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Bruce Conner, the Last Magician of the 20th Century
Program Three

  • Cosmic Ray

    Directed by Bruce Conner.
    US, 1961, 16mm, black & white, 4 min.

Channeling the “black magic” of Ray Charles’ music, Conner used occult symbols and mysterious images to create this nocturnal and raucous masterpiece.

  • The White Rose

    Directed by Bruce Conner.
    US, 1967, 16mm, black & white, 7 min.

An elegiac musical documentary capturing the slow removal of Jay de Fayo’s iconic “painting” The White Rose from the San Francisco loft from which she had been evicted.

  • Breakaway

    Directed by Bruce Conner.
    US, 1966, 16mm, black & white, 5 min.

Shot at multiple speeds (and forwards and backwards), Conner’s dance film uses incredible rapid-fire montage to deliver a beautifully frenzied response to Maya Deren’s motion studies.

  • Permian Strata

    Directed by Bruce Conner.
    US, 1969, 16mm, black & white, 4 min.

Conner’s mordant gem discovers wonderfully strange and subversive subtexts at work within an obscure 1940s Biblical film.

  • Mongoloid

    Directed by Bruce Conner.
    US, 1978, 16mm, black & white, 4 min.

A hilarious “educational” film that features a pulsing Devo soundtrack.

  • America is Waiting

    Directed by Bruce Conner.
    US, 1981, 16mm, black & white, 4 min.

Working again with Byrne and Eno, Conner’s early music video offers a satire of patriotism and national security.

  • Mea Culpa

    Directed by Bruce Conner.
    US, 1981, 16mm, black & white, 5 min.

In his first collaboration with David Byrne and Brian Eno, Conner used footage from educational films to create a rhythmically austere image-track for music from their pioneering “sampling” album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981).

  • Luke

    Directed by Bruce Conner.
    US, 2004, digital video, color, 22 min.

For his first video work Conner slowed down 8mm footage shot in 1967 on the set of Cool Hand Luke into a meditation on the cinema and landscape that uses a beautiful Patrick Gleeson soundtrack.

  • His Eye Is On the Sparrow

    Directed by Bruce Conner.
    US, 2006, digital video, color and b&w, 4 min.

Conner distilled footage from his unfinished documentary on the gospel group The Soul Stirrers into a collage accompaniment to the group’s version of the classic spiritual His Eye Is On the Sparrow.

  • Easter Morning

    Directed by Bruce Conner.
    US, 2008, digital video, color, 10 min.

Conner’s exquisite final work is a step-printed reinterpretation of footage from his 1966 unreleased film, EASTER MORNING RAGA that further reveals his abiding interest in the psychedelic as an alternate way of seeing.

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