P. Adams Sitney

P. Adams Sitney
P. Adams Sitney in 2018
Born (1944-08-09) August 9, 1944 (age 80)
New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.[1]
OccupationFilm historian
Known forCo-founding the Anthology Film Archives
First to describe structural film
Academic background
Alma materYale University (A.B., Ph.D)
Academic work
DisciplineHistory of American avant-garde cinema
Institutions

P. Adams Sitney (born August 9, 1944 in New Haven, Connecticut), is a historian of American avant-garde cinema. He is known as the author of Visionary Film, one of the first books on the history of experimental film in the United States.[2]

Life

Sitney attended Yale University, where he received an A.B. in classics in 1967 and a Ph.D. in comparative literature in 1980. He co-founded the Anthology Film Archives in 1970[3] and, along with Jonas Mekas, Peter Kubelka, Ken Kelman, and James Broughton, served as one of the members of the Anthology Film Archives Essential Cinema[4] film selection committee. He is currently Professor of Visual Arts at the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University.[5]

Sitney was a fixture at New York University's doctoral program in its new cinema studies department in 1970. Before moving to Princeton, he also taught at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. He has been a major critical leader and intellectual supporter of the New American Cinema avant-garde movement.[6]

Four main techniques that Sitney identified for structural film are: fixed camera position; flicker effect; re-photography off the screen; and loop printing. These techniques were implemented by experimental filmmakers in the 1960s to create cinema "in which the shape of the whole film is pre-determined and simplified".[7]

See also

References

  1. ^ Drake, F. Thurston (19 October 2000). "Sitney's Take". The Daily Princetonian. Retrieved 29 June 2013. After the pleasantries and questions—'When and where were you born?' 'August 9, 1944, New Haven, [Connecticut]'—I tossed out what I thought would be a great question, a real fast ball.
  2. ^ Amazon.com: Visionary Film: The American Avant-Garde, 1943-2000, 3rd edition
  3. ^ Anthology Film Archives: The First Screenings, 1970|Underground Film Journal
  4. ^ Everleth, Mike (3 May 2010). "Anthology Film Archives' Essential Cinema Repertory Collection". Underground Film News. Underground Film Journal. Retrieved 29 June 2013.
  5. ^ "P. Adams Sitney".
  6. ^ P. Adams Sitney will hold a conference invited by EQZE-Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola
  7. ^ Chris, Meigh-Andrews (2006). A history of video art: the development of form and function. Oxford: Berg. ISBN 9781845202194. OCLC 69486182.