“A film is never good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.

” – Orson Welles

Many film movements begin as a reaction to something. Italian neorealism was a reaction
to World War II. The French New Wave was a reaction to the French filmmaking status
quo. A new style of cinema, Cosmic American Cinema (CAC), is a reaction to ourselves.
And the movement can be as broad as the country itself.

Gram Parsons coined the term “Cosmic American Music” to describe his blend of
country and western, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll. The resulting music was a
reflection of both the nation and the people in it. Cosmic American Cinema borrows from
this idea in that it is a blending of influences: the playfulness and experimentation of the
French New Wave, the surrealism of Luis Bunuel, life in the Midwest, the existential
undertones of Ingmar Bergman, middle-class existence, Bob Dylan, the impossibility of
sainthood, and the stanch self-examination of John Cassavetes.

CAC is mainly out to seek truth in everyday life. It’s about emotion and the fact that
cinema can be driven purely on emotion. Story doesn’t matter. How do we become
normal? How does it all fit together?

Some common themes or devices in Cosmic American Cinema are: the Midwest,
extended conversations, usually some form of traveling, country music, daydreams,
summertime, drug use, Christmas lights (or other forms of low-key lighting), handheld
cameras, middle-class living and occasional religion.

The Cosmic American Cinema Canon

Five Easy Pieces (Rafelson, 1970)
Faces (Cassavetes, 1968)
Don’t Look Back (Pennebaker, 1967)
Persona (Bergman, 1966)
Easy Rider (Hopper, 1969)
Vivre sa vie (Godard, 1962)
Les bonnes femmes (Chabrol, 1960)
Hour of the Wolf (Bergman, 1968)
Hiroshima, mon amour (Resnais, 1959)
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (Scorsese, 1974)
Renaldo and Clara (Dylan, 1978)
A Woman Under the Influence (Cassavetes, 1974)
Half Nelson (Fleck, 2006)
Cries and Whispers (Bergman, 1972)
The Go-getter (Hynes, 2007)
Talk to Her (Almodovar, 2002)
The Devil’s Rejects (Zombie, 2005)
Candy (Armfield, 2006)
Closer (Nichols, 2004)
Belle de jour (Bunuel, 1967)
Additional Influences
Hank Williams
Bob Dylan
Gram Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers
The Band
The Velvet Underground
MTV’s The Real World
Jack Kerouac
Hunter S. Thompson