| With a
foreword from Leslie Dallas and fellow indie director
Mike Watt who pens the introduction, another great book
from the always informative Phil Hall is kicked off!
"The History of Independent Cinema" is a great
nonfiction novel about the start of what would come to
be known as a sub genre all in its own and take
Hollywood by storm. At a firm 320 pages, author Phil
Hall traces back the roots of the independent film world
from Louis A.A. LePrince and Edison, down to Robert
Rodriguez and the tome is quite the entertaining read.
Hall has a knack for turning the instructive in to
infotainment and this is an addicting read right from
the offset. One of the best chapters tells the tale of
one of the first film conglomerates brought together by
none other than Thomas Edison who saw the potential for
making money off of flickering images that could tell a
story. "The History of Independent Cinema" keeps the
pacing at a steady pace never padding the book or
stalling on a anecdote; it's always fast moving and gets
to the point. While Hall can be a bit pedantic at times,
he never forgets what his book is meant to convey and
shows that by enlisting Dallas and Watt who both provide
some very amusing yarns of their own tracing back the
roots of their own love affair with independent cinema
when "Scream Queen" was a term that actually meant
something and we were given the gifts of people like Linnea Quigley. There's also some of my favorite
passages that show independent cinema used as a form of
propaganda (i.e. "Birth of a Nation") and how it also
became the start of many revolutions in the industry and
in countries during war time. "The History of
Independent Cinema" is a valued book for any collector
or historian and it's most definitely the best from Phil
Hall's library yet.
Written by
Felix Vasquez Jr.
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