R. Bruce Elder

Born: 1947-06-12

Since 1975, R. Bruce Elder has been building two formidable bodies of work, as an artist working in the experimental tradition, and as an author of critical texts on art and cinema. His artistic achievements were recognized in 2007 with a Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts, Canada’s most prestigious award in those field, and was elected to the Royal Society of Canada. Jonas Mekas, founder of the New York Filmmakers Co-op and principle visionary of the American avant-garde cinema, has dubbed him “the most important North American avant-garde filmmaker to emerge during the 1980s.” Something similar could be said of Elder’s monumental works of art criticism. His role as an author has in recent years assumed the task of charting the relationship between cinema and art movements through the twentieth century, as we see in his recent book, DADA, Surrealism, and the Cinematic Effect, his previous, Harmony & Dissent: Film and Avant-garde Art Movements in the Early Twentieth Century, and the forthcoming Cubism and Futurism: Spiritual Machines and the Cinematic Effect. In 2009, he received the Robert Motherwell Book Award from the Dedalus Foundation for Harmony + Dissent.


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Illuminated Texts

as Professor
Released: 1982-01-27

"Breathtaking in its techniques, rhapsodic in its passion, and encyclopedic in its scope, the...

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The Art of Worldly Wisdom

as uncredited
Released: 1979-06-07

A compelling and revealing exploration of one person's psyche in crisis.... The film is a screen...

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Consolations (Love is an Art of Time)

as uncredited
Released: 1988-01-27

Bruce Elder's Consolations picks up where Lamentations left off in the purgatory of modern...

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A Man Whose Life Was Full of Woe Has Been Surprised by Joy

as uncredited
Released: 1997-01-01

Elder depicts forms of life that have grown increasingly out of touch with the body, and...

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Michael Snow Up Close

as Himself
Released: 1996-01-01

MICHAEL SNOW UP CLOSE was produced on the occasion of The Michael Snow Project, a major,...

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Consolations (Love Is an Art of Time) Part 2: The Lighted Clearing

as uncredited
Released: 1988-01-27

"Elder's most philosophical film ... subtly woven connections ... proceed under a contemplative...

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Consolations (Love Is an Art of Time) Part 1: The Fugitive Gods

as uncredited
Released: 1988-01-27

"Elder's most philosophical film ... subtly woven connections ... proceed under a contemplative...

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