Two Great Losses to Experimental Film This Week

Posted September 10th, 2011 in Announcements, News / Events

Jordan Belson and George Kuchar Pass On

We are very sad to announce that two great experimental filmmakers were lost this week: Jordan Belson and George Kuchar. Both filmmakers passed on Tuesday, September 6.

More information on both artists is available in this article from the SF360:

“I never say I’m going to make a comedy,” Kuchar told McDonald in the early ’80s. “The pictures have comical scenes in them. I laugh at scenes even when I’m making them. Picture-making is hard work, and you want to have a good time, so sometimes you do scenes where you have a good time. But I never tackle a film like it’s a comedy. In fact, I suffered through most all of the pictures. I mean making them I had a good time, but most of them were based on terrible experiences. I was a miserable wretch during certain periods, and those periods are documented in the movies.”

A comprehensive article on George Kuchar was published by Paul Vitellow in the New York Times yesterday:

“Mr. Kuchar’s ability to make movies on a shoestring during a prolific career in which he sometimes made two or three films a year for the art-house circuit was a point of pride for him, and an inspiration to several generations of young filmmakers.

“He was a liberator,” said P. Adams Sitney, a founder of Anthology Film Archives in the East Village, a nonprofit organization that collects and preserves experimental films. “He showed you how to make a film for absolutely nothing, using your friends and your ingenuity. His influence is incalculable — the whole world of YouTube is where you see it. He was a guy who just wanted to keep making films. I don’t think he even wanted to be ‘discovered’ by Hollywood.”

Full article links:
George Kuchar, Underground Filmmaker, Dies at 69
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/movies/george-kuchar-underground-filmmaker-dies-at-69.html?_r=1
Kuchar, Belson Bid Adieu
http://sf360.org/?pageid=13814

For more information on Kuchar and to rent his films from Canyon…