The Exploding Eye: A Re-Visionary History of 1960s American Experimental Cinema (SUNY Series Cultural Studies in Cinema/Video)

Explores the work of lesser-known American experimental filmmakers whose films, though well-received and influential, have been excluded from the dominant film canon.

The Exploding Eye explores the work of lesser-known American experimental filmmakers whose work has been excluded from the dominant film canon. Although the works of such artists as Michael Snow, Stan Brakhage, Bruce Conner, Robert Nelson, and Maya Deren are well-known to the contemporary scholar of independent cinema, there is an entire body of work created in the American experimental cinema that has been overlooked, work of considerable beauty and influence that was enthusiastically received when first released and that is still available for viewing today, awaiting long-overdue rediscovery.

Featuring more than seventy rare stills and complete information on the films and filmmakers covered, The Exploding Eye offers a fresh vision of American experimental film for critics, scholars, and the general reader.

Wheeler Winston Dixon is the James Ryan Professor of Film Studies, Coordinator of the Film Studies Program, Professor of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and, with Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, editor of the new book series Quick Takes: Movies and Popular Culture for Rutgers University Press.

His recent books include Black & White Cinema: A Short History (2015); Streaming: Movies, Media and Instant Access (2013); Death of the Moguls: The End of Classical Hollywood (2012); 21st Century Hollywood: Movies in the Era of Transformation (2011, co-authored with Gwendolyn Audrey Foster); A History of Horror (2010); and Film Noir and the Cinema of Paranoia (2009).

Dixon's book A Short History of Film (2008, co-authored with Gwendolyn Audrey Foster) was reprinted six times through 2012. A second, revised edition was published in 2013; the book is a required text in universities throughout the world.