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American Eccentric Cinema

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American Eccentric Cinema is a movement and genre of cinema in the United States, often referred to as "The American Eccentrics". It occurred during the 1990s and 2000s, when indie directors sought to create films that diverted from the content of typical Hollywood franchise films.[1] American Eccentric Cinema came in opposition to the mainstream ideas of formulaic and "diegetic narratives" [2]  and the digitisation within films and emerging new technologies.[3] The genre is marked by films that are “deeply concerned with ethics and morality, the obligations of the individual, the effects of family breakdown, and social alienation." [3]

Cast and directors of Moonrise Kingdom

Background

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American Eccentric Cinema was formed as an aversion from "achronological plot structures, reflexivity, and popular culture" of "70s filmmakers...drawn to pop tradition" [1]. It came as a response to the new "communications revolution"[4] where new technologies such as mobile phones, virtual reality and the internet were universally popular but their expansion was perceived as a "wildfire penetration of everyday life."[5]

American Eccentric Cinema was also influenced by the New Hollywood era.[1] Both genres are "thematically and narratively centered on existential anxiety and the yearning for human connection.”[1] New Hollywood focuses on the darker elements of the human psyche through the lens of “a pervading generational sense of inconsequence and futility in regard to ambition, motivation and the pursuit of the American dream”[1]. American Eccentric Cinema has no contextual bounds, instead depicting “existential anxiety as individual crises distinct to idiosyncratic characters”. [1]

Filmmakers of the genre also sought to reject many societal norms and ideals of conventional and stable American life. American Eccentric Directors grew up "for the most part in the 1970s and 1980s" coming "of age as the postwar ideal of the nuclear family was coming undone." [3] They wanted to explore emotions "and their causes and effects".[3] They wanted to change "expectations of what a happy family or happy marriage should be" leaning toward a "jaundiced view of family life". [3] These directors came from "a range of family backgrounds - some from happy homes, some less so, some the children of divorce - but their sense of domestic life as a nexus of abandonment, alienation, and frustration is in keeping with their generation's experience."[3]

The film genre is also influenced by Postmodernism and the sense of "detachment"[1] associated with the movement. Filmmakers of American Eccentric cinema deal with "the tension between the ironic aesthetic strategies of postmodernism and the ability to create something of significance in art."[1]

Films of American Eccentric cinema are made around the "pre- and post-9/11 years."[3] They are emblematic of "American liberalism in a state of some confusion" emphasizing themes of existentialism.[3]

- "These filmakers.... reach beyond that basic self-awareness to some kind of transcendent connection."


"The end of history, the end of art, the end of the century and millennium in the United States, the 1990s were permeated by... a great sense of summing-up, with either apocalypse or utopia just around the corner." [3]

"Starting in the early 1990s, a new group of American directors emerged, bubbling through the independent art house and film circuit...they were an odd bunch, and not even obviously identifiable as a bunch. They appeared as a string of individual, stylistically distinct talents." [3] - page 5

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Characteristics

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Whilst American Eccentric Cinema filmmakers have "a string of individual, stylistically distinct talents",[3] thematic concerns of American Eccentric Cinema are centered around "existential crises" and "personal struggles of internal (rather than social) divisions"[1]. In order to presents such themes, Eccentric filmmakers combine "formal and stylistic deviations from mainstream cinema conventions through irregularities in characterization, tone and established generic conventions."[1] These deviations along with "inter-textual allusion, quotation and ironic expression" were intended to "subvert audience expectation."[1] American Eccentric filmmakers were conscious of their audience and "generous toward both characters and audience"[3] by going into the depth of a character's narrative that engages and can create a sense of relatedness for the viewer.

They understood that films were progressing from being shown in the cinema to being viewed at home, where "new (digital, virtual) media began most visibly to challenge, if not replace, old (cinematic, celluloid) media."[6] In new emerging technologies, American Eccentric Cinema filmmakers were aware of the "instability" of movie "configuration" and how new film forms, such as "giant display screens" and " 3-D and Vistavision experiments" were "competing" with simpler forms such as the cinema screen.[5]


Style / subject matter/ themes/ film conventions . --> look at similar pages!!!!!!!

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Indie directors such as Wes Anderson, Spike Jonze, David O. Russell, Alexander Payne, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Sofia Coppola created films "that investigate personal struggles of internal (rather than social) divisions"[1] . Their films "were deeply concerned with ethics and morality, the obligations of the individual, the effects of family breakdown, and social alienation."[3] Themes of the films include a sense of disconnection,

"Although they represent a range of styles and subject matter, their works all revolve in different ways around questions of identity, empathy and the difficult of establishing and maintaining emotional connections between family members, lovers, friends, strangers, and cultures. Some of them are funny, but their aims are serious."[3]

Films are "firmly rooted in the secular world"[3]

"Overrriding concern is a sort of yearning for connection"[3]

HOW ROMANTIC LOVE/RACE/SEXUALITY/CLASS THEY ARE DEALT WITH


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Interpretations on defining the genre

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WHAT DOES this mean

there are two variations in defining the genre, drawn


- GIVE BACKGROUND ON KIM AND JESSE - credibility, books,

- in her book... published by .... in ..... --> focus on her theory in book.

- See if there are any interviews!!

definitions expanding the concept of the genre.


Kim Wilkins presents the notion that American Eccentric Cinema employs aspects of Neoliberalism[1]. In films it is interpreted that identity is fluid, revolving “around projects of self-improvement, self-promotion, and the constant disciplining of one’s identity.”[7]

Definitions of 'Eccentric' vary, however, scholars such as Kim Wilkins and Jesse Fox Mayshark who have written extensively on American Eccentric Cinema and Cinema in the 90s have been influenced by David Foster Wallace's work that American Eccentric Cinema involves "millennial U.S.A" treating "internal emptiness as hip and cool". [8]

2: PAGE 10:

- love / feminism

Portrayal of romantic love:

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- sexuality

- race


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https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Post_pop_Cinema.html?id=QlKh3XzdQ-UC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y#v=twopage&q&f=false


KIM


List of notable films - MORE FROM PAGE 8

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ALL 2:

List of notable figures

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ALL 2:

Filmmakers:

Actors:



  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wilkins, Kim Verfasser. American eccentric cinema. ISBN 978-1-5013-3694-2. OCLC 1090782214. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  2. ^ Wilson, D. Harlan (2010). Walters, James (ed.). "Diegetics of Mainstream Hollywood". Science Fiction Studies. 37 (1): 143–145. ISSN 0091-7729.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Mayshark, Jesse Fox. (2007). Post-pop cinema : the search for meaning in new American film. Praeger Publishers. ISBN 978-0-313-08141-5. OCLC 231678018.
  4. ^ American cinema of the 1990s : themes and variations. Holmlund, Chris. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. 2008. ISBN 978-0-8135-4578-3. OCLC 301781469.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  5. ^ a b Elsaesser, Thomas, 1943-2019,. Film history as media archaeology : tracking digital cinema. Amsterdam. ISBN 978-90-485-2996-4. OCLC 1020612507.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  6. ^ Contemporary American cinema. Hammond, Michael., Williams, Linda Ruth. Maidenhead: Open University Press. 2005. ISBN 978-0-335-22843-0. OCLC 700214334.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  7. ^ Meeuf, Russell, 1981-. Rebellious bodies : stardom, citizenship, and the new body politics (First edition ed.). Austin, TX. ISBN 978-1-4773-1180-6. OCLC 956947588. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  8. ^ Wallace, David Foster (1962-2008). (2016). Infinite jest : a novel. Back Bay Books/Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 978-0-316-92004-9. OCLC 968496704.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
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