Independent filmmakers, producers and exhibitors joined in the early 1960s to advance a proposal for an American film institute. This plan was articulated after a gathering, known as the Antioch Symposium, which was sponsored by one of the main art cinema chains, the Art Cinema Guild.81 Kreul indicates that this proposal envisaged the integration of the non-theatrical film societies into the art cinema circuit, a model that attempted to consolidate art cinema as an independent and competitive theatrical alternative to Hollywood.82 Kreul notes that these constituencies expected to gain support from the Film Council of America and the Educational Film Library, two key organisations for experimental and independent filmmakers during the 1940s and 1950s.83 Nonetheless, the combination of the non-theatrical sector receiving
philanthropic support and independent theatrical film enterprises, as envisioned in the 1961 proposal for an American film institute, was improbable. Federal government and philanthropies were not likely to support an initiative that, by strengthening independent theatrical filmmaking, could interfere with the interests of the main film industry.
81
Colin Young, “ n merican Film Institute: Proposal,” Film Quarterly 14, no. 4 (Summer 1961): 37-50. See also the discussion edited by Ernest Callenbach, “The Expensive rt: Discussion of Distribution and Exhibition in the U.S.” Film Quarterly 13, no. 4 (Summer 1960): 19-34.
82 Kreul, “New York, New Cinema.” 83
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2.5.1 Obstacles for American Experimental and Independent Cinema
The Symposium’s discussion addressed the relationship between education and diversity in film production, which provides a framework to understand how
subsequent policies engaged with film culture and film education issues. The key problem was independent distribution. American independent production could not be strengthened if it was unable to compete with cheaply imported European productions, that also side-stepped the obstacles of guilds and censors.84 Furthermore, distributors found they could not choose between films, thus limiting the offer brought to
audiences beyond the better organised outfits in metropolitan areas such as New York and San Francisco.
mos Vogel, Cinema 16’s organiser, made clear that, if art cinema distributors wanted to build up their positions in the large and diverse U.S. theatrical sector, they would have to either keep to the limitations and subsidies of the non-theatrical sector, or provide competitive services and bear the same pressures as the theatrical sector, such as transportation nationwide, publicity, and minimising risk by producing films that would return investments. This would have an impact on exhibition policies, hence diminishing the more open character that non-theatrical organisations had when selecting films. Additionally, Vogel contended that the taste of film society renters tended to be conservative, mostly requesting Hollywood classics rather than experimental films.85 Therefore, if they wanted to change the demand, they had to address opinion leaders and widen the scope of audiences’ tastes through education.
Colin Young’s 1961 proposal for an merican film institute articulated the issues identified at the Symposium, especially the gap between a growing film culture and a limited offer of films, resulting from protectionist U.S. trade.86 This plan also revived many of the ideas and activities previously suggested for a national institution: an archive, a catalogue, education programmes, publishing, and additionally, a fund to support experimental film production. Young’s main argument in the proposal
addressed Vogel’s contentions. Young argued that strengthening the independent film sector could only be achieved through education, which involved attending to
84 Callenbach, “The Expensive rt,” 19. 85
For an analysis of film libraries’ rentals during the 1950s, see Elena Rossi-Snook,
“Persistence of Vision: Public Library 16mm Film Collection in merica,” The Moving Image 5, no. 1 (Spring 2005): 1-27. In 1951, reportedly 90 libraries offered film services, with 55,929 films being shown to approximately 2,945,330 people. By 1956, this number had risen to 166 libraries.
86
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preservation and scholarship, roles mostly neglected by the commercial priorities dominating the theatrical film industry and which the institute could assume.87
Shortly after the Symposium, a group of filmmakers including Frank, Lionel Rogosin, Clarke, Markopoulos and Mekas, amongst other independent producers and distributors, came together and signed the “Statement of the New merican Cinema roup.”88
In the statement, the group asserted the cultural legitimacy of independent filmmaking, and compared its splendour to the other booming American arts: painting and poetry. The equation between film and art was maintained by appealing to the idea that “cinema is indivisibly a personal expression.”89
The group challenged censorship and licensing laws, rejecting “the interference of producers, distributors, and
investors.”90
They decried the current situation whereby low-budget movies paid to the guilds the same fees as films with greater budgets and expecting higher revenues.
The New American Cinema statement gave the group the momentum to start its own distribution centre, the New York Film- akers’ Cooperative, in January 1962. This group circulated the works of some of the filmmakers mentioned above, as well as others associated to the underground such as Vanderbeek, Breer, Jack Smith, Andy Warhol and Ken Jacobs. Eventually, Mekas set up the Film- akers’ Cinemateque to provide a more stable screening venue for these films. Next I demonstrate that the increased circulation and publicity of these filmmakers went along with a campaign led by Film Quarterly. The campaign underscored the fact that the current organisation of the U.S. film industry fostered only theatrical films from the major film companies and restricted the emergence of different forms of expression and social engagement.