From The Third Eye: The Evergreen Review Film Reader

(Paperback)

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For the first time ever, Evergreen Review's important contributions to film culture are available in one volume. The book presents writing on the films of Jean-Luc Godard, Pier Paolo Passolini, Ousmane Sembene, Andy Warhol and others. Offering incisive essays and interviews from the late 1950's to early 1970's, FROM THE THIRD EYE explores politics and revolution in cinema, underground and experimental film, pornography and censorship and the rise of independent films against the dominance of Hollywood.

Reviews

"Over a decade and a half in the making,From The Third Eye: The EvergreenReviewFilm Readeris the first comprehensive look at Barney Rosset and Grove Presss contribution to film culture, collecting close to four dozen articles of theEvergreenReviews film section, contextualized with an in-depth introduction by Ed Halter and brilliantly laid out in the distinguished style of the erstwhile magazine. That such a work has finally arrived forty-five years after the demise of theReviewis a testament to Rossets repeated lament that Groves place in film history is overlooked. [...]Film, after all, was Rossets first artistic obsession, and he speaks of thinking more in images than in words, although it is undoubtedly the latter upon which his legacy rests. But the legendary publisher envisioned Grove as an interdisciplinary Leviathan, establishing dominion over theatre and film as well as the written worda new kind of communications center of the sixties as Groves 1967 shareholder statement asserts with McLuhanesque bravado. Hearing this declaration decades hence, one is inclined to wonderwas itAs an answer to this question,From The Third Eyeoffers an intimate glimpse into this multimedia machine and its fractured legacy. [...]Unlike many contemporaneous underground outlets, [theEvergreenReview's] articles still crackle with crisp lucidity and a healthy skepticism, encouraging conversation and debate and giving a platform to a diversity of voices.From The Third Eyeholds fast to this approach, unafraid to expose the foibles and faults of a venerable and problematic institution but equally determined to showcase the depths of its talent and inquiry."Mitch Anzuoni,Brooklyn Rail

"It could be argued that the world of underground film and culture in the 1960s and 1970s would not have flourished as it did without the essays in Evergreen Review. The film commentary, specifically, dealt with the political, cultural, and sexual evolution of cinema, and gave credence to these changes in the medium. Moreover, the journal's publisher, Grove Press, became heavily involved in the production and distribution of films in this period, so these writings managed to both elucidate and advertise experimental film. Featuring essays from 1958 to 1973, and written by the likes of cultural critics Nat Hentoff, Amos Vogel, and Parker Tyler, this is a snapshot of a major shift in cinema and a true time capsule of films and filmmakers who are often little known outside of a film studies class. VERDICT A wonderful resource on the virtues of directors Pier Paolo Pasolini, Jean-Luc Godard, Vilgot Sjman, and many others; however, the esoteric nature of the subject matter and the high percentage of essays dealing with nudity or pornography relegates this to an academic audience or devoted film enthusiasts." Peter Thornell, Hingham P.L., MA

From the Third Eyehas a historically useful appendix listing all known films ever distributed by Grove Press (including some surprisesFlaming Creatures,Fuses,Wavelength) and copious illustrations. I especially appreciated the house ads promoting Grove films (in which fake-looking hippies brandish a picket sign demanding movies by Glauber Rocha) and sexeducation flicks (seminude hippies canoodle in a cow pasture). Among other things, Rosset created the intellectual stroke book of which his fellow Chicagoan Hugh Hefner could only dream. J. Hoberman,Artforum

Author Bio

ED HALTER" "is a critic and curator living in New York City. He is a founder and director of Light Industry, a venue for film and electronic art in Brooklyn, New York, and his writing has appeared in "Artforum," the" Believer," "Bookforum," "Cinema Scope," "frieze," "Little Joe," "Mousse," "Rhizome, " "Triple Canopy," the "Village Voice," and elsewhere. His book From "Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and Video Games" was published in 2006, and he is a 2009 recipient of the Creative Capital Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. From 1995 to 2005, Halter programmed and oversaw the New York Underground Film Festival. He has curated screenings and exhibitions at Artists Space, BAM, the Flaherty Film Seminar, the ICA in London, the Museum of Modern Art, the New Museum, and Tate Modern, as well as the cinema component of Greater New York 2010 at MoMA PS1, and the film and video program for the 2012 Whitney Biennial. He teaches in the Film and Electronic Arts department at Bard College and is currently writing a critical history of contemporary experimental cinema in America. BARNEY ROSSET (1922-2012) was the founder and longtime publisher of Grove Press, and publisher and editor in chief of the magazine "Evergreen Review." He led numerous successful legal battles against censorship, securing landmark rulings for free speech.