, The connection (1962), Clarke actively joined Mekas - whose group she was part of since 1960 - in supporting independent filmmakers, continuing in her directorial work with works such as The cool world (1963), on Harlem's youthful black gangs, and the long monologue Portrait of Jason (1967), which Ingmar Bergman called the most fascinating film he had ever seen, but also directing a commissioned documentary by JF Kennedy on the poet Robert Frost (Robert Frost: a lover's quarrel with the world, 1963), who won an Oscar in Hollywood.Not even a geographical location would be sufficient to analyze the NACG experience: if New York, in fact, it was its epicenter, San Francisco worthily played the role of branch. A city that has always been identified in bohemia, extravagance, freedom of thought and costume and also in excess, San Francisco was the home of Canyon Cinema, associated with the Mekas cooperative, in which some talents of the counterculture of the west coast gathered. But even here it is impossible to trace any homogeneity: Bruce Baillie's participatory attention to the life of the outcasts or his ability to heroize some icons of contemporary civilization (the motorcycle), but also moments and environments neglected by the consumer civilization (the manual activity of pupils), they do not find immediate points of contact with Robert Nelson's archival research and with his desecration of American chronicle rhetoric. Moreover, from San Francisco came Anger, whose extraordinary decadent fantasy, combined with a mystical sense of group rituals, found no comparison even within the experimental practice of other filmmakers (perhaps in a certain way Gregory J. Markopoulos). somehow the group's great adventure ended between 1966 and 1967, respectively the date of the cessation of the regular publication of "Film culture", and that of the enormous success of Andy Warhol's The Chelsea girls. The latter was known in the world of countercultural cinema at least since 1963, the year of Sleep and Eat, followed by Empire (1964) and My hustler (1965), all films that aroused - especially the first three - indignant reactions from the sophisticated audience of the Film-Makers' Cinematheque, completely unprepared to face hours and hours of projection in which a sleeping man or the Empire State Building is shown. The Chelsea girls was instead a triumph. Not much happened in this work either, but Warhol instilled in it a sense of movement provided more than by the gestures of the characters by the split screen technique, that is, the screen cut into two or smaller squares, each with a different image ( or equal). The Chelsea girls was certainly the film that came closest to the paintings that had made him famous and therefore could attract an audience now familiar with the methods and icons typical of his style. The success of the film had a somewhat epochal value, in the sense that, at least ideally, it brought the cinematographic avant-garde that orbited around the NACG in a decidedly less underground area, and therefore inserted the counterculture of the Mekas group in the various forms of the current and to some extent official culture. On the other hand, it was evident that something was now changing also in the group: there were those who abandoned the cinematographic practice deciding to move to other artistic fields, who, like Mekas and Stan Brakhage, thinned out the directing activity, and even who , like Anger, published a mortuary announcement in "The Village voice" alluding to his end as a film man. avant-garde film that orbited around the NACG in a decidedly less underground area, and therefore inserted the counterculture of the Mekas group in the various forms of current culture and to some extent official. On the other hand, it was evident that something was now changing also in the group: there were those who abandoned the cinematographic practice deciding to move to other artistic fields, who, like Mekas and Stan Brakhage, thinned out the directing activity, and even who , like Anger, published a mortuary announcement in "The Village voice" alluding to his end as a movie man. avant-garde film that orbited around the NACG in a decidedly less underground area, and therefore inserted the counterculture of the Mekas group in the various forms of current culture and to some extent official. On the other hand, it was evident that something was now changing also in the group: there were those who abandoned the cinematographic practice deciding to move to other artistic fields, who, like Mekas and Stan Brakhage, thinned out the directing activity, and even who , like Anger, published a mortuary announcement in "The Village voice" alluding to his end as a movie man.

As often happens, the experience of the NACG found heirs who radicalized it in a theoretical-practical sublimation, perhaps rigorous, but certainly less appealing. Just in that fateful 1966, which marked the sunset of the historical development of the group, another group, the Fluxus, proposed a renewal program through the voice of its leader, George Maciunas, who shortly thereafter would make the theories his own and the formulations of P. Adam Sitney on the 'structural film' (appeared precisely on a number of "Film culture" of 1969): a type of film, that is, whose shape is predetermined and simplified in order to immediately present itself to the spectator from the first impression. In reality, it was an extremely minimalist cinema, often played on small variations allowed by the alternation of dark and light. However, it is true that around the Fluxus revolved artists of considerable importance such as George Landow, Paul Sharits, Hollis Frampton, the same Michael Snow and even Yoko Ono.On a national scale other experiences, perhaps of different types, whose intent was however, to oppose the industrial and commercial concept of cinema imposed by Hollywood: not so much the semi-independent productions that since the 1920s have dotted Poverty Row, a central area of ​​Hollywood in which various companies flourished (some of which, such as Columbia Pictures Corporation, destined to rise in rank), and not even the experiments of African American cinema conducted by Oscar Micheaux in the 1940s, and all in all not even the small independent companies that somehow saved Hollywood during the great post-television crisis of the 1950s, such as the well-known American International Pictures; but rather some single and isolated figures who especially in the sixties developed a film in some ways amateurish, but full of omens and suggestions in relation to the developments of future Hollywood. Think of Herk Harvey, an improvised Kansas filmmaker, and his Carnival of souls (1962), a horrifying story made of nothing yet not ineffective precisely thanks to what it lacked in the rhetorical apparatus to which Hollywood - even the Hollywood of independents like Roger Corman - had accustomed the public of the time. Think of Herschell Gordon Lewis, the inventor of the gore (in which they dominate blood, lacerations, amputations and physical horrors of all kinds), whose Blood trilogy - Blood feast (1963), Two thousand maniacs! (1964) and Color me blood red (1965) - soon assumed mythical dimensions, later opening the way to the so-called slasher, or a type of cinema founded on a direct and insistent vision of the injured body and blood. Think of the king of sexploitation (cinema that exploits the sexual argument), Russ Meyer, a filmmaker who is anything but unwary and inventor of the roughie (film that combines sex and violence), whose Lorna (1964) opened new dimensions to soft core, and which often strengthened their works through a playful comic-satirical component. But above all, think of Frederick Wiseman, a former law professor, former producer of a film directed by Clarke, who in 1967 chose to shoot a documentary in the Cinéma verité style in the Bridgewater criminal asylum, Titicut follies, a work that was immediately banned at home because of its extreme crudeness in portraying the nudity of the condemned and in resuming the atrocious violence (murder including) perpetrated by the guards against them. Destined to undergo a long series of trials (mostly for infringements of the privacy law, since no other charges could be found) until 1972, she obtained only in 1991 the pass of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts.The sixties therefore they were particularly prolific and full of independent filmmakers and productions, including personalities who over time would have had a space within the Hollywood system, which, moreover, in that decade would have undergone important changes. Directors such as Samuel Fuller (who was already very active in the 1950s) or Monte Hellman or George A. Romero would have given - obviously together with many others - new directions to the capital of cinema.Others still cannot be inscribed in any group or historicized in any way. Not so much because they operate individually outside the system and even geographically far from it, as in the case of the aforementioned Harvey and Lewis, as because in their films we read well on the one hand a criticism of the Hollywood lesson and on the other a parody (perhaps involuntary) of avant-garde cinema. The probably clearest example is that of the brothers George and Mike Kuchar of San Francisco. In the celebrated Sins of the fleshapoids (1965) by M. Kuchar, for example, can be identified as a model that would have become classic in science fiction cinema starting from Ridley Scott's Blade runner (1982) (but which to a certain extent can also be found in Westworld, 1973, The world of robots, by Michael Crichton), that is, the humanity of the androids and the decaying corruption (or simply the stupidity) of humans. Naturally the productive, scenographic, technical and structural figure of the film is far from the Hollywood examples cited, given that the conception of the film is of an exemplary amateur brand; but the unusual taste for incongruous combinations makes it a sort of precious cinematic kitsch to which it is not possible to find antecedents. we can identify a model that would have become classic in science fiction cinema starting from Ridley Scott's Blade runner (1982) (but which to a certain extent can also be found in Westworld, 1973, The world of robots, by Michael Crichton), say the humanity of the androids and the decaying corruption (or simply the stupidity) of humans. Naturally the productive, scenographic, technical and structural figure of the film is far from the Hollywood examples cited, given that the conception of the film is of an exemplary amateur brand; but the unusual taste for incongruous combinations makes it a sort of precious cinematic kitsch to which it is not possible to find antecedents. we can identify a model that would have become classic in science fiction cinema starting from Ridley Scott's Blade runner (1982) (but which to a certain extent can also be found in Westworld, 1973, The world of robots, by Michael Crichton), say the humanity of the androids and the decaying corruption (or simply the stupidity) of humans. Naturally the productive, scenographic, technical and structural figure of the film is far from the Hollywood examples cited, given that the conception of the film is of an exemplary amateur brand; but the unusual taste for incongruous combinations makes it a sort of precious cinematic kitsch to which it is not possible to find antecedents. humanity of androids and decaying corruption (or simply stupidity) of humans. Naturally the productive, scenographic, technical and structural figure of the film is far from the Hollywood examples cited, given that the conception of the film is of an exemplary amateur brand; but the unusual taste for incongruous combinations makes it a sort of precious cinematic kitsch to which it is not possible to find antecedents. humanity of androids and decaying corruption (or simply stupidity) of humans. Naturally, the production, scenographic, technical and structural figure of the film is far from the Hollywood examples cited, given that the conception of the film is of an exemplary amateur brand; but the unusual taste for incongruous combinations makes it a sort of precious cinematic kitsch to which it is not possible to find antecedents.

What strange object impossible to define univocally was in reality the independent film of those years also proves its potential versatility in the most diverse directions. If in fact, for example, the Kuchar never came to have relations with regular Hollywood production, equally young authors operating in the same period, as, for example, Brian De Palma, although making his debut with films certainly not belonging to the mainstream , then ended up working in the area of ​​regular production, bringing, however, to varying degrees the breath of their extra moenia experience, so that it is not difficult to see in one of his first films, Greetings (1968; Hello America), his personal obsessions about pornography, the politics and nature of the film show that would later return to his more regular production films. Moreover, it is not at all risky to say that the relaunch of theNew Hollywood and more generally of American cinema after the crisis of the Fifties and Sixties is mainly due to the work of young authors who started making films with independently produced films: from Martin Scorsese to Peter Bogdanovich, the list would be very long.

Sometimes, especially in the following decade, there were works that would have well figured in an ideal selection proposed by "Film culture": for example. Wanda (1971) by Barbara Loden, wife of director Elia Kazan, while giving space to the models of narrative cinema exuded an interiority, a thoughtfulness, a penchant for abjection and failure which is not difficult to find in the films praised by Mekas and partners ten years earlier. Furthermore, the independent cinema of the seventies brought to light a thematic component that had been perceived only superficially in the NACG (and which obviously had always been banned from Hollywood cinema): homosexuality. By the dawn of the homosexual liberation movement, Hollywood herself had fired The boys in the band (1970; Party for the birthday of dear friend Harold), one of William Friedkin's early films; but it was obviously in the field of independent cinema that the most sincere works on the subject were produced, from Some of my best friends are ... (1971) by Mervyn Nelson to A very natural thing (1974) by Christopher Larkin, paving the way for small masterpieces that, like John Sayles' Lianna (1983), would come, always in an independent area, in the following decade.

The independent cinema that followed the NACG experience developed in many directions and with an impressive number of filmmakers, so it is impossible to give detailed account of it: from the cartoons of Ralph Bakshi to the comedies of John Korty (who will then move on to work for television); the extraordinary documentary activity of the brothers Albert and David Maysles and Richard Leacock - collaborators, among other things of Donn A. Pennebaker on the set of his Monterey pop (1969), which paved the way for a real genre, the concert movie , in vogue in the seventies - to directors who, like Romero, Wes Craven and Tobe Hooper, would have baptized what together with the science fiction film would soon have been the major turning point in American cinema of the last quarter of a century, the revival and 'horror movie . Moreover, the official Underground would have continued its way, sometimes with memorable works such as Jim McBride's David Holzman's diary (1968) or even some titles by Warhol and his pupil Paul Morrissey.

È necessario citare infine un nome che non permette addentellati di alcun tipo: quello di John Waters, un giovane di Baltimora che portò a picchi mai raggiunti una sua personale estetica del cattivo gusto con film come Multiple maniacs (1971), Pink flamingos (1973), Female trouble (1975), parte dei quali interpretati da un'icona come il travestito Divine. Waters, un vero esploratore del limite, lesse nel cinema la possibilità di dare ordine (disordinato, naturalmente) all'abiezione attraverso una commedia grottesca che non esclude alcun colpo di scena nella direzione dell'insopportabilità e del disgusto. Se il cinema hollywoodiano è pensato e realizzato esattamente come opposto a quello di Waters, è logico che fra i due poli si situino le esperienze del cinema underground e di quello più largamente indipendente. E dunque, il cinema di Waters è quel che il cinema indipendente sarebbe stato senza un'idea di arte che, per quanto lontanissima dalle pratiche hollywoodiane, andava comunque nella direzione di parametri e valori non così antiborghesi come la stessa avanguardia aveva creduto. John Waters, insomma, prima di essere la cattiva coscienza del perbenismo hollywoodiano, è anche e soprattutto quella della presunzione e dell'orgoglio delle avanguardie, indipendenti come lui.BIBLIOGRAPHY

R. Tomasino, New American Cinema 1960-1969. Ten years of underground US cinema , Naples 1970.

A. Leonardi, Eye my god. New American Cinema , Milan 1971.

P. Adam Sitney, Visionary film: The American avant-garde , New York 1974.

DA James, Allegories of cinema: American film in the Sixties , Princeton 1989.

G. Merritt, Celluloid mavericks. A history of American independent film , New York 2000.

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