Overview

Sitney analyzes in detail the work of eleven American avant-garde filmmakers as heirs to the aesthetics of exhilaration and innovative vision articulated by Ralph Waldo Emerson and explored by John Cage, Charles Olson and Gertrude Stein. The films discussed span the sixty years since the Second World War. With three chapters each devoted to Stan Brakhage and Robert Beavers, two each to Hollis Frampton and Jonas Mekas, and single chapters on Marie Menken, Ian Hugo, Andrew Noren, Warren Sonbert, Su Friedrich, Ernie Gehr, and Abigail Child, Eyes Upside Down is the fruit of Sitney's lifelong study of visionary aspirations in the American avant-garde cinema.

Full Product Details

Author:   P. Adams Sitney (Professor of Visual Studies, Professor of Visual Studies, Princeton University)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press Inc
Imprint:   Oxford University Press Inc
Dimensions:   Width: 22.90cm , Height: 2.80cm , Length: 15.50cm
Weight:   0.649kg
ISBN:  

9780195331158

ISBN 10:   019533115
Pages:   432
Publication Date:   17 April 2008
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
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Table of Contents

"Introduction: Emersonian Poetics 1: Marie Menken and the Somatic Camera 2: Ian Hugo and Superimposition 3: Stan Brakhage's Autobiography as a Cinematic Sequence 4: Jonas Mekas and the Diary Film 5: Hollis Frampton and the Spectre of Narrative 6: Robert Beavers's Winged Distance/Sightless Measure: The Cycle of the Ephebe 7: Beavers's Second Cycle: The Past in the Present - The Present in the Past 8: Andrew Noren and the Open-Ended Cinematic Sequence 9: Ernie Gehr and the Axis of Primary Thought 10: Warren Sonbert's Movements in a Concerto 11: Brakhage and the Tales of the Tribes 12: Frampton's Magellan 13: Abigail Child: Textual Self-Reliance 14: Su Friedrich: ""Giving Birth to Myself"" 15: Brakhage: Meditative Cinema 16: Beavers's Third Cycle: The Theater of Gesture 17: Mekas's Retrospection Conclusion: Perfect Exhilaration Appendix: Chronology of Films"

Reviews

"""With Eyes Upside Down, P. Adams Sitney reconfirms his position as the dean of American film historiography. His recasting of the canon as the elaboration of an Emersonian Orphism will transform our understanding of American culture as a whole, not just of its cinematic avatars. The largesse of his critical intelligence, of his erudition, and of his sensitivity to both poetry and film reaches 'peaks of perfect exhilaration' as remarkable in their own way as those in the films he illuminates.""--David James, University of Southern California ""P. Adams Sitney is not only the preeminent historian of the American avant-garde film; he is one of the finest critics and theorists of the cinematic image and form working today. In Eyes Upside Down Sitney does more than supplement and extend his seminal work, Visionary Film, widely recognized as the canonical account of American avant-garde cinema. In this new volume Sitney not only deals with many filmmakers that were not treated in his earlier book, he also provides a new profound approach to the American avant-garde film as part of an Emersonian tradition. In addition, Sitney offers a deep, and deeply moving, expansion of his work on Stan Brakhage, a profound tribute of the critical imagination to one of America's richest and least appreciated masters of modern form.""--Tom Gunning, University of Chicago ""With Eyes Upside Down, P. Adams Sitney reconfirms his position as the dean of American film historiography. His recasting of the canon as the elaboration of an Emersonian Orphism will transform our understanding of American culture as a whole, not just of its cinematic avatars. The largesse of his critical intelligence, of his erudition, and of his sensitivity to both poetry and film reaches 'peaks of perfect exhilaration' as remarkable in their own way as those in the films he illuminates.""--David James, University of Southern California ""P. Adams Sitney is not only the preeminent historian of the American avant-garde film; he is one of the finest critics and theorists of the cinematic image and form working today. In Eyes Upside Down Sitney does more than supplement and extend his seminal work, Visionary Film, widely recognized as the canonical account of American avant-garde cinema. In this new volume Sitney not only deals with many filmmakers that were not treated in his earlier book, he also provides a new profound approach to the American avant-garde film as part of an Emersonian tradition. In addition, Sitney offers a deep, and deeply moving, expansion of his work on Stan Brakhage, a profound tribute of the critical imagination to one of America's richest and least appreciated masters of modern form.""--Tom Gunning, University of Chicago ""The images produced by Sitney's visionary-his Emersonian-company of filmic artists offer in their collisions and challenges the shock of the new, thereby opening different and differing perspectives on experience, on imagination, on the things that surround us all the time.""-ARTFORUMr ""Sitney does a fine job of ferreting out Emersonian themes in filmmakers like Stan Brakhage and Hollis Frampton. Sitney's criticism is brilliant.""-Cineaste"

<br> With Eyes Upside Down, P. Adams Sitney reconfirms his position as the dean of American film historiography. His recasting of the canon as the elaboration of an Emersonian Orphism will transform our understanding of American culture as a whole, not just of its cinematic avatars. The largesse of his critical intelligence, of his erudition, and of his sensitivity to both poetry and film reaches 'peaks of perfect exhilaration' as remarkable in their own way as those in the films he illuminates. --David James, University of Southern California<br> P. Adams Sitney is not only the preeminent historian of the American avant-garde film; he is one of the finest critics and theorists of the cinematic image and form working today. In Eyes Upside Down Sitney does more than supplement and extend his seminal work, Visionary Film, widely recognized as the canonical account of American avant-garde cinema. In this new volume Sitney not only deals with many filmmakers that were not treated in his ea

With Eyes Upside Down, P. Adams Sitney reconfirms his position as the dean of American film historiography. His recasting of the canon as the elaboration of an Emersonian Orphism will transform our understanding of American culture as a whole, not just of its cinematic avatars. The largesse of his critical intelligence, of his erudition, and of his sensitivity to both poetry and film reaches 'peaks of perfect exhilaration' as remarkable in their own way as those in the films he illuminates. --David James, University of Southern California<br> P. Adams Sitney is not only the preeminent historian of the American avant-garde film; he is one of the finest critics and theorists of the cinematic image and form working today. In Eyes Upside Down Sitney does more than supplement and extend his seminal work, Visionary Film, widely recognized as the canonical account of American avant-garde cinema. In this new volume Sitney not only deals with many filmmakers that were not treated in his earlier book, he also provides a new profound approach to the American avant-garde film as part of an Emersonian tradition. In addition, Sitney offers a deep, and deeply moving, expansion of his work on Stan Brakhage, a profound tribute of the critical imagination to one of America's richest and least appreciated masters of modern form. --Tom Gunning, University of Chicago<br>

The images produced by Sitney's visionary-his Emersonian-company of filmic artists offer in their collisions and challenges the shock of the new, thereby opening different and differing perspectives on experience, on imagination, on the things that surround us all the time. * ARTFORUMr * P. Adams Sitney is not only the preeminent historian of the American avant-garde film; he is one of the finest critics and theorists of the cinematic image and form working today. In Eyes Upside Down Sitney does more than supplement and extend his seminal work, Visionary Film, widely recognized as the canonical account of American avant-garde cinema. In this new volume Sitney not only deals with many filmmakers that were not treated in his earlier book, he also provides a new profound approach to the American avant-garde film as part of an Emersonian tradition. In addition, Sitney offers a deep, and deeply moving, expansion of his work on Stan Brakhage, a profound tribute of the critical imagination to one of America's richest and least appreciated masters of modern form. * Tom Gunning, University of Chicago * With Eyes Upside Down, P. Adams Sitney reconfirms his position as the dean of American film historiography. His recasting of the canon as the elaboration of an Emersonian Orphism will transform our understanding of American culture as a whole, not just of its cinematic avatars. The largesse of his critical intelligence, of his erudition, and of his sensitivity to both poetry and film reaches 'peaks of perfect exhilaration' as remarkable in their own way as those in the films he illuminates. * David James, University of Southern California * P. Adams Sitney is not only the preeminent historian of the American avant-garde film; he is one of the finest critics and theorists of the cinematic image and form working today. In Eyes Upside Down Sitney does more than supplement and extend his seminal work, Visionary Film, widely recognized as the canonical account of American avant-garde cinema. In this new volume Sitney not only deals with many filmmakers that were not treated in his earlier book, he also provides a new profound approach to the American avant-garde film as part of an Emersonian tradition. In addition, Sitney offers a deep, and deeply moving, expansion of his work on Stan Brakhage, a profound tribute of the critical imagination to one of America's richest and least appreciated masters of modern form. * Tom Gunning, University of Chicago * With Eyes Upside Down, P. Adams Sitney reconfirms his position as the dean of American film historiography. His recasting of the canon as the elaboration of an Emersonian Orphism will transform our understanding of American culture as a whole, not just of its cinematic avatars. The largesse of his critical intelligence, of his erudition, and of his sensitivity to both poetry and film reaches 'peaks of perfect exhilaration' as remarkable in their own way as those in the films he illuminates. * David James, University of Southern California *

<br> With Eyes Upside Down, P. Adams Sitney reconfirms his position as the dean of American film historiography. His recasting of the canon as the elaboration of an Emersonian Orphism will transform our understanding of American culture as a whole, not just of its cinematic avatars. The largesse of his critical intelligence, of his erudition, and of his sensitivity to both poetry and film reaches 'peaks of perfect exhilaration' as remarkable in their own way as those in the films he illuminates. --David James, University of Southern California<p><br> P. Adams Sitney is not only the preeminent historian of the American avant-garde film; he is one of the finest critics and theorists of the cinematic image and form working today. In Eyes Upside Down Sitney does more than supplement and extend his seminal work, Visionary Film, widely recognized as the canonical account of American avant-garde cinema. In this new volume Sitney not only deals with many filmmakers that were not treated in his earlier book, he also provides a new profound approach to the American avant-garde film as part of an Emersonian tradition. In addition, Sitney offers a deep, and deeply moving, expansion of his work on Stan Brakhage, a profound tribute of the critical imagination to one of America's richest and least appreciated masters of modern form. --Tom Gunning, University of Chicago<p><br> With Eyes Upside Down, P. Adams Sitney reconfirms his position as the dean of American film historiography. His recasting of the canon as the elaboration of an Emersonian Orphism will transform our understanding of American culture as a whole, not just of its cinematic avatars. The largesse of his critical intelligence, of his erudition, and of his sensitivity to both poetry and film reaches 'peaks of perfect exhilaration' as remarkable in their own way as those in the films he illuminates. --David James, University of Southern California<p><br> P. Adams Sitney is not only the preeminent historian of the Amer

Author Information

P. Adams Sitney is a Professor of Visual Art at Princeton University. He has taught at Bard College, New York University, The Cooper Union, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the School of Visual Arts. He is the author of Visionary Film: The American Avan-Garde 1943-1200; Modernist Montage: The Obscurity of Vision in Film and Literature; Vital Crises in Italian Cinema; and he edited the Film Culture Reader; The Essential Cinema; The Avant-Garde Film; and Stan Brakhage's Metaphors on Vision. In 1969 he co-founded Anthology Film Archives in New York.

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