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In Memoriam: Alt-Filmmaker Bruce Baillie
by Doniphan Blair
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Shot from Bruce Baillie's 'This Is LIfe' (1966). photo: courtesy B. BaillieBRUCE BAILLIE, WHO JUST PASSED ON
April 10th, was a great guy as well as innovative film artist. He was open and friendly, even back in my school days, when he would often drop by the Art Institute, which also just died (see article), and even more so after I started publishing cineSOURCE.
Indeed, Baillie loved the mag, often responded to my emails and sometimes provided quotes.
“Very important, Doniphan, to appear unprofessional,” he advised once by email. “[Stan] Brakhage used to remind us of the original meaning of ‘amateur,' from French for 'lover of,' but forgive my haranguery [sic].”
I even had the pleasure of hanging with Baillie a couple of times, although I didn’t get to be his chauffeur when he came to Oakland in 2014 for the 50th birthday of Canyon Cinema, the alt-film distributor he helped found (see their Baillie page).
I volunteered to drive him because the distributor was named for Oakland’s neighbor, the tiny hamlet of Canyon, which was hosting one of the 50th anniversary shows. That was where Baillie, Chick Strand and a few other filmmakers lived in the ‘60s. They also started the San Francisco Cinematheque, long located at the Art Institute. Both entities kickstarted the Bay Area’s vibrant indie film scene.
Baillie surveys the sky as character from a film as well as symbol of his oeuvre, circa 1998. photo: B. Baillie“I can’t sleep anymore,” the already-over-eighty Baillie told me that evening, “I have these pains. But I still lie down and get some rest.” Indeed, I was amazed he made it to 88, undoubtedly assisted by his more relaxed, rural and family life in Washington.
Baillie was the quintessential artist of the west—South Dakota born, in fact—replete with the classical stoicism and friendliness, the opposite of his friend, the other Bay Area western filmmaker named Bruce—Conner—who was a dandy and intellectual.
Baillie was more of the intuitive mystic, as we can see by his "Cinema State of the Art Offering" from 2015, published in cineSOURCE:
“Ours as always is the writing on the wall. Persistent, centristic cinema is forever. It was inscribed in the ancient caves of Babylon, the pyramids of Chichen Itza, or the silver screen of the Bijou in Billings (Montana).”
Baillie leapt into filmmaking in the late-‘50s, after attending UC Berkeley, and was soon making arty collages or elegant, one-takers like "This is Life“ (1960–1961). In glowing Kodachrome reds and accompanied by an Ella Fitzgerald tune, a slow pan of a rural fence turns into an explosion of roses, see it here.
In this collage from his studio, Baillie looks over his collection of model soldiers . photo: B. BaillieBaillie was all over the Bay on his 2014 tour: the San Francisco International Film Festival's experimental shorts program, the Pacific Film Archives and even the Black Hole Cinemateque, in West Oakland, run by an old-school, acetate filmmaker named Tooth, out of an old firehouse.
Baillie put on quite a performance for the kids, speaking some German, which he studied at UC, and showing some of his classics as well as a strange new piece. It featured shots of him as an air force captain, or even commander, cut with found footage of fighters and bombers.
I loved the earnestness, both as an innocent young woman asked him about his motivation and in his response: he was healing his love of flying aborted when he dropped out of pilot training school.
“I made models in teen years… went into USNR [US Naval Reserves] at 17 or 18, [was] activated in Korean War, [did] duty aboard carrier, some of the same planes, very interesting,” he explained to me in another email. “They offered me flight training in Pensacola, which I finally turned down in order to get out of the service.”
Also at the Black Hole, Baillie showed "Little Girl" (1966, 10 mins). In a tight structural shot, a girl stands on a country road waving to drivers, mixed with water bugs having sex and other lush esoteria—classical Baillie.
His most famous piece is “Castro Street” (1966), which was an early exemplar of the excellently-edited street film, essentially a continuation of Marcel Duchamp's "ready-made," which inspired us to break out of our prosaic life into a world of wonder, which Baillie personified.
Baillie presenting to a young crowd at West Oakland's Black Hole Cinemateque, 2014. photo: D. BlairAs he closed his 2015 "State of the Cinema" address: “The impossibility of it, becoming something universally grand, meaningful and lovely. And after all, MAGNIFICENT!”
“This mission, they say, is in creating Life itself. Even mightier than the omnipresent sword of death and destruction.”
“Greetings to All!”
Thanks Bruce and may you continue your “centristic” cinema unto eternity, while we attempt to put it into practice here on earth.
Doniphan Blair is a writer, film magazine publisher, designer, musician and filmmaker ('Our Holocaust Vacation'), who can be reached
Posted on Apr 12, 2020 - 10:51 AM
by Doniphan Blair
Please support our stories by liking articles—thanks!
Shot from Bruce Baillie's 'This Is LIfe' (1966). photo: courtesy B. BaillieApril 10th, was a great guy as well as innovative film artist. He was open and friendly, even back in my school days, when he would often drop by the Art Institute, which also just died (see article), and even more so after I started publishing cineSOURCE.
Indeed, Baillie loved the mag, often responded to my emails and sometimes provided quotes.
“Very important, Doniphan, to appear unprofessional,” he advised once by email. “[Stan] Brakhage used to remind us of the original meaning of ‘amateur,' from French for 'lover of,' but forgive my haranguery [sic].”
I even had the pleasure of hanging with Baillie a couple of times, although I didn’t get to be his chauffeur when he came to Oakland in 2014 for the 50th birthday of Canyon Cinema, the alt-film distributor he helped found (see their Baillie page).
I volunteered to drive him because the distributor was named for Oakland’s neighbor, the tiny hamlet of Canyon, which was hosting one of the 50th anniversary shows. That was where Baillie, Chick Strand and a few other filmmakers lived in the ‘60s. They also started the San Francisco Cinematheque, long located at the Art Institute. Both entities kickstarted the Bay Area’s vibrant indie film scene.
Baillie surveys the sky as character from a film as well as symbol of his oeuvre, circa 1998. photo: B. BaillieBaillie was the quintessential artist of the west—South Dakota born, in fact—replete with the classical stoicism and friendliness, the opposite of his friend, the other Bay Area western filmmaker named Bruce—Conner—who was a dandy and intellectual.
Baillie was more of the intuitive mystic, as we can see by his "Cinema State of the Art Offering" from 2015, published in cineSOURCE:
“Ours as always is the writing on the wall. Persistent, centristic cinema is forever. It was inscribed in the ancient caves of Babylon, the pyramids of Chichen Itza, or the silver screen of the Bijou in Billings (Montana).”
Baillie leapt into filmmaking in the late-‘50s, after attending UC Berkeley, and was soon making arty collages or elegant, one-takers like "This is Life“ (1960–1961). In glowing Kodachrome reds and accompanied by an Ella Fitzgerald tune, a slow pan of a rural fence turns into an explosion of roses, see it here.
In this collage from his studio, Baillie looks over his collection of model soldiers . photo: B. BaillieBaillie put on quite a performance for the kids, speaking some German, which he studied at UC, and showing some of his classics as well as a strange new piece. It featured shots of him as an air force captain, or even commander, cut with found footage of fighters and bombers.
I loved the earnestness, both as an innocent young woman asked him about his motivation and in his response: he was healing his love of flying aborted when he dropped out of pilot training school.
“I made models in teen years… went into USNR [US Naval Reserves] at 17 or 18, [was] activated in Korean War, [did] duty aboard carrier, some of the same planes, very interesting,” he explained to me in another email. “They offered me flight training in Pensacola, which I finally turned down in order to get out of the service.”
Also at the Black Hole, Baillie showed "Little Girl" (1966, 10 mins). In a tight structural shot, a girl stands on a country road waving to drivers, mixed with water bugs having sex and other lush esoteria—classical Baillie.
His most famous piece is “Castro Street” (1966), which was an early exemplar of the excellently-edited street film, essentially a continuation of Marcel Duchamp's "ready-made," which inspired us to break out of our prosaic life into a world of wonder, which Baillie personified.
Baillie presenting to a young crowd at West Oakland's Black Hole Cinemateque, 2014. photo: D. Blair“This mission, they say, is in creating Life itself. Even mightier than the omnipresent sword of death and destruction.”
“Greetings to All!”
Thanks Bruce and may you continue your “centristic” cinema unto eternity, while we attempt to put it into practice here on earth.
Doniphan Blair is a writer, film magazine publisher, designer, musician and filmmaker ('Our Holocaust Vacation'), who can be reached
Posted on Apr 12, 2020 - 10:51 AM
