Underground U.S.A.

Whether defined by the carnivalesque excesses, art-house erotica or narrative experimentations underground cinema has achieved an important position within American film culture. Often defined as ‘cult’, ‘exploitation’, ‘alternative’ or ‘independent’, the American underground retains separate strategies of production and exhibition from the cinematic mainstream, while its sexual and cinematic representations differ from the traditionally conservative structures of the Hollywood system. Underground U.S.A.: Filmmaking Beyond the Hollywood Canon offers a fascinating overview of this area of maverick movie-making by considering the links between the experimental and exploitation traditions of the American underground. The volume brings together leading film theorists, critics, exhibitors and film-makers who take as their focus those directors, films, and genres typically dismissed, belittled or ignored by established film culture. The contributors thus consider the stylistic, generic and representational strategies that have emerged in the alternative American film scene from the 1940s to the present.