P. Adams Sitney (born August 9, 1944 inNew Haven, Connecticut), is a historian of Americanavant-garde cinema. He is known as the author ofVisionary Film, one of the first books on the history ofexperimental film in the United States.^[2]

P. Adams Sitney
P. Adams Sitney in 2018
Born	(1944-08-09)August 9, 1944 (age 80) New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.[1]
Occupation	Film historian
Known for	Co-founding theAnthology Film Archives First to describestructural film
Academic background
Alma mater	Yale University (A.B.,Ph.D)
Academic work
Discipline	History of Americanavant-garde cinema
Institutions	New York University Cooper Union Princeton University

Sitney attendedYale University, where he received anA.B. inclassics in 1967 and aPh.D. incomparative literature in 1980. He co-founded theAnthology Film Archives in 1970^[3] and, along withJonas Mekas,Peter Kubelka, Ken Kelman, andJames Broughton, served as one of the members of the Anthology Film ArchivesEssential Cinema^[4] film selection committee. He is currently Professor of Visual Arts at the Lewis Center for the Arts atPrinceton University.^[5]

Sitney was a fixture atNew York University's doctoral program in its new cinema studies department in 1970. Before moving to Princeton, he also taught at theCooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. He has been a major critical leader and intellectual supporter of theNew American Cinema avant-garde movement.^[6]

Four main techniques that Sitney identified forstructural film are: fixed camera position; flicker effect; re-photography off the screen; and loop printing. These techniques were implemented by experimental filmmakers in the 1960s to create cinema "in which the shape of the whole film is pre-determined and simplified".^[7]

• Marjorie Keller
• List of American independent films

• Visionary Film on Google Books
• Full text of the book on Internet Archive
• P. Adams Sitney onIMDb