Avant-Doc: Intersections of Documentary and Avant-Garde Cinema

MacDonald explores the cinematic territory between the traditional categories of documentary and avant-garde film, through candid, in-depth conversations with filmmakers whose work has challenged these categories. Arranged in an imaginative chronology and written to be accessible to any
film-interested reader, the interviews in Avant-Doc chart half a century of thinking by inventive filmmakers such as Robert Gardner, Ed Pincus, Alfred Guzzetti, Ross McElwee, Leonard Retel Helmrich, Michael Glawogger, Susana de Sousa Dias, Jonathan Caouette, Pawel Wojtasik, and Todd Haynes. Recent
breakthroughs by Amie Siegel, Jane Gillooly, Jennifer Proctor, Betzy Bromberg, and Godfrey Reggio are discussed; and considerable attention is paid to Harvard's innovative Sensory Ethnography Lab, producer of Sweetgrass, Leviathan, and Manakamana. A rare interview with pioneering scholar Annette
Michelson begins Avant-Doc's meta-conversation.


Author: Scott MacDonald
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 11/03/2014
Pages: 472
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.40lbs
Size: 9.20h x 6.30w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780199388714

Review Citation(s):
Choice 04/01/2015 pg. 1321

About the Author

Scott MacDonald teaches film history at Hamilton College and Harvard University. He is the author of several books, most recently, American Ethnographic Film and Personal Documentary.

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