Film at wit's end: Eight avant-garde filmmakers

Of all art forms, filmmaking is the one most taken for granted: no sooner is an artistic or technical advance made than its salient features are employed in the harness of commerce. Yet, innovation is almost always the province of individual expression. Film at Wit's End presents eight artists who have electrified American independent cinema across four decades: James Broughton, Bruce Conner, Maya Deren, Jerome Hill, Ken Jacobs, Christopher MacLaine, Marie Menken, and Sidney Peterson. Each of these filmmakers' lives and work is brought into sharp focus as we enter the art scenes of New York and San Francisco during times of ferment and controversy. Film at Wit's End tells marvelous tales of serendipitous encounters, of life lived at the edge of social disapproval, and of the insistent development of an art form.