Celluloid Mavericks: A History of American Independent Film Making

This book blew me away. I love the way it covers the whole spectrum of indie film, not just "art" but "exploitation" as well. The story of how these films came to be against great odds makes for great reading. I learned something knew on every page. Highly recommended for fans of non-Hollywood films.

This is the best book ever written on independent film. I wish I could give it move than 5 stars, because Celluloid Mavericks is a pure pleasure to read: witty, informative and always extremely entertaining. No other book comes close to its breadth and detail, especially in regards to the previously uncharted territory between 1896 and 1960. This is my all-time favorite film book, well deserving of its many raves reviews.

from the New York Press 3-29-2000 - copyright Matt Zoller SeitzMerritt's book covers a century's worth of off-center cinema, including 1890s nickelodeons, 1940s chitlin-circuit black films, Sam Fuller's genre-busting work in the 50s and 60s, blaxploitation and hardcore porn in the 70s and the Sundance wave of the 80s and 90s. The central idea of free spirits bucking the system unifies waht might have been a too-broad historical text, and Merritt's tart wit enlivens the fact-packed narrative. His prose isn't merely amusing; it's lovingly polished, a real pleasure to read. He's honest enough to admit that most 70s blaxploitation films were garbabe, "rarely as much fun as their posters or soundtracks." He coins a wonderful new phrase to describe the hillbilly flicks that flooded rural drive-ins around the same time: "Whitezploitation." He describes Tom Laughlin's "Billy Jack" as a movie about pacifists who "come to worship a man of violence," and declares, "the real hoot is seeing the messiah take off his boots and kick the grins off rednecks."This isn't one of those fuzzy, ruminative books where the author writes whatever strikes his fancy and crams it into a bulging thematic suitcase after the fact. The preface carefully defines "independent" to mean any movie "financed and produced completely autonomous of all studios," and "semi-indie" as a movie that received studio funding at some point. The definitions cast certain well-known American films in a fresh light. I didn't know, for example, that the Oscar-winning "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" didn't get a dime's worth of funding from any studio. Chapter to chapter and page for page, "Celluloid Mavericks" is an indespensable book, as entertaining as it is informed.

More than 100 years of the coolest movies. This is the first book to map out and detail the whole history of indie film. It's a truly wild ride, very informative, and a great read! Highly recommended.