The term “art cinema” has been applied to many cinematic projects, including the film d’art movement, the postwar avant-gardes, various Asian new waves, the New Hollywood, and American indie films, but until now no one has actually defined what “art cinema” is. Turning the traditional, highbrow notion of art cinema on its head, Theorizing Art Cinemas takes a flexible, inclusive approach that views art cinema as a predictable way of valuing movies as “art” movies—an activity that has occurred across film history and across film subcultures—rather than as a traditional genre in the sense of a distinct set of forms or a closed historical period or movement. David Andrews opens with a history of the art cinema “super-genre” from the early days of silent movies to the postwar European invasion that brought Italian Neorealism, the French New Wave, and the New German Cinema to the forefront and led to the development of auteur theory. He then discusses the mechanics of art cinema, from art houses, film festivals, and the academic discipline of film studies, to the audiences and distribution systems for art cinema as a whole. This wide-ranging approach allows Andrews to develop a theory that encompasses both the high and low ends of art cinema in all of its different aspects, including world cinema, avant-garde films, experimental films, and cult cinema. All of these art cinemas, according to Andrews, share an emphasis on quality, authorship, and anticommercialism, whether the film in question is film festival favorite or a midnight movie.

デイヴィッド・アンドリューズによる本書は、曖昧だった「アート・シネマ」の概念に鮮烈な再定義を下す野心作です。単なるジャンル分けを排し、映画を芸術として価値づける営みそのものを「スーパー・ジャンル」と捉える視点は、映画史の地図を塗り替えるほどの衝撃と、既存の権威を揺さぶる痛快な知性に満ちています。 本作の真髄は、ヌーヴェルヴァーグからカルト映画までを等しく「芸術への意志」で繋ぎ合わせた点にあります。作家性や反商業主義がいかに文化を形作ってきたか。その力強い論理は、映像を愛する者の知的好奇心を激しく揺さぶり、スクリーンを眺める瞳に新たな哲学を宿してくれるはずです。