Bruce Baillie

Directing

Biography

Bruce Baillie (September 24, 1931 - April 10, 2020) was an American cinematic artist and founding member of Canyon Cinema in San Francisco. In 1961, Baillie, along with friend and fellow cinematic artist Chick Strand, among others, founded San Francisco Cinematheque.

Born: September 24, 1931

Place of Birth: Aberdeen, South Dakota, USA

Known For

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Birth of a Nation

Jonas Mekas assembles 160 portraits, appearances, and fleeting sketches of underground and independent filmmakers captured between 1955 and 1996. Fast-paced and archival in spirit, the film celebrates the avant-garde as its own “nation of cinema,” a vital community existing outside the dominance of commercial film.

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The Gymnasts

An early work by Bruce Baillie, originally a Canyon Cinemanews.

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Dr. Bish Remedies

From Ross Lipman's "personal ethnographies" series, an informal visit with legendary filmmaker Bruce Baillie at his home on Camano Island in Washington State.

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I Wish I Knew

With Lorie, Wind and BB.

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Spring (The Laundry Lesson)

(The Laundry Lesson) For Jefferson Sunflower

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This Kind of Thing - He and Us (Bruce Baillie)

Filmed portrait of Bruce Baillie, a mythical figure from the northern Californian experimental film scene. Produced without a script or shooting schedule, the film lies somewhere between a home movie and documentary. It integrates chance and discontinuity, repeats the same sequences in loops, alternates between color and black and white, and is interspersed with frames that are empty, blurry, or reversed. The soundtrack consists of an improvised monologue by Bruce Baillie which unfolds without interruption, following his discontinuous flow of thought.

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Media Chats #1

Video recording made by Bruce Baillie to accompany public presentations and classroom screenings of his work.

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Notes on the Buffalo Conference: “Autobiography in American Independent Cinema”

During the 1970s I shot, helped to make, or commissioned about ten document films, mainly about film-makers. This film is one of them. It was made with Dan Ochiva, who acted as cameraman on about half of the footage. I shot the rest, and then edited the film. It is a record of a conference held at the State University of New York at Buffalo on March 22-25, 1973. Among the participants filmed were Gerald O'Grady (who organized the conference), Will Hindle, Stan Brakhage, Jonas Mekas, Robert Creeley, Bruce Baillie, Scott Bartlett, Hollis Frampton, Ken Jacobs, Ed Pincus, Stan Vanderbeek, Ed Emshwiller, Sally Dixon, James Cox. This footage will eventually become part of my film PEOPLE, PLACES, THE 1970S. –R. H.