“The first comprehensive biography of this hipster magus . . . [John Szwed] allows different sides of Smith’s personality to catch blades of sun. He brings the right mixture of reverence and comic incredulity to his task.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times

Grammy Award–winning music scholar and celebrated biographer John Szwed presents the first biography of Harry Smith, the brilliant eccentric who transformed twentieth century art and culture.

This book focuses on the unique forms of expression in the diary film and the essay film, especially how authorship of filmmakers can be integrated in the voice-over as a narrative strategy in first-person cinema. The book is divided into two sections: the first section “essays” contains three chapters, and in these chapters I use films of Liu Na’Ou, Hollis Frampton, Jonas Mekas, and José Luis Guerín as cases for filmic textual analyses, to discuss the issues of authorial presence, the voiceover narration, and audiovisual structure.

This collection of Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen's film scripts vividly evokes the close connection between their influential work as theorists and their work as filmmakers. It includes scripts for all six of Mulvey and Wollen's collaborative films, Wollen's solo feature film, Friendship's Death (1987), and Mulvey's later collaborations. Each text is followed by a new essay by a leading writer, offering a critical interpretation of the corresponding film.

The very first collection celebrating her work, Exovede in the Darkroom is a series of responses, critical and poetic, to Métis experimental filmmaker Rhayne Vermette’s visually explosive and materially intimate practice. It was while studying architecture that Vermette, primarily self-taught, fell into image making and storytelling. Her films are opulent collages of fiction, animation, documentary, reenactments, and divine interruption.