Underground Film
Underground film refers to a category of motion pictures that diverge from mainstream commercial cinema, prioritizing personal artistic vision over broad audience appeal. Often characterized by low budgets and unconventional techniques, these films typically emerge from independent filmmakers and are distributed through alternative venues. The term gained prominence in the late 1950s, although the roots of underground cinema can be traced back to the 1920s with pioneering figures like Sergei Eisenstein and Maya Deren, who experimented with narrative and visual form. Throughout the 1960s, a significant movement flourished, led by artists such as Jonas Mekas and Stan Brakhage, who sought to challenge Hollywood norms and censorship. Underground films frequently tackle taboo subjects, exploring themes of sexuality, politics, and the supernatural, often using experimental styles that distinguish them from more commercial offerings. As technology advanced, filmmaking became more accessible, allowing a new generation of creators to emerge. Today, underground film continues to thrive, aided by digital platforms that facilitate the distribution and accessibility of these unique works to a global audience.
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Underground Film
The word "underground" applied to human activities suggests subversion and rule breaking. Underground film is a category of motion picture that is not produced to appeal to large audiences for commercial purposes. It is usually the product of an independent filmmaker’s personal vision and may be experimental in its themes and techniques. Underground film budgets are quite small, and distribution is often through alternative venues. Some film scholars argue for an expanded definition, including any independently produced film made outside the control of Hollywood in the category of underground film. Although some underground films existed as early as the 1920s, it was not until the late 1950s that the term was used to designate alternative films crafted and shown outside commercial theaters. These films were antithetical to Hollywood and the values of the mainstream film industry.
Brief History
In the 1920s, Russia's Sergei Eisenstein (1898–1948) began experimenting with cinematic manipulation of time and space through the juxtaposition of images. Eisenstein, known as the father of montage, was a key figure in the evolution of film as a medium of abstract expression. France’s René Clair (1898–1981) created a cinematic version of Dadaism in Entr’Acte (1924), a short, avant-garde film that challenged narrative logic with absurdly linked images striking in their humorous obscurity. The influence of surrealism is strong in Un Chien Andalou (1928), a joint project of director Luis Buñuel (1900–1983) and the surrealist artist Salvador Dalí (1904–1989). Frequently hailed as the greatest short film in cinema history, Un Chien Andalou was made by Buñuel and Dali, based on their unique vision, created on a low budget and with no industry financing. These films were the precursors of underground films.
In the 1930s, the Workers Film and Photo League (WFPL) and other radical groups created their own newsreels to show in union halls, community centers, and churches. The WFPL used handheld cameras and close range cinematography to film scenes such as the miners’ strikes in 1931 and 1932. The film was then processed as quickly as possible, roughly edited, and rushed to screenings. These newsreels were in direct response to the WFPL’s belief that mainstream news media either ignored or minimized workers’ problems. WFPL’s filmmakers were committed to offering an alternative view.
Alternative films of the 1940s were labeled "experimental." Maya Deren (1917–1961), a major influence in experimental filmmaking, made her films and distributed them and lectured on avant-garde cinema theory. Of particular importance is Meshes of the Afternoon, a lyrical, nonnarrative film that uses dream sequences and multiple levels of the unconscious. A collaboration with Deren’s husband, Alexander Hammid, Meshes of the Afternoon, made for less than $300, was an important influence on the early works of other independent filmmakers, including Kenneth Anger (1927– ). Anger’s Fireworks (1947), like Meshes of the Afternoon, utilized autobiographical elements, dreams, and symbols to create the homoerotic film. The Lead Shoes (1949) by Sidney Peterson (1905–2000), known for its disorienting play with time and space, was heavily influenced by the surrealistic approach of Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali. Psyche (1947), the first film of Gregory Markopoulos (1928–1992), garnered praise for its lyricism, beauty, and the mythic theme that was a recurring motif in Markopoulos’s work. All these films influenced the experimental filmmakers who followed.
Although the origin of the term is disputed, by the mid-1950s "underground film" was being used with some frequency. Despite many artists’ rejection of the term, through repeated use, it entered the lexicon of the English language. As the tools of filmmaking became more accessible, pioneers of experimental films such as Deren were passing on their knowledge to a younger generation. The School of Cinematic Studies at the University of Southern California was founded in 1929 and became the first American university to offer a bachelor's degree in film studies in 1932. The 1960s brought a significant increase in film studies programs in the United States. The American Film Institute was founded in 1967. Conditions were ripe for an explosion of independent filmmaking.
On September 28, 1960, twenty-three filmmakers gathered in New York to found the New American Cinema Group. Led by Jonas Mekas (1922– ), the group included commercial filmmakers as well as the avant-garde. Their manifesto included resistance against slick Hollywood productions, commitment to films as personal expression, and opposition to censorship. The manifesto also called for a cooperative distribution center, and about eighteen months later, the Film-Makers Cooperative was founded. Mekas was a key figure in the underground film movement as a filmmaker, critic, and leader. Other leaders included Stan Brakhage (1933–2003) and Stan Vanderbeek (1927–1984).
Highlights of the 1960s reveal the mix of important films by new filmmakers and significant work by established artists that characterized the period. Perhaps the most notorious was Flaming Creatures (1963), Jack Smith’s film, shot on backdated black-and-white film stock, that included references to oral sex, an orgy of groping, and full-frontal shots of male genitalia. Other influential films include Stan Brakhage’s epic Dog Star Man (1964), which uses overlapping images ranging from Brakhage's children to solar explosions; Stan Vanderbeek’s Breathdeath (1963), which utilizes collages for social and political satire; Kenneth Anger’s gritty Scorpio Rising (1964), which influenced Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, and countless music videos; Mike Kuchar’s campy, post-nuclear war Sins of the Fleshapoids (1965); and Pop Art icon Andy Warhol’s Chelsea Girls (1966), a series of two images shown simultaneously.
Underground Film Today
Commercial filmmakers began to appropriate underground techniques and counterculture characters in films such as Dennis Hopper’s high-grossing, Oscar-nominated Easy Rider (1969). As the 1960s gave way to the 1970s, the underground film movement continued to grow as dozens of new artists used film as a medium to create personal art. The following decades continued to be prolific for underground filmmakers, who followed their predecessors in producing films that experimented with composition and form and focused on sexual, political, and supernatural topics taboo in mainstream films. By the 1980s, many experimental filmmakers, including Brian De Palma and Martin Scorsese, had moved to commercial productions.
In 1970, a group of filmmakers that included Jonas Mekas and Stan Brakhage created Anthology, an archive of experimental films. The establishment of the archive moved underground films from their inherently fluid nature and limited availability to a film genre that has a canon, an unlimited audience, and a documented history. Anthology continued to be used to archive experimental films in 2024 and had added an exhibition theater and library for alternative films. Streaming had made it possible for new generations of experimental filmmakers to easily distribute their work. Viewers of underground cinema were able to easily access underground and independent works from across the world without leaving their homes.
Bibliography
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Dixon, Wheeler Winston. The Exploding Eye: A Re-Visionary History of 1960s American Experimental Cinema. Albany: SUNY UP, 1998. Print.
Gleiberman, Owen. "Remembering Kenneth Anger, the Greatest Underground Filmmaker Who Ever Lived." Variety, 27 Mar. 2023, variety.com/2023/film/columns/kenneth-anger-tribute-influence-scorpio-rising-hollywood-babylon-1235626052/. Accessed 25 Oct. 2024.
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Nastasi, Alison. "50 Underground Filmmakers Everyone Should Know." Flavorwire. 24 September 2014. Web. 10 June 2015.
Renan, Sheldon. An Introduction to the American Underground Film. New York: Dutton, 1967. Print.
Reynolds, Ann. "A History of Failure." Criticism 56.2 (Spring 2014): 188–209. Web. Project Muse. 10 June 2015.
Sargeant, Jack. Flesh and Excess: On Underground Film. Los Angeles: Amok, 2015. Print.
Suárez, Juan Antonio. Bike Boys, Drag Queens, & Superstars: Avant-Garde, Mass Culture, and Gay Identities in the 1960s Underground Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana UP. 1996. Print.
Tyler, Parker. Underground Film: A Critical History. New York: Grove, 1969. Print.