Breakaway (1966) by Bruce Connor
Sunday, November 18, 1984, 8:00 pm
A Bruce Conner Celebration
Television Assassination (8mm film installation) Ten Second Film (1965), Permian Strata (1969), Mongoloid (1978), America Is Waiting (1981), A Movie (1958), Report (1963-67), Take The 5:10 To Dreamland (1976), Valse Triste (1979), Looking for Mushrooms and Easter Morning (both std. 8mm), Breakaway (1966), Vivian (1964), The White Rose (1967), Marilyn Times Five (1968-1973).
After nearly three decades of activity as one of America’s most daring and original filmmakers, Bruce Conner remains defiantly independent and unpredictable. Conner’s mastery in shaping pre-existing film material into new forms which have coherence and subtlety is unequaled in the history of the cinema; and as a biting social critic, he has few peers. Tonight the Cinematheque will honor Bruce Conner on this, his birthday, by showing most of his currently completed filmwork.
“We, the audience, have the sense we are re-seeing this footage whether in fact we have ever seen it before. This is so because they are archetypal images gathered out of our popular culture. Conner, in the dark of the theater, pulls us into the unconscious of the film experience, which becomes film-as-memory, film-as-dream” – John Hanhardt.