Underground filmmaker Bill Daniel fights ‘remote viewing’ with Sonic Orphans at Zeitgeist
Clip Joint
by Jim Ridley @countrylifeblog
There is alternative film distribution, and then there is renegade filmmaker/exhibitor Bill Daniel, who has spent decades applying punk-rock precepts to the screening of his films. Perhaps best known for his experimental documentary Who is Bozo Texino?, a loving study of hobo graffiti art that he's shown in bike shops, pizza joints, dives and basement clubs across America, Daniel barnstorms his creations to places where art dares not go — accompanied by aids such as his "Sailvan," a 1984 Ford Club Wagon transformed by silk projection screens into a kind of portable theater-slash-celluloid schooner.
Daniel's latest, Sonic Orphans, compiles a wide variety of 16mm odds-and-sods clips: raw, unedited snippets that might contain anything from long-forgotten Beatles footage or a Johnny Cash kinoscope to punk-era artifacts of Sonic Youth, the Butthole Surfers and Austin hell-raisers the Huns. Forget YouTube: the AV spelunking Daniel favors is done in person, "feeling the responses of the people sitting near you ... the smell of dust burning on the projector bulb, like caveman story time around the fire."
The cinematographer and editor on San Francisco underground legend Craig Baldwin's films (Tribulation 99, Mock Up on Mu), self-described "film tramp" Daniel appears at 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 11, at Zeitgeist Gallery in Hillsboro Village. Also this week at Zeitgeist: Uncounted filmmakers Mac Pirkle and David and Patricia Earnhardt discussing documentary work 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 14. Call 256-4805 for more information.
Comments (1)
Showing 1-1 of 1
