This book illustrates the many ways that actors contribute to American
independent cinema. Analyzing industrial developments, it examines the
impact of actors as writers, directors, and producers, and as stars able
to attract investment and bring visibility to small-scale productions.
Exploring cultural-aesthetic factors, the book identifies the various
traditions that shape narrative designs, casting choices, and
performance styles. The book offers a genealogy of industrial and
aesthetic practices that connects independent filmmaking in the studio
era and the 1960s and 1970s to American independent cinema in its
independent, indie, indiewood, and late-indiewood forms. Chapters on
actors' involvement in the evolution of American independent cinema as a
sector alternate with chapters that show how traditions such as
naturalism, modernism, postmodernism, and Third Cinema influence films
and performances.