Bruce Conner
Biography
Bruce Conner (November 18, 1933 - July 7, 2008) was an American artist renowned for his work in film, drawing, sculpture, painting, collage, and photography, among other disciplines. He first attracted public attention in the 1950s with his nylon-shrouded assemblages—complex sculptures of found objects such as women's stockings, costume jewelry, bicycle wheels, and broken dolls, often combined with collaged or painted surfaces. Simultaneously during the late 1950s, he began making short movies in a singular style that has since established him as one of the most important figures in postwar independent filmmaking. He used an innovative technique that can best be seen in his first film, "A MOVIE" (1958), which was created by piecing together scraps of B-movies, newsreels, novelty shorts, and other preexisting footage. His subsequent films are most often fast-paced collages of found and new footage, and he was among the first to use pop music for film sound tracks. His films have inspired generations of filmmakers and are now considered to be the precursors of the music video genre.
Known For & Full Filmography4 Titles
Movie - 2004, 2h 15m • as Self
The inevitable fat cigar between his fingers, the American actor, director and fine artist Dennis Hopper (1936) self-mockingly looks back on his chequered life and career, at the request of Dutch director, photographer and fine artist Thom Hoffman. The latter sifted through the turbulent life story of Hopper, who is primarily known from the cult film Easy Rider (1969). Hopper went through as many high as low points. In conveniently arranged chapters, Hoffman shows the decisive moments in Hopper's life and asks colleagues like Wim Wenders, David Lynch, Sean Penn and Julian Schnabel to comment on them. The documentary is richly illustrated with film excerpts, photos, newspaper articles and anecdotes. The main reason for this film was the retrospective of Dennis Hopper's art work in the Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum in 2001.
Movie - 1997, 2h 15m • as Self
Jonas Mekas assembles 160 portraits, appearances, and fleeting sketches of underground and independent filmmakers captured between 1955 and 1996. Fast-paced and archival in spirit, the film celebrates the avant-garde as its own “nation of cinema,” a vital community existing outside the dominance of commercial film.
Movie - 1968, 2h 15m • as Self
A rare behind-the-scenes view of the exploding New York “underground” in the late sixities, a turbulent time and place that was to change American culture forever. A German TV crew, led by journalist Gideon Bachmann, explores the epicenter of the sixties revolution in art, music, poetry and film and interviews the main players in the “New American Cinema,” that was born on the streets of New York. Against a backdrop of cultural upheaval in all of the arts and growing political agitation against the Vietnam War, Bachman interviews the most prominent figures in “underground film,” including Jonas Mekas, Shirley Clarke, the Kuchar Brothers and Bruce Connor, and visits the most notorious location in the New York art world of the era - Andy Warhol’s Factory - to conduct an interview with the genius of Pop Art himself.
Movie - 2002, 2h 15m • Main Cast Role
Starring Bruce Conner, a belly dancer, a geiger counter, and a toxic waste dump.