Author Brian L. Frye

This Annotation previously appeared in Senses of Cinema Issue 25, Mar–Apr 2003 and Issue 39, May 2006. Bob le flambeur (1955 France 100 mins) Source: ACMI/NLA Prod Co: O.G.C., Studios Jenner, Play Art, La C...

The most influential figure in the history of the ‘New American Cinema’ discusses his past, present and ongoing projects. The interview concludes with Mekas’ strikingly precise and detailed evocation of the historical controversy surrounding Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures.

Stan Brakhage didn’t invent the avant-garde cinema. But he certainly reinvented it. Under his tutelage, it finally became a fine art. Joseph Schumpeter would have called it “creative destruction”, a new order s...

The Hearts of Age (1934 USA 8 mins @ 18 fps) Source: PC Prod, Phot: William Vance Dir: Orson Welles, William Vance Cast: Orson Welles, Virginia Nicholson, William Vance, Edgerton Paul, Blackie O’Neal ...

If reporters write the first draft of history, critics write the second. And like reporters, critics have one signal advantage over historians and theorists: they see the entire field, rather than what gets pre...

Looking for Mushrooms (1959-67 USA 3 mins) Source: NLA/ACMI Filmmaker: Bruce Conner Mus: “Tomorrow Never Knows” by The Beatles Bruce Conner described Looking for Mushrooms in the 1975 Film-Makers' Coo...

(London: Wallflower Press, 2002) The non-obviousness requirement was once the bête noire of patent law. Many a brilliant invention looks quite obvious once described. But after the patent office abandoned no...

Frye explores the various, diverging sensibilities of filmmakers from both the past and present working in cinema's 'underground'.

Bob le flambeur (1955 France 100mins) Source: ACMI/NLA Prod Co: O.G.C., Studios Jenner, Play Art, La Cyme Prod, Dir: Jean-Pierre Melville Scr: Jean-Pierre Melville, Aguste le Breton Phot: Henri Decaë Ed:...

Brian celebrates the DVD release of what he regards as one of the finest documentaries ever made.

b. January 14, 1933, Kansas City, Missouri, USA d. March 9, 2003, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada filmography bibliography articles in Senses web resources If Maya Deren invented the American a...

Ever since 1891, when Thomas Alva Edison – the quintessential American – became the inventor of the motion picture rather than his brilliant English employee, William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, the British cinema ...

Rose Hobart (1936 USA 17mins) The first and greatest American Surrealist, Joseph Cornell is best known for his boxes. The best of his mysterious assemblages of dime-store tchochkes and paper ephemera in ...

Frye speaks with the Godfather of American avant-garde cinema.