Underground films were initially understood as extending painterly Happenings, not film tradition

Evidence

Unexpectedly, Rice’s feature got something close to a rave review from New York Times critic Eugene Archer. (A mixed notice in Newsweek correctly characterized it as “closer to the art of assemblage and the odd theatrical Happenings of the New York painters than to anything in the tradition of film.”) — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 377

Categorization

• DEFINE: Positions early underground cinema as an extension of the assemblage/Happening art world rather than film history.