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to accept the idea of an interview project that confined itself to the United States, my failure thus far to interview African-Americans remains problematic.
This general limitation of
A Critical Cinema
is a function of the history of my personal development as a chronicler of independent film history. My choice of interviewees has always been motivated by the difficulty I have had, and that I assume others must also have, understanding particular films and kinds of films, or to be more precise, by a combination of fascination and confusion strong enough to energize me to examine all the work of a given filmmaker in detail. That for a time nearly all the filmmakers whose work challenged me in this way were Americans is, to some extent, a function of the limited opportunities for seeing non-American independent cinema in this Country and of my limited access to (and energy for) foreign travel, but it is also a result of the remarkable productivity of American independent filmmakers: as consistent as my interest has been, I am continually embarrassed by the many apparently noteworthy films produced in this country that I've still not had the opportunity to see.
That so many of the filmmakers I have finished interviews with are European-Americans does, of course, reflect issues of race and classmost generally, perhaps, the implicit access or lack of access of various groups to the time, money, and equipment necessary for producing even low-budget films (though, of course, some of the filmmakers I have interviewed were and remain economically marginal). Fortunately, the ethnic diversity of independent filmmaking has expanded in recent decades, as has our awareness of earlier contributions ignored or marginalized. Like many people, I am struggling to develop an increasingly complete sense of what has been, and is, going on. This struggle has had a major impact on the final definition of this general project. My assumption now is that ultimately
A Critical Cinema
will be a three-volume investigation, and that the third volume will complete a passage from the local to the international: "international" meaning multinational
and
intranational. In the modern world, after all, every geographic region is international in the sense that it includes people of a variety of ethnic heritages. Currently, several interviews for Volume 3 are underway, including discussions with John Porter (Canada), William Greaves (U.S.A.: African-American), Yervant Gianikian/Angela Ricci Lucchi (Italy), and Artavazd Peleshyan (Armenian). In the coming years I expect to interview filmmakers of an increasingly broad range of heritages and perspectives.
Of course, no survey of critical filmmakingespecially one produced by a single individualcan ever hope to be "complete." The immensity of this field and its continual expansion in so many directions is what