Avant-Doc Intersections of Documentary and Avant-Garde Cinema [Paperback]

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 ofSweetgrass,Leviathan, andManakamana. A rare interview with pioneering scholar Annette Michelson beginsAvant-Doc'smeta-conversation.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Annette Michelson

Robert Gardner

Ed Pincus (and Jane Pincus, Lucia Small)

Alfred Guzzetti

Ross McElwee

Nina Davenport

Leonard Retel Helmrich

Jonathan Caouette

Pawe? Wojtasik

Michael Glawogger

Susana de Sousa Dias

Alexander Olch (on The Windmill Movie)

Amie Siegel (on DDR/DDR)

Arthur and Jennifer Smith (on Ice Bears of the Beaufort)

Betzy Bromberg (on Voluptuous Sleep)

Jen Proctor (on A Movie by Jen Proctor)

Jane Gillooly (on Suitcase of Love and Shame)

Godfrey Reggio (on Visitors)

Todd Haynes

Sensory Ethnography

Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor (on In and Out of Africa and Sweetgrass)

Lucien Castaing-Taylor (on his installation work and on Harvard's Sensory Ethnography Lab)

Lucien Castaing-Taylor and V?r?na Paravel (on Leviathan)

Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez (on Manakamana)


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