Review article

Film and beat-generation

Damir Španić ; Josipa Jurja Strossmayer University u Osijeku

Abstract

The authors of the Beat Generation popularized the critique of American society by creating a literature that shaped the entire dissent of the nineteen-fifties. Over time, they became key figures in the cultural politics of the second half of the century. Their works combined the modernist practices of the post-war avant-garde with the countercultural movements of the nineteen-sixties, but the Beats did not emerge suddenly and completely separate from other cultural currents of the post-war America. Their affinities for visuality and musicality sparked interest in film art, which was also the Beats’ creative response to a very interesting period of American cinematography in the late nineteen-forties and -fifties, whose authors shared their personal views and aesthetic ideas. Literary techniques of the Beats, after all, were applicable in film and the writers of the Beat Generation experimented with film very directly. During their lives they liked to appear in front of the camera in different roles. While Hollywood stood aside and exploited Beat culture, and its authors avoided social antagonism and experimental techniques, avant-garde filmmakers such as Brakhage, MacLaine, Conner, Mekas, Anger, Rice, Clarke, and Cassavetes shared with the Beats a desire to create art that is spontaneous, personal and visionary. The central aspect of their work was experimentation, so the desire to experiment with aesthetics in different artistic disciplines prompted many writers, filmmakers, poets, photographers, painters and sculptors to collaborate. This proved fruitful and liberating, blurring the boundaries between text and image. By persistently challenging the prejudices of their audience beyond the traditionally ascribed cultural boundaries, the films of these authors, just like the literature of the Beat Generation, explored the social margins of jazz, narcotics, homosexuality, travel, and spirituality. In this context, the underground film of the nineteen-fifties in America can rightly be considered as an integral part of the wider Beat culture.

Keywords

the Beat Generation; Beat culture; counterculture; the culture of spontaneity; New American Cinema; the American neo-avant-garde cinema

Hrčak ID:

288002

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/288002

Publication date:

21.12.2022.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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