MONSTER ROAD shown with Cas'l'
Directed by Brett Ingram
United States, 80 Minutes
Documentary
FRI APR 24, 7:15pm
Filmmaker Bruce Bickford in attendance
Bruce Bickford's collaborations with rock musician Frank Zappa (Baby Snakes, Dub Room Special, The Amazing Mr. Bickford) in the 1970s made him an international cult figure. Three decades later, the sixty-one-year-old animator works alone in a basement studio near Seattle, producing films for no apparent audience. Enchanted forests, torture chambers, hamburgers that morph into mythical monsters, and epic battles between giants, fairies, and anachronistic historical figures populate just a small corner of Bickford's animated universe. Bruce is the sole caretaker of his father George, a retired aerospace engineer of the Cold War era who faces the onset of Alzheimer's disease, and while the Bickfords lived a normal suburban life by all outward appearances, the brutality of Bruce's childhood drawings and subsequent animation hints at a darker underbelly. Questions are raised for which there are no easy answers. Monster Road untangles myriad personal, artistic, and philosophical strands from the Bickfords' lives to illuminate an intricate web of influences that fuel Bruce's cinematic visions.
Filmography: First Feature
Awards: Best Documentary Jury Prize from Slamdance Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Independent Film Festival of Boston, Red Bank Film Festival, Indie Memphis Film Festival, Wild Rose Independent Film Festival, Sonoma Valley Film Festival's Independent Spirit Award
Bruce Bickford (Documentary Subject)
Bruce Bickford is a sixty-one-year-old artist who achieved cult status for his collaborations with Frank Zappa in the 1970s. His two-dimensional line animation is remarkable; his clay animation is legendary. That said, it is nearly impossible to furnish the unintiated with satisfying synopses of Bickford’s films. They appear to be onscreen streams of consciousness -- streams that have run for months or even years through the mind of an animator ever engaged in the process of creating and photographing frame upon frame. They are organic, fluid montages -- vibrant pseudonarratives that defy logical comprehension. They are, in short, purely cinematic -- meant to be experienced and wondered at. Bruce Bickford is an iconoclast and a visionary of the highest caliber.
