A Movie

By L. Criley

Three: The number of chords in a rock song, also the number of visual motifs in Bruce Conner’s 1958 film, A Movie. Two: the number of swimsuit models inter-cut with incredible catastrophes in A Movie. One: The number of minutes that elapse in A Movie before “THE END” appears on screen.

A Movie, the collage artist Bruce Conner’s first foray into filmmaking, exaggerates commercial cinema style into a grotesque caricature of itself. From the dyslexic countdown (3-2-1-9-8-7) that succeeds the film’s opening title card to “The End”, which first appears on screen one minute into the film and reappears approximately every minute for the rest of the film’s twelve minutes, A Movie takes elements of Hollywood blockbusters out of context to make a whimsical, tragic, progressive work of art.

The first minutes of the film introduce the three chords of Conner’s visual rock song, three repeated elements. Following the title and countdown, a sequence full of damaged frames, upside down text, and patterns that jump and vibrate like a kangaroo full of espresso, the film proceeds with cuts between a favorite Hollywood coupling: young women and massive explosions. Respighi’s Pines of Rome, an upbeat classical piece, plays over the fast cut montage of race cars flying off tracks, Apaches attacking pioneers, and a woman in a black garter belt slowly undressing. The combination of collaged text, voyeuristic clips of women, and stock footage of catastrophes thrown together is illogical in terms of narrative and story but is crystal clear in terms of aesthetic. The images contrast and compliment each other in a sequence devoid of plot that still manages to surprise and amuse the viewer.

A pause in the chaos and a refrain in the intensity of the score gives the film some breathing space, but after just a moment of serenity on screen, the film jumps back to life. A U-boat captain peers through his periscope. Cut to a blond haired maiden rolling sleepily on a bed. An enormous phallic torpedo bursts out of the submarine in a cloud of bubbles, and the film cuts back to the oblivious blond smiling, still lying in bed. A gigantic mushroom cloud exploding into the sky concludes the scene, a terrific testimony to the power of editing. Bruce Conner’s collage experience is obvious throughout the film and reaches full stride in the submarine scene. Conner’s seemingly effortless quick-cut editing of stock footage, reminiscent of Sergei Eisenstein’s montage technique, creates this moment of underwater cinematic mirth that rivals and harshly contrasts the carefully orchestrated, lingering mise-en-scene takes of Charley Chaplin, the other master of dialogue-free comedy. The submarine scene, and the entirety of A Movie, testifies to the power of loud, fast, editing. The remainder of the film is spent on a blooper real of humanity (the Hindenburg explosion, slapstick water skiing accidents, and a suspension bridge wiggling apart in heavy wind) juxtaposed against a contrapuntal score that would be at home in Phantom of the Opera.

A Movie remains effective and relevant over fifty years after it was made, both as an independent piece of art and as an influence on other films. MTV style music videos take many cues from Conner’s vibrant, jittery, editing and nano-takes, as do the very Hollywood blockbusters that Conner poked fun at in A Movie. Mimicry of Bruce Conner’s innovative techniques used in A Movie is ubiquitous in contemporary cinema, demonstrating the raw power, originality, and accessibility of A Movie.