From the Third Eye

“Over a decade and a half in the making, From The Third Eye: The Evergreen Review Film Reader is the first comprehensive look at Barney Rosset and Grove Press’s contribution to film culture, collecting close to four dozen articles of the Evergreen Review’s film section, contextualized with an in-depth introduction by Ed Halter and brilliantly laid out in the distinguished style of the erstwhile magazine. That such a work has finally arrived forty-five years after the demise of the Review is a testament to Rosset’s repeated lament that Grove’s place in film history is overlooked. […] Film, after all, was Rosset’s first artistic obsession, and he speaks of thinking more in images than in words, although it is undoubtedly the latter upon which his legacy rests. But the legendary publisher envisioned Grove as an interdisciplinary Leviathan, establishing dominion over theatre and film as well as the written word—a “new kind of communications center of the sixties” as Grove’s 1967 shareholder statement asserts with McLuhanesque bravado. Hearing this declaration decades hence, one is inclined to wonder—was it? As an answer to this question, From The Third Eye offers an intimate glimpse into this multimedia machine and its fractured legacy. […] Unlike many contemporaneous underground outlets, [the Evergreen Review‘s] articles still crackle with crisp lucidity and a healthy skepticism, encouraging conversation and debate and giving a platform to a diversity of voices. From The Third Eye holds fast to this approach, unafraid to expose the foibles and faults of a venerable and problematic institution but equally determined to showcase the depths of its talent and inquiry.” –Mitch Anzuoni, Brooklyn Rail

“It could be argued that the world of underground film and culture in the 1960s and 1970s would not have flourished as it did without the essays in Evergreen Review. The film commentary, specifically, dealt with the political, cultural, and sexual evolution of cinema, and gave credence to these changes in the medium. Moreover, the journal’s publisher, Grove Press, became heavily involved in the production and distribution of films in this period, so these writings managed to both elucidate and advertise experimental film. Featuring essays from 1958 to 1973, and written by the likes of cultural critics Nat Hentoff, Amos Vogel, and Parker Tyler, this is a snapshot of a major shift in cinema and a true time capsule of films and filmmakers who are often little known outside of a film studies class. VERDICT A wonderful resource on the virtues of directors Pier Paolo Pasolini, Jean-Luc Godard, Vilgot Sjöman, and many others; however, the esoteric nature of the subject matter and the high percentage of essays dealing with nudity or pornography relegates this to an academic audience or devoted film enthusiasts.” —Peter Thornell, Hingham P.L., MA

“From the Third Eye has a historically useful appendix listing all known films ever distributed by Grove Press (including some surprises—Flaming Creatures, Fuses, Wavelength) and copious illustrations. I especially appreciated the house ads promoting Grove films (in which fake-looking hippies brandish a picket sign demanding movies by Glauber Rocha) and sex—education flicks (seminude hippies canoodle in a cow pasture). Among other things, Rosset created the intellectual stroke book of which his fellow Chicagoan Hugh Hefner could only dream.” –J. Hoberman, Artforum