Bruce Conner, remembered
Editor’s note: In response to Bruce Conner’s death Monday, SF360.org asked those who knew him and cared about his work to reflect on the artist/filmmaker. Responding, below, are filmmakers Craig Baldwin and Lynne Sachs, curator/CalArts dean Steve Anker and New York curator/archivist Mark McElhatten.
"I was saddened by the news of Bruce Conner’s death, but not surprised, as he had been suffering for years. Of course he was an inestimably large influence on my own work, but, so much more, an intense, brilliant beacon for both the art and cinema worlds internationally—in fact, and importantly—a West Coast agent who did a whole lot to bring those two realms together. Across media, that rail-thin beatnik exercised a marvelous mastery of both concept and execution, driven by an obsessive and contrarian mind. But beyond his creative output, for me it was his subcultural sensibility that was cause for wonder—that within this cracker-white Kansas-comes-to-the-City could roil such dark and dangerous and anti-authoritarian impulses….As I think Greil Marcus said, he was the flip-side of American Gothic—had seen the Holy Ghost in the midnight sky above the stark prairie, and that terror was ever celebrated in the apocalypses of his Art."
Craig Baldwin, Other Cinema, filmmaker, Mock Up on Mu, among others
"Bruce Conner was one of a few filmmakers who changed the way we see and think about what a movie is. Bruce made only a small number of mostly short films, but the impact these films had, along with all of his photographic and graphic art, changed art forever. For one thing, Bruce made us realize that something extraordinary could be made out of material others either took for granted or dismissed. He invested discarded and disregarded material, in film we call it found footage, with incredible energy and profound meaning. Before Conner and such masterworks as A Movie, Cosmic Ray, Report and Take the 5:10 To Dreamland, it was unthinkable to use old footage that the maker hadn’t generated. Bruce realized that old film has a presence, an authenticity that transcends its original context and is timeless. Bruce was also a great cinematographer, and films such as The White Rose, Vivian, Looking for Mushrooms and Easter Morning are beautiful and compelling time capsules that capture the ’50s and ’60s with a vividness that few other films can match.
Bruce was one of the greatest exponents of the artist and filmmaker as radical loner, someone who needed to remain free of all bonds, whether institutional or financial, that might limit artistic freedom. He was the ultimate radical in a generation of radical artists and filmmakers, someone who staunchly protected his independence until the last day of his life. A measure of how deeply his work has impacted world culture is that one can see his influences routinely on television commercials or in commercial and independent theatrical films, as well as in the world of experimental or avant-garde cinema, whether or not the filmmakers are aware of his groundbreaking precedence. In the end, Bruce Conner’s art will stand alone as among the most important works for film art that have been made."
Steve Anker, Dean of the School of Film/Video, formerly director of the San Francisco Cinematheque and as artistic director of the Foundation for Art in Cinema
"For many years one felt that such an event was possible, a preparation was made in the mind and after all both the inevitable and unthinkable happen. Yet it saddens and stings. Bruce Conner… gone. Taking what was at hand he reached into the human subconscious into the heartland into the dreamland into the dark and made a meticulous visionary irreverent metaphysical art. Erotic, mysterious, astute. He is the first filmmaker I would think about and would show when wanting to demonstrate how editing can make, should make, meaning, poetic, consequential meaning. Conner was a pioneer who was deeply influential but inimitable. The world is enriched by his art, diminished by his departure. I was visiting with the artist -filmmaker Paolo Gioli in Ledinara, Italy this past weekend. Gioli left the U.S. after a brief stay in 1969 a visit that led to his conversion to experimental filmmaking. He remarked how unfortunate it was that so many of the great filmmakers of that period had died. He asked about Bruce Conner. "Alive," I said. That was Saturday. But then Monday arrived…
2000 BC The Bruce Conner Story Part II remains a model exhibition of how to exhibit an artist who worked in such a wide variety of mediums with a singular sensibility. I was grateful to see this exhibition in both Los Angeles and San Francisco where Conner closely supervised the installation. Creating small theaters for several of the films 5 or so if I remember correctly I sat and watched Breakaway and 5:10 to Dreamland projected on 16mm film for hours on end. Future exhibitions that include film should emulate this practice. On the other side of a monitor showing a video version of Looking for Mushrooms in its own room was a simple installation that seemed to mystify many museum goers. An editing table with a 16mm print of Looking for Mushrooms on a set of rewinds. A simple and radical act. Anyone could sit down and view the film by hand, by eye. An elegant, generous idea of such practical common sense that it was as startling as it was unprecedented for a museum exhibition.
I never spoke with Bruce. I saw him several times at No Nothing screenings where he showed Luke unannounced and uncredited and with different soundtracks. The first time was with "Heigh Ho (The Dwarves Marching Song)" from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves sung by Tom Waits. And I saw Bruce one time at the Museum of Modern Art where he took the stage for his q and a producing a small pocket harmonica from his shirt pocket. He played for less than a minute and then he stole away.
Re-posted with permission from Mark McElhatten, co- curator/founder of "Views from The Avant- Garde" at The New York Film Festival, Walking Picture Palace, film archivist for Martin Scorsese
"I am living in Buenos Aires for the summer (winter here). Two days ago two different people here in Buenos Aires mentioned Bruce Conner’s death to me without even knowing that I knew him. You see experimental film is thriving here, and there is a community of Super 8 and trash-can cineastes that practically equals the one I’ve known and loved in San Francisco. Bruce was a very important person in my life and psyche. In 1985-86, the year I spent working with him, we often drove around SF in his convertible looking for Geiger counters to measure the radioactivity under his home. Then we would go back to his studio basement and I would listen to him tell stories about the 1960s and ’70s art scene and about growing up in Oklahoma while he did the work (resplicing his films for preservation) I was actually supposed to be doing for him. I was neither careful, clean, nor precise enough for his liking. Then we would have a healthy lunch with Jean, his wife, and I would go home while he took a nap. A few hours later, I would tip toe back into the house and sit on the couch twiddling my thumbs waiting for him to wake up. Many years later, he gave both Maya and Noa, my daughters, lovely ink-blot drawings they and I will always treasure.
Brings tears to my eyes. Here’s to found images floating away and then back into our grasp."
Lynne Sachs, filmmaker, Investigation of a Flame, among others
topics: art, avant-garde, bay area
07.11.2008