Dennis Hopper has described the experience of seeing Bruce Conner's A MOVIE (1958) like lifting the veil from his eyes, an associative blur of images that would go on to influence the infamous acid trip scene in his film Easy Rider. Years later, Hopper recalls, he and Dean Stockwell held the lights for Conner as he filmed Toni Basil dancing for BREAKAWAY (1966), the short film set to her song of the same name. A rare example of a Bruce Conner musical film containing all original photography, what makes the film unquestionably Conner is his frenetic editing and the evanescence of his subject, a spirit flickering in celluloid. The flashes of figure would reappear in Conner's sculptural photograms such as "Sound of Two Hand Angel" (1974). 

 

Director: Chris Green. 

Producer: Matthew Shattuck. 

Executive Producer: Chris Green, Noah Khoshbin, Emma Reeves, John Toba. 

Editor: Curtis Tamm. 

Director of Photography: Curtis Tamm, Peter Kirby, Kaitlin Dixon, Kevin Southworth. 

Assistant Camera: Eugenia Barbuc, Morgan Kessler. 

Music Clearances: Colby Trane. 

 

Interviews: Toni Basil, Bruce Jenkins.

 

Film: BREAKAWAY by Bruce Conner (1966, 16mm, b&w/sound, 5 minutes) Courtesy and (c) Conner Family Trust. Pas De Trois by Dean Stockwell (1964, 16mm, b&w, 8 minutes) Courtesy of Dean Stockwell.

 

Audio: Dennis Hopper Recording Courtesy of UCLA Film & Television Archive.

 

Photography: (c) Conner Family Trust/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. (c) Dennis Hopper, The Dennis Hopper Art Trust. (c) The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.

 

Music: "Breakaway" Written by Ed Cobb, Performed by Toni Basil, Published by Embassy Music Corporation (BMI), Courtesy of A&M Records, Under license from Universal Music Enterprises. 

 

Special Thanks: Conner Family Trust, MOCAtv, Emma Reeves, John Toba, Jean Conner, Michelle Silva, Toni Basil, Gerald Casale, David James, Bruce Jenkins, Michael Kohn, Todd Wiener, Terry Riley, Dean Stockwell, Robert Matheu, Hugh Brown, Mills Moran, Karl Puchlik, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, UCLA Film & Television Archive, USC School of Cinematic Arts, The Dennis Hopper Art Trust, The Getty Research Institute, Michael Kohn Gallery, Artists Rights Society, OHWOW Gallery. 

 

Dedicated to Bruce Conner, November 18, 1933 - July 7, 2008. 

 

Produced by Dissident Industries Inc. 

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