Robert Breer, Kinetic Poet of the Avant Garde
Screening on Film
$10 Special Event Tickets
A founding member of the American avant-garde, Robert Breer (b. 1926) has been working at the forefront of experimental animation for over fifty years. The son of an inventor and engineer, Breer's continued experimentation with a range of film and animation techniques has drawn from his deep knowledge of early cinema and cinematographic technologies. Breer is celebrated not only for his remarkable line and live action techniques, seen in works such as A Man and His Dog Out for Air (1957), but also for fabulous collage films such as Un Miracle (1954) and his dazzling use of single-frame photography in break-through films such as Fist Fight (1964) and the incredible Jamestown Baloos (1957).
Breer entered film through painting in the early 1950s when he was living in Paris and deeply influenced by Neo-plasticism as defined by Mondrian and Vasarely. Breer channeled his interest in geometric abstraction into his remarkable first group of films, Form Phases (1954-1956), which explored the role of movement in the understanding of form and space. Breer's wonderful kinetic sculptures also tie directly into the concern for movement, composition and space perception which has remained central to his films. Combining a meticulous attention to form and rhythm with an acerbic wit and talent for satire, Breer provides an important link between the abstract films of Richter, Eggeling and Leger and the lyric and radical traditions of the avant-garde, from Brakhage and Baillie to Kubelka and Sharits. We are honored to welcome Robert Breer to the HFA for this special evening dedicated to his films and remarkable career.
PROGRAM
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Form Phases I – IV
Directed by Robert Breer.
Form Phases I - IV, 1952-54, 16mm, color, silent, 11 min.
Print source: Anthology Film Archives
Breer's earliest experiments in animation are wonderfully dense yet lyrical abstractions based on Breer's own geometric paintings.
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Un Miracle
Directed by Robert Breer.
US, 1954, 35mm, color, silent, 1 min.
Print source: Anthology Film Archives
Breer's first collage film is a hilarious joke about the juggling talents of Pope Pius XII which was made in collaboration with Pontus Hulten.
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REcreation
Directed by Robert Breer.
US, 1956, 35mm, color, 2 min.
Print source: Anthology Film Archives
Featuring a commentary by Noel Burch (in nonsense French), Recreation's rapid-fire montage of single-frame images of incredible density and intensity has been compared to contemporary Beat poetry.
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Jamestown Baloos
Directed by Robert Breer.
US, 1957, 35mm, color, 6 min.
Print source: Anthology Film Archives
Breer's early masterpiece is a three-part film that combines animation and live-action, collage and photography, silence and sound.
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A Man and His Dog Out for Air
Directed by Robert Breer.
US, 1957, 35mm, black & white, 2 min.
Print source: Anthology Film Archives
A whimsical film that displays Breer's drawing artistry. Originally shown as a short before Last Year at Marienbad during that film's initial New York theatrical release.
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Eyewash
Directed by Robert Breer.
US, 1959, 35mm, color, silent, 4 min.
Print source: Anthology Film Archives
A free flow from photography to geometric abstraction hand-painted by Breer.
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Eyewash (Alternate Version)
Directed by Robert Breer.
US, 1959, 35mm, color, silent, 3 min.
The recently discovered alternate version to Eyewash presents a radical reinterpretation of the same footage.
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Blazes
Directed by Robert Breer.
US, 1961, 35mm, color, 3 min.
Print source: Anthology Film Archives
"One hundred basic images switching positions for four thousand frames. A continuous explosion." – RB
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Fist Fight
Directed by Robert Breer.
US, 1964, 35mm, color, 9 min.
Print source: Anthology Film Archives
Breer's extraordinary autobiographical film combines personal and family photos with intense colors, textures and geometric abstractions. Originally presented as part of Karlheinz Stockhausen's 1964 premiere of Originale.
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66
Directed by Robert Breer.
US, 1966, 35mm, color, 5 min.
Print source: Anthology Film Archives
"Abstract, quasi-geometric study in interrupted continuity." – RB
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69
Directed by Robert Breer.
US, 1969, 35mm, color, 5 min.
Print source: Anthology Film Archives
"It's so absolutely beautiful, so perfect, so like nothing else. Forms, geometry, lines, movements, light very basic, very pure, very surprising, very subtle." – Jonas Mekas
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70
Directed by Robert Breer.
US, 1970, 35mm, color, silent, 5 min.
Print source: Anthology Film Archives
"Made with spray paint and hand-cut stencils, this film was an attempt at maximum plastic intensity… Places Breer for the first time among the major colorists of the avant-garde." – P. Adams Sitney
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77
Directed by Robert Breer.
US, 1977, 35mm, color, 7 min.
Print source: Anthology Film Archives
"Breer is a consummate master of cinematic space. Like Hans Richter, he constantly provokes a sense of depth through changing the scale of his shapes. Breer celebrates the freedom endemic in animation by giving the spectator a creative role in the process of metamorphosis." – Noel Carroll
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Fuji
Directed by Robert Breer.
US, 1974, 35mm, color, 9 min.
Print source: Anthology Film Archives
"A poetic, rhythmic, riveting achievement (in rotoscope and abstract animation), in which fragments of landscapes, passengers, and train interiors blend into a magical color dream of a voyage. One of the most important works by a master who – like Conner, Brakhage, Broughton – spans several avant-gardes." – Amos Vogel
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Swiss Army Knife with Rats and Pigeons
Directed by Robert Breer.
US, 1981, 35mm, color, 7 min.
Print source: Anthology Film Archives
"... a typically bravura and delightful display of simple objective forms flashing, rotating, and dissolving into abstraction...." – J. Hoberman
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Bang!
Directed by Robert Breer.
US, 1986, 35mm, color, 10 min.
Print source: Anthology Film Archives
"Bang! reveals Breer at his most accomplished and most playful. It is also his most autobiographical film – the youngster paddling a boat is Breer as a boy and the pencil cartoon sequences were drawn by Breer when he was around ten years old. Breer inserts a photo of himself with a question mark scrawled over his head, accompanied by the words 'Don't be smart.' But he can't help it – he is." – Katherine Dieckmann
