Underground Film Journal

Bruce Conner

Bruce Conner was a leading figure of the San Francisco underground film movement of the 1960s, and was a prolific artist, sculptor and filmmaker all the way up until his death on July 7, 2008.

While running a film society at the University of Colorado in the late '50s, Conner met the filmmaker Stan Brakhage who encouraged the artist to begin making films. Conner's first work, A Movie (1958), was — and continues to be — a groundbreaking and highly influential film comprised of entirely found footage, with the exception of repeating title cards.

Upon moving to San Francisco, Conner was an early and extremely vocal member of the Canyon Cinema underground film distribution company.

Conner continued to make primarily found footage films throughout his art career, although he also directed several original documentaries and other works.

Filmography

Easter Morning (2008)
His Eye on Sparrow (2006)
Eve-Ray-Forever (2006)
Luke (2004)
Looking For Mushrooms (Long Version) (1996)
Television Assassination (1995)
America Is Waiting (1981)
Mea Culpa (1981)
Valse Triste (1978)
Mongoloid (1978)
Take the 5:10 to Dreamland (1977)
Crossroads (1976)
Marilyn Times Five (1968-1973)
Permian Strata (1969)
Looking for Mushrooms (Short version) (1967)
The White Rose (1967)
Report (1963-67)
Breakaway (1966)
Easter Morning Raga (1966)
Ten Second Film (1965)
Vivian (1964)
Cosmic Ray (1961)
A Movie (1958)

Articles:

Underground Cinema 12: January-May 1971

Underground Cinema 12 was a midnight movie screening series of underground films that ran in theaters owned by Louis Sher, who founded “the nation’s largest circuit of art houses” in 1954. While Sher was the head of the Art Theatre Guild, Underground Cinema 12 was run by his nephew Mike Getz. The series began at […]

Robert Beck Memorial Cinema: January — May Screenings, 1999

Continuing into 1999 at the Collective Unconscious theater space in NYC, the RBMC — co-programmed by Brian L. Frye and Bradley Eros — went on hiatus for the first week of the year, but resumed on January 12. Below is a list of screenings from then until a May 18 event that celebrated the RBMC’s first full year of existence.

Robert Beck Memorial Cinema: 1998 Screenings

Brian L. Frye programmed the first screening on May 12, 1998 at the Collective Unconscious theater space. The screening included the feature-length documentary Underground by Emile de Antonio about the left-wing militant group the Weather Underground

Experimental Film Coalition: The Monthly Screenings

This is Part Two in a series about Chicago’s Experimental Film Coalition; and covers their screening series. Formed in 1983, the Experimental Film Coalition started holding regular monthly screenings starting in 1984. The screenings brought to Chicago the work of independent, experimental filmmakers across the country, as well as screening local work.

Sheldon Renan’s Classic Underground Film Book Now Online

An Introduction to the American Underground Film, the seminal book on avant-garde and experimental film history written by Sheldon Renan in 1967, is now available for free download at Archive.org. Anybody who is even slightly interested in underground film history needs to download this important book. Renan’s book has been long out of print and […]