Art in Cinema: Documents Toward a History of the Film Society

From 1946 until 1954, Art in Cinema presented programs of independent film to large audiences at the San Francisco Museum of Art and at the University of California, Berkeley. Directed by the filmmaker Frank Stauffacher, Art in Cinema’s programs were crucial to the emergence of the Bay Area as one of the centers of independent filmmaking. The society also published a book on the international evolution of avant-garde filmmaking – reproduced in this volume in facsimile form – and offered to its members and the public a coherent history of this important genre. Coupled with its companion volume, Cinema 16 (also published by Temple), Art in Cinema provides cineastes, students, teachers and scholars with extensive, readable, fascinating documentation of one of the most important film societies in American history, and both books together proved an indispensable reference source for the very beginning of this country’s love affair with independent film.