(Jordan Belson, Samadhi)
Last week, home movie auteur George Kuchar died at the age of 69. Now, fellow experimental filmmaker Jordan Belson has passed away at 85. While I'm sure there will be much re-appreciation of their work following their deaths, it's always a shame to see things like that happen in the face of careers that went largely ignored by the general public. This holds true for these two especially, whose essence was often reappropriated in "bigger" pictures, with Kuchar's images of suburban depravity finding their way into the work of people like John Waters, or Belson's films serving as the inspiration for the "star gate" sequence at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Belson's work is widely unavailable, though the Center of Visual Music has a DVD set of five of his films. UBU has a good selection of Kuchar's work, though the actual video quality of the film clips is a bit questionable. Some of his films are on YouTube in better quality, but those are typically subject to be taken down on copyright claims.
Below I have embedded two of George Kuchar's more "experimental" films, the meditative "weather picture" Wild Night In El Reno, which through a series of shots depticts a storm about to rise in Reno, and his 1977 cinema verite movie I, An Actress, a portrayal of a young woman auditioning for a role in a Kuchar film which ends up not being a commentary on Kuchar but the idea of cinema and acting itself.
Sadly, Robert Breer also died recently.
Posted by: Patrick | September 13, 2011 at 04:14 PM
Please consider donating to CVM's project to digitize more of Belson's films, for greater access -
www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Belson
Posted by: CVM | September 14, 2011 at 02:10 AM