The New American Cinema

About the Book

From the late 1950s through the mid-1960s, independent filmmakers in the New American Cinema sought to use film to restore spiritual depth and human connection to the impersonal environs of modern life. Josh Guilford analyzes the movement’s methods, ambitions, and influence against the backdrop of post–World War II America’s social and political climate.

Dedicated to shaping a more intimate world, New American Cinema artists created works that emphasized spontaneity, improvisation, and formal experimentation to produce transformative experiences in their viewers. Filmmakers like Jonas Mekas, Lionel Rogosin, Ron Rice, and Shirley Clarke championed cinema’s ability to revive the human soul and foster more liberating social forms. In practice, however, their films often relied on the vitality of marginalized communities and cultural traditions in a manner that lays bare tensions between artistic idealism and cultural extraction. Guilford uses thinkers from inside and outside the world of film to illuminate the political risks and possibilities that come with making intimacy the foundation of social change.

Rigorous and original, The New American Cinema examines an understudied movement and its effort to reshape film culture, challenge conformity, and imagine new ways of living together.