Collecting, Restoring: Bruce Baillie Retrospective

Streamed from July 8 through July 14

A key figure of the New American Cinema movement and cofounder of the seminal independent distributor Canyon Cinema, Bruce Baillie (1931–2020) pushed the technical limits of the 16mm medium in crafting a poetic first-person style that continues to influence younger generations of filmmakers. This set of nine films—including one, Castro Street (1966), on the National Film Registry—typifies the lyrical flair and deep interest in landscape, both open-air and internal, of an artist firmly grounded in the American West. Courtesy the Estate of Bruce Baillie, Canyon Cinema Foundation, and the University of California Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.

Mr. Hayashi

Baillie's brief black-and-white sketch of a Japanese gardener and his rueful plight transforms into a tale of timeless beauty and humanity. (1961, 3 minutes)

The News #3 (The Peace Rally)

One of the artist's “newsreels” from the early 1960s, The Peace Rally intercuts footage from an anti-nuclear rally with California rock formations. This recent digital transfer is courtesy the University of California Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. (1962, 3 minutes)

Here I Am…

This observational study of Oakland's East Bay Activity Center, a home for emotionally disturbed children, was fashioned from an earlier newsreel and filmed almost entirely at a child's eye level. (1962, 11 minutes)

To Parsifal

Inspired by Wagner's famous operatic work and the Arthurian hero Parsifal ("he who becomes slowly wise"), To Parsifal mixes impromptu outdoor footage with music from the opera. (1963, 16 minutes)

Mass for the Dakota Sioux

A requiem for the native people of Dakota, this film is “a celebration of what has passed away from our hysterical milieu of materialism” (Baillie), quietly evoked through multiple in-camera superimpositions. (1964, 20 minutes)

Quixote

Dedicated to his own father, Quixote reflects many of Baillie’s themes from earlier work, including reflections on the hero, anti-war and anti-fascist actions, the histories of social struggles, and the beauty of American landscapes. (1965, 45 minutes)

Castro Street

Baillie’s film transforms a walk down a street in Richmond, California, into a voyage of discovery. "Entirely handmade sans optical printers or computers, everyday events are shifted into something fantastic. The viewer is awakened to a universe of swirling sights and sounds, marvelous moments unfolding in time" (Bruce Posner). (1966, 10 minutes)

Valentin de las Sierras

Named after the famous Mexican revolutionary hero it celebrates, this work features his traditional corrido (ballad), sung by Jose Santollo Nasido, who was blind, and filmed in the western Mexican state of Jalisco. (1968, 10 minutes)

Roslyn Romance (Is It Really True?)

Through letters and postcards shared among family members, the film both reflects upon and invokes the cycles of life, made universal by the filmmaker’s careful observations. "A sort of manual concerning all the stuff . . . of life, from the most detailed mundanery to . . . God knows" (Baillie). (1974, 17 minutes)