Directing

Rudy Burckhardt

Born April 5, 1914 · Basel, Switzerland

Died August 1, 1999 · aged 85

Rudy Burckhardt (April 6, 1914 – August 1, 1999) is best known for his photography of New York and other cities. His signature image explores the quirks of modern urban life, in particular the exuberant life of the streets from the perspective of the pedestrian. He is also celebrated for canonical portraits of New York artists at work, and for his film and collaborations with leading artists, poet…

Known For

Money

A silent screen-type comedy starring Edwin Denby as Hemlock Stinge, the unlovable billionaire.

Rubble Dance

Rubble Dance · 1991

A film-dance, shot on 16mm film in Long Island City, Queens, NY.

Mobile Homes

Mobile Homes · 1979

MovieDocumentary

"The movie opens with a banana still-life vignette seen ripening through time-lapse photography for several days on a rooftop. The energy-charged New York Marathon follows, suggesting the rush of locations and pace about to unfold. The sense of traveling is persistent, we are taken from the marathon in New York, to breakfast in Maine, back to busy city streets, to the Grand Canyon, sky, the dancer Dana Reitz working out in the woods, poets posing, and the journey goes on. There is hardly a breather. Lines of David Shapiro's poem 'When a Man loves a Woman' are printed occasionally across the screen In one segment we hear Alice Notley read her poem 'A Woman comes into the Room.' Essentially a collage of images and sound, the precise order of events is unimportant. Overlays of time, season and location become fulfilling and cumulative experience, the particular sequences like cuts on a diamond." – Joe Giordano

Cerveza Bud

Cerveza Bud · 1981

"This filmic slice of life coalesces into an ethnographic view of a possible future: the city as a constantly bubbling, delirious playground where yesterday’s monuments are symbols to be triumphed over, and tomorrow never arrives. Perhaps this is why the ultimate effect is one of wistfulness, due also to the unexpected intrusion of a memento mori in the guise of a nude traversing the Maine woods…" - Trevor Winkfield

Angel

Short film of a statue of an angel by an ornamental pond on a summer's day.

Body - Earth

Body - Earth · 1974

Lurk

“Happy with his luscious daughter Aurora in a rustic setting, Professor Borealis has devised an improved brain and is ready to transplant it. The humor is tenderly black. Burckhardt's fusion of documentary-type photography with fairytale storyline is nearer Keystone than avant-garde with its visual honesty and particular virtuosity.” — Edwin Denby

Haiti

MovieDocumentary

A travelogue of Port-au-Prince, Haiti concentrating on the daily life and rhythm of tropical island life.

Filmography

Sort

Money

A silent screen-type comedy starring Edwin Denby as Hemlock Stinge, the unlovable billionaire.

Director

Rubble Dance

Rubble Dance · 1991

A film-dance, shot on 16mm film in Long Island City, Queens, NY.

Director

Mobile Homes

Mobile Homes · 1979

MovieDocumentary

"The movie opens with a banana still-life vignette seen ripening through time-lapse photography for several days on a rooftop. The energy-charged New York Marathon follows, suggesting the rush of locations and pace about to unfold. The sense of traveling is persistent, we are taken from the marathon in New York, to breakfast in Maine, back to busy city streets, to the Grand Canyon, sky, the dancer Dana Reitz working out in the woods, poets posing, and the journey goes on. There is hardly a breather. Lines of David Shapiro's poem 'When a Man loves a Woman' are printed occasionally across the screen In one segment we hear Alice Notley read her poem 'A Woman comes into the Room.' Essentially a collage of images and sound, the precise order of events is unimportant. Overlays of time, season and location become fulfilling and cumulative experience, the particular sequences like cuts on a diamond." – Joe Giordano

Director

Cerveza Bud

Cerveza Bud · 1981

"This filmic slice of life coalesces into an ethnographic view of a possible future: the city as a constantly bubbling, delirious playground where yesterday’s monuments are symbols to be triumphed over, and tomorrow never arrives. Perhaps this is why the ultimate effect is one of wistfulness, due also to the unexpected intrusion of a memento mori in the guise of a nude traversing the Maine woods…" - Trevor Winkfield

Director

Angel

Short film of a statue of an angel by an ornamental pond on a summer's day.

Cinematography

Body - Earth

Body - Earth · 1974

Director

Lurk

“Happy with his luscious daughter Aurora in a rustic setting, Professor Borealis has devised an improved brain and is ready to transplant it. The humor is tenderly black. Burckhardt's fusion of documentary-type photography with fairytale storyline is nearer Keystone than avant-garde with its visual honesty and particular virtuosity.” — Edwin Denby

Director

Haiti

MovieDocumentary

A travelogue of Port-au-Prince, Haiti concentrating on the daily life and rhythm of tropical island life.

Director

Mounting Tension

Mounting Tension · 1950

Mounting Tension

Larry is a madly energetic, oversexed artist. Jane, a combination of palm reader and psychoanalyst, is trying to straighten him out. John is a straight boy interested in baseball who ends up an abstract painter.

Director

For Life, Against the War

For Life, Against the War · 1967

For Life, Against the War

First shown on January 30, 1967, FOR LIFE AGAINST THE WAR was an open-call, collective statement from American independent filmmakers disparate in style and sensibility but united by their opposition to the Vietnam War. Part of the protest festival Week of the Angry Arts, the epic compilation film incorporated minute-long segments which were sent from many corners of the country, spliced together and projected. The original presentation of the works was more of an open forum with no curation or selection, and in 2000 Anthology Film Archives preserved a print featuring around 40 films from over 60 submissions.

Director

Nymphlight

Nymphlight · 1957

MovieDocumentary

A short, avant-garde movie, starring twelve-year-old ballet student Gwen Thomas, Nymphlight is a lovely blend of fact and fiction, using Bryant Park at the New York Public Library as a stage set for the fantasy inclusion of a certain nymph. A meditation on an ephemeral day in the the life of a park shared by birds, the young and the old.

Cinematography

City Pasture

City Pasture · 1974

A snow storm – Disney World – self important New York – ox-pull in Maine – a special old man – strip tease – an ant in the woods –wild 14th street – a mugging survived – the end.

Director

Scattered Showers

Scattered Showers · 1999

Scattered Showers

Made in the final year of his life, Rudy Burckhardt’s Scattered Showers begins its journey in the city he so scrupulously documented in photographs and film for the greater part of his career.

Director

On Aesthetics

On Aesthetics · 1999

Short film by Swiss-American film-maker and photographer Rudy Burckhardt, featuring a poem by Kenneth Koch.

Director

Wayward Glimpses

Wayward Glimpses · 1992

Wayward Glimpses

MovieDocumentary

With music by Elliott Carter adding drama and richness, a surreal dance by Dana Reitz and Alice Notley reading her poem "I work in a whorehouse, I seem to like it/it is dark like a cave, with pink light..." We visit briefly New York, Provincetown, Martinique, Hong Kong, ending in the dark woods of Maine, with glimpses of women, peculiar, sometimes erotic, always fleeting.

Director

Julie

A snapshot from the filmmaker's own life in rural Maine.

Director

Doldrums

Doldrums · 1972

"The New Jersey Turnpike and downtown New York in rain and shine. Trailer trucks, overpasses and industrial wastes become natural wonders. The stream of trucks is often gay but sometimes ominous. After a thunderstorm, the pike gives way to charming and sexy shoppers on 14th Street. Real sounds and wonderful color." - Edmund Leites

Director

Landscape Bodydwelling

Landscape Bodydwelling · 1974

Landscape Bodydwelling

Burckhardt collaborates with artist Simonds to produce a portrait of the artist as a foundation.

Cinematography

Caterpillar

Caterpillar · 1973

Looking down at nature's small works in the woods of Maine, then straight up at the sky, then down again at the daylong journey of an inchworm.

Director

Inside Dope

Inside Dope · 1971

"A pseudo-educational, fictitious documentary survey of the ups, downs, ins and far-outs of Dope. Very funny and slightly sinister, like Red Skelton in the sky with diamonds." - Ron Padgett

Director

Trinidad

Trinidad · 1943

Rudy Burckhardt shot plenty of film while he was stationed in Trinidad with the Signal Corps in the early 1940s. This short film compiles some of the choicest bits.

Director

Summer

"A few acres of Maine, a small lake in the woods, wild flowers, clouds, mosses, and mushrooms after the rain. The visual richness is fantastic, the objective eye is absorbing. Burckhardt often cuts by glimpses, the second time you see the film you see twice as much, and each time the power and depth of feeling are new." – Edwin Denby

Director

Ostensibly

Ostensibly · 1989

A collage film featuring dual narrations of Ashbery’s eponymous poem of the same name, with both Ashbery and Burckhardt appearing in in front of the camera.

Director

Saroche

Saroche · 1975

a travelogue of Peru.

Director