Amateur Cinema

From the very beginning of cinema, there have been amateur filmmakers at work. It wasn't until Kodak introduced 16mm film in 1923, however, that amateur moviemaking became a widespread reality, and by the 1950s, over a million Americans had amateur movie cameras. In Amateur Cinema, Charles Tepperman explores the meaning of the "e;amateur"e; in film history and modern visual culture. In the middle decades of the twentieth century-the period that saw Hollywood's rise to dominance in the global film industry-a movement of amateur filmmakers created an alternative world of small-scale movie production and circulation. Organized amateur moviemaking was a significant phenomenon that gave rise to dozens of clubs and thousands of participants producing experimental, nonfiction, or short-subject narratives. Rooted in an examination of surviving films, this book traces the contexts of "e;advanced"e; amateur cinema and articulates the broad aesthetic and stylistic tendencies of amateur films.