ESSAYS

Voices from the Margin: Rise and Fall of the American Independent Film

The study on the American independent film analyzes the rise of this film phenomenon in the US from the 1960s when it appeared as the reflection of social and cultural transformations of the American society in opposition to the Hollywood film. New generation of American film makers, interested in new and non-conventional ways of film-making, found its role-models in the European tendencies of the time — the Italian Neorealism, the French New Wave and Cinéma vérité. This way they found new formal and narrative patterns.

The text follows the development of the American independent film from A. Mekas, M. Roemer, blaxploitation movies and The Los Angeles School (Ch. Burnett, B. Woodberry, H. Gerima, J. Dash) to its commercialization from the late 1980s with the works by J. Jarmusch and D. Lynch, as well as amalgamation of the indie film with the mainstream cinema of the 1990s, especially in the works by Q. Tarantino.

Dejan D. Marković