Historians and students of American avant-garde cinema often overlook the films of the 1920s through the early 1940s, considering them mere derivatives of their European counterparts. In fact, the American films possess an eclecticism, innovation, and naivete all their own.

Marshaling his broad cinematic and cultural knowledge, editor Jan-Christopher Horak has compiled in Lovers of Cinema a ground-breaking group of articles on this neglected film period. With one exception, all are original to this volume, and many are the first to treat comprehensively such early filmmakers as Mary Ellen Bute, Theodore Huff, and Douglass Crockwell.

Lovers of Cinema will become an essential point of reference for the future study of cinema's early years. Horak's extensive introduction surveys the milieu and aspirations of these pioneering filmmakers and traces their relation to amateur and documentary film traditions. Also included in the book is a listing of all American avant-garde films produced in the years before World War II and a bibliography of the most relevant criticism, literature, and news accounts.

Many of the early avant-garde films discussed here, such as Tell-Tale Heart, Mr. Motorboat's Last Stand, and Poem 8, were lost until their rediscovery and restoration by Horak.