Art Cinema

A compendium of the development and history of film as art

Movies should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order. —Jean-Luc Godard

Debate over cinema’s credibility as an art form is as old as the medium itself, and largely defined in terms of formal, psychological, ideological, social, or auteurist theories. To explore how artists are also using the medium to investigate a wider range of aesthetic issues that are generally related to modern and contemporary art practices, this book is broken down into 10 subgenres, including abstraction, collage, appropriation, post-surrealism, structuralism, duration, parody, and expanded cinema.

The history of each subgenre is illustrated by over 300 films and filmmakers, from past masters such as Hans Richter, Man Ray, and Stan Brakhage to contemporary artists Stan Douglas, Pipilotti Rist, and Doug Aitken; from art-house legends David Lynch, Jean-Luc Godard, and Luis Buñuel to underground icons and contemporary artists Kenneth Anger, Matthew Barney, Bruce Conner, Michael Snow, Owen Land, and Paul McCarthy.