on videotape, laserdisc, DVD, and online. Reception and legacy In 1973, Chuck Kraemer predicted that David Holzman's Diary would be remembered as "the underground autobiographical cinema verité film of the sixties," and that "scholars of the nineties will revere it." Since then, the film has remained obscure to the general public while developing and maintaining a strong critical reputation, such that its ratings on Rotten Tomatoes are 91% approval among critics and 76% approval among audiences. Likewise, the TV Guide website says that "this provocative, endlessly self-conscious film today stands as one of the best independent films of the 1960s." After its initial years on the festival circuit, David Holzman's Diary gradually became "a classic, shown in university classes and film classes" for reasons including its engagement with film theory and practice. In terms of film practice, it shows a young man using various newly available film technologies and innovative techniques, including "static long takes with monologues; extended passages of black screen; fish-eye distortions; [and] lateral travellings that offer Arbus-like views of everyday grotesquerie." It shows David using these techniques in making a diary film, a format that is technically simple and affordable—a natural option for young creative filmmakers with limited resources. One such young filmmaker at the time was Brian De Palma, who said that: When I first got my 8mm sound camera, I'd carry it around like David Holzman and try to film everything I did and look at it. My friends and I had cameras all the time and we were all film directors. I filmed a whole section of my life—people I was going out with, my friends. I just shot everything. I directed the scenes, too. And it all came from David Holzman's Diary. David Holzman's Diary has been referenced directly or indirectly in subsequent films including the 1969 drama Coming Apart, the 1974 comedy feature Yackety Yack, the 2001 comedy-drama CQ, and the 2002 comedy short Camera Noise. In 2011, Kevin B. Lee made a two-part online documentary about the film titled Diary of David Holzman. Film critics, scholars, and fans also have written a lot about various aspects of the film, mostly its complicated relations between fact and fiction; between art and life; and between the public and private spheres. Relations Between Fact and Fiction This film's engagement with fact vs. fiction elicited some of its earliest and strongest critical reactions, namely from