"Unquiet Years": Experimental
Cinema in the 1950s

GREG S. FALLER

Often considered merely a transitional phase between the excitement of the avantgarde cinema of the 1940s and the alternative film culture of the 1960s, the 1950s instead deserves recognition as a crucial period in the development of a vital American experimental cinema. During the 1950s, fledgling film societies and exhibitions grew into viable organizations and venues; individual and isolated artists congregated into collective support systems; critical publications (and critics) gained a wider audience and cultural acceptance; and new stylistic approaches challenged recognized formats and ideas. In short, the 1950s saw the establishment of a fully viable experimental film "art world."

The Art World of Experimental Cinema

In his 1982 book, Art Worlds, sociologist Howard Becker defined an "art world" as a "network of people whose cooperative activity, organized via their joint knowledge of conventional means...