Downtown Film and TV Culture 1975-2001

Downtown Film and TV Culture, 1975-2001 analyzes an American urban film culture which the author identifies as late twentieth century avant-garde. Beginning with the No-Wave and Punk filmmakers of the 1970s,Downtown Film and TV Culture brings together essays by filmmakers, exhibitors, cultural critics, and scholars from multiple generations of the Downtown scene. What draws these producers and viewers together is a common urban lifestyle, a shared commitment to formal and narrative experimentation, a view of the human body as a site of social and political struggle, an interest in radical identity politics, and a mistrust of institutionalized mechanisms of wealth and power.Politically, they run the gamut from anarchist to libertarian. Many of them have roots in the punk underground. They are self-reflexive in their use of and allusions to both film history and film theory; in terms of cinematic style, they seem to draw equally from Surrealism, European art cinema, and the avant-garde traditions of Andy Warhol and Yvonne Rainer. However, they also borrow heavily from "low" culture-erotic thrillers, horror, sci-fi and porn, and the adjectives most frequently used to describe their work are "dark," "disturbing," "intelligent," "provocative," and "quirky."
Downtown Film and TV Culture, 1975–2001 brings together essays by filmmakers, exhibitors, cultural critics, and scholars from multiple generations of the New York Downtown scene to illuminate individual films and filmmakers and explore the creation of a Downtown Canon, the impact of AIDS on younger filmmakers, community access cable television broadcasts, and the impact of the historic downtown scene on contemporary experimental culture. The book includes J. Hoberman’s essay “No Wavelength: The Parapunk Underground,” as well as historical essays by Tony Conrad and Lynne Tillman, interviews with filmmakers Bette Gordon and Beth B., and essays by Ivan Kral and Nick Zedd.