Explores independent film mainstream to avant-garde, exploitation to documentary in chronological order, from the first silent to contemporary independents. Merritt, a film M.F.A., a screenwriter, and author of How to Produce an Independent Film , characterizes the importance of independent cinema this way: "The off-Hollywood arena is American cinema's laboratory, proving ground, and launching pad. It's also its sideshow, filled with burlesque queens and bloodthirsty geeks. Over and over again nonstudio motion pictures have blazed a successful path that Hollywood has then followed, sometimes paving it over with a superhighway." No subject index, but does include a timeline and appendices on cost-to gross ratios, Academy Award nominations, and Independent Spirit Award winners. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
