Chapter 13 of volume 8 “‘What Went Wrong?’ American Avant-Garde Cinema of the 1960’s” begins with a concern about the meaning of authorship and uses the films of Kenneth Anger, all beginning with the phrase “a film by Anger” as a starting point of analysis. The expression “by Anger” envelops two important aspects of Avant-Garde filmmaking of the 1960’s. It represents both the individual vision, as films were often the product of a single author, and the aggressive style inherent in the movies, which confronted expectations of film and addressed relevant social issues. Anger and his work are not mentioned much after the beginning of the chapter. Instead, a broad and thorough analysis of the Avant-Garde movement of the 1960’s is presented in terms of its emergence and the response of filmmakers to the social context of the 1960’s concerning politics, sexuality, and race.
The changes in American cinema were marked by the failure of Hollywood studios. Therefore, there was a strong influence of European cinema particularly the French New Wave. The new American Avant-Garde was also closely associated with the formation of social bonds. Hence the initial geographic isolation of the movement was principally centered in New York City and San Francisco Bay. However, the text does not fix a narrow concrete definition on the complex movement acknowledging the exception of Stan Brakhage working out of Colorado.
    The chapter contends intertextuality, addressing issues that were larger than those portrayed explicitly in the film itself, connected the experimental films of the 1960’s together, as well as linking some experimental films to the Hollywood’s genre. Parody and rethinking of Hollywood conventions were a recurrent motif of Avant-garde filmmakers, and helped shape the identity of experimental film as a contrast to the repression that lurked in Hollywood.
    While the chapter examines several distinctive directors and their major works, it conscientiously groups them into social and ideological categories. Thus, it bridges the gap between individual vision and universal resonance. Films of the movement were distinguished by individual authorship and a resentment of racial and sexual oppression, which the Avant-Garde filmmakers collectively combated against.

Based on the short story by Daphne du Maurier, Directed by Nicolas Roeg, Screenplay by Chris Bryant and Allan Scott, Music by Pino Donnagio, Starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie