Introductions -- Beginnings -- Speaking essays/or interruptions -- The essay film as archive and repository of memories -- Essay film as fourth estate -- The artist essay-expanding the field and the turn to video -- New migrations: third cinema and the essay film -- Beyond the cinematic screen: installations and the internet.
Summary:
Nora M. Alter argues that the essay film is a hybrid genre that fuses three major categories of film: feature, art, and documentary. Much like the written essay, its literary predecessor, the essay film draws on a variety of forms and approaches, fundamentally altering the shape of cinema. Alter traces the essay film's origins to early silent cinema, charting the genre's evolution with the advent of sound, its emergence as a recognized category of film in the postwar period, and the ways the genre developed in the later twentieth century. In addition to exploring the broader history of the essay film, Alter discusses the work of artists including Robert Smithson, Martha Rosler, Isaac Julien, John Akomfrah, Harun Farocki, and Hito Steyerl.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.