BC/AD (Bruce Conner And Dennis)

I went to the Billy Wilder Theater at the Armand Hammer Museum in Westwood to see a selection of Bruce Conner shorts. (In some of the promotional literature, they note there'll be screening The Loved One in April, featuring "James Gielgud.") There was a line over a hundred long for standby tickets. I was surprised to see such a turnout. I figured maybe because there's only one showing and maybe because it's free. I was lucky enough to be the absolute last person in line to be allowed in--the theatre seats about 300--and I soon discovered why so many showed up. The program was introduced by Dennis Hopper. Nothing brings people out in this town like celebrity.

Conner, who died last year, worked in many media, but is probably best known for his films. He used found footage, edited it in unusual ways, and then put some music over the images. Some say he was the godfather of MTV, but he said Don't blame me. Hopper, who was a friend, called him the most significant artist of the 20th century. Hyperbole, to be sure, but Conner certainly did have a distinctive style that influenced a whole generation or two.

Hopper told a few anecdotes. He mentioned the acid trip in Easy Rider was based on Conner's style (to which I hope Bruce said Don't blame me). His best story was how after Easy Rider was a hit, he spoke to Ned Tanen at Universal, asking him to open up the unused vault of films they had and let Conner make art out of it. Tanen thought it was worth trying. That night at dinner, Hopper told Conner about the offer. Conner said You don't understand my work at all, and walked out.

Here I was going to embed his first and best-known work, A Movie, but the sites that have it don't seem to show it properly. So here's an interesting discussion instead.