Underground filmmakers in 1968 struggled with rent and chaos.

Evidence

I really want to give this film away, if I could … to a big theater just for exposure, since it’s a political film pertinent right now! And it’s so confusing, chaotic … the rent, bill collectors, film assistants … you just don’t know how hard it is trying to bring little bits of beauty, to work. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1391

Categorization

• XREF: Direct evidence for the reader’s core claim: avant-garde production runs on cheap rent and material precarity — Smith’s rent and bill collectors are the material conditions underwriting the scene.