Opening Tate Film’s Pioneers retrospective of Bruce Baillie, this programme presents a selection of short works from the American filmmaker’s poetic social documentary series The News. This series was created to be screened in Canyon Cinema venues. It provided a format for creating low-budget, urgent and politically motivated works and demonstrated possibilities for a more immediate transition from production to exhibition.
Bruce Baillie
Little Girl 1966
film still
Courtesy the artist and Light Cone
Programme
Bruce Baillie, Mr. Hayashi, USA 1961, 16mm, black and white, sound, 3 min
‘A living saint projected onto the silver screen. Why did I make this film? I wanted to help my friend find a job in Berkeley. It was one of my first attempts to create film as both utilitarian and Art. Cinema must be meaningful and wonderful in a single stroke of camera and mind. Mr. Hayashi was my own, simple example, derived from an experience in a Zagreb city well, where water and daily gossip flowed freely.’
Bruce Baillie
Bruce Baillie, Mass for the Dakota Sioux, USA 1964, 16mm, black and white, sound, 21 min
‘The Mass is traditionally a celebration of Life, thus the contradiction between the form of the Mass and the theme of death. The dedication is to the religious people (Dakota Sioux) who were destroyed by the civilisation that evolved the Mass.’
Bruce Baillie
Bruce Baillie, Valentín de las Sierras, USA 1967, 16mm, colour, sound, 10 min
‘Filmed in Chapala, Jalisco, Mexico. Titles in Spanish. Skin, eyes, knees, horses, hair, sun, earth. Old song of a Mexican hero, Valentín, sung by the blind Jose Santollo Nacido en Santa Cruz de la Soledad … The film emerges from the always painful, continuing impossibility of recording one’s own life! I remember that the strength of my daily impressions there was so severe that I really thought I couldn’t live through it … It led me … into an essential question about recording, filming itself.’
Bruce Baillie
Bruce Baillie, Here I Am, USA 1962, 16mm, black and white, sound, 11 min
‘A film for the East Bay Activity Center in Oakland.’
Bruce Baillie
Bruce Baillie, Little Girl, USA 1966, 16mm, black and white and colour, sound, 9 min
‘Filmed with a Nikon 100mm telephoto/Bolex, while living under canvas tarp in the woods of the Morning Star Commune north of San Francisco – where this young girl so delicately waved the passing cars by her home. There were also the spring plum blossoms of Sebastopol and the beautiful water bugs in a nearby creek. For years I had tried to attach the lovely Trois Gymnopédies by Erik Satie to the footage, but was only successful recently.’
Bruce Baillie
Followed by a discussion with Garbiñe Ortega, series curator, and artist-filmmaker Ben Rivers.
Tate Film is supported by LUMA Foundation