Page 284 - Alternative Europe Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945

Underground U.S.A.
Filmmaking Beyond the Hollywood Canon
Edited by Xavier Mendik and
Steven Jay Schneider

Foreword by Lloyd Kaufman

Whether defined by the carnivalesque excesses of Troma studios,
the art-house erotica of Radley Metzger and Doris Wishman
or the narrative experimentations of Abel Ferrara, Melvin
Van Peebles, Jack Smith or Harmony Korine, underground
cinema has achieved an important position within American
film culture. Often defined as 'cult', exploitation', 'alternative' 2002
or 'independent', the American underground retains seperate £ 15 99 bk
strategies of production and exhibition from the cinematic
mainstream, while its sexual and cinematic representations differ 1-903364-49-3
from rhe traditionally conservative structures of the Hollywood 256 pages
system.
Underground U.S.A. offers a fascinating overview of this area
of maverick movie-making by considering the links between
the experimental and exploitation traditions of the American
underground. This volume brings together leading film rheorists,
critics, exhibitors and filmmakers who take as their focus those
directors, films and genres typically dismissed, belittled or ignored
by established film culture. The contributors thus consider the
stylistic, generic and representational strategies that have emerged
in the alternative American film scenefrom the 1940s to the
present.

"As vast and variegated as the American underground itself, this
exciting collection bypasses Hollywood for a wild intellectual
ride through Indiewood and beyond ... an unflinching guided
tour of cinema's least-explored caves and caverns, combining
sophisticated theory and history with unabashed affection for the
screen's most subversive, rambunctious visions."
- Prof. David Steritt, Long Island University
The writers of this book shine light into some of my own very
favourite darkened coreners of American cinema...
- Jim Jarmusch
Xavier Mendik is the Director of the Cult Archive at University
College Northampton, UK, and General Editor of the
Alterlmage series. He has published widely on the topic of cult
and underground cinema, including Fear Theory: Case Studies
in European and American Horror Cinema (Wallflower Press,
forthcoming). Steven Jay Schneider has published widely on the
horror fijm and related genres and is author of The Cinema ofWes
Craven: An Auteur on Elm Street (Wallflower Press, forthcoming).

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