Valse Triste is a 1977 5 minute experimental

collage film Collage film is a style of film created by juxtaposing found footage from disparate sources. The term has also been applied to the physical collaging of materials onto film stock. Surrealist roots The surrealist movement played a critical role i ...

Bruce Conner Bruce Conner (November 18, 1933 – July 7, 2008) was an American artist who worked with assemblage, film, drawing, sculpture, painting, collage, and photography. Biography Bruce Conner was born November 18, 1933 in McPherson, Kansas.His well- ...

set to

Jean Sibelius Jean Sibelius ( ; ; born Johan Julius Christian Sibelius; 8 December 186520 September 1957) was a Finnish composer of the late Romantic and early-modern periods. He is widely regarded as his country's greatest composer, and his music is often ...

's piece of the same name.

Summary

An autobiographical take of the filmmaker's childhood in 1940s

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to th ...

with sources that parallels his own life experiences.

Relation to Take the 5:10 to Dreamland (1976)

After finishing '' Take the 5:10 to Dreamland'', Bruce Conner started working on this film, which he calls ‘an extension of Take the 5:10 to Dreamland’ . Although he didn’t have the same sound problems with this film, he decided to make it sepia-toned as well, so the two films go together as a pair. Some of the images of ''Take the 5:10 to Dreamland'' are re-used. The dream is present again; the first shot is a little boy going to sleep, the images that follow are his ‘dream’ about the past, full of trains, cars, factories, typical American suburbs and fences. Nature is almost absent here; we see images of men and industry, images in movement. The rhythm is quicker, and the sad but vivid waltz on the soundtrack give this film an entire other feel, less dreamlike and more specifically rooted in the nostalgic American past.

Influences

The film a homage to surrealist cinema and the trance films of

Maya Deren Maya Deren (born Eleonora Derenkowska, uk, Елеоно́ра Деренко́вська, links=no;

Kenneth Anger Kenneth Anger (born Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer, February 3, 1927) is an American underground experimental filmmaker, actor, and author. Working exclusively in short films, he has produced almost 40 works since 1937, nine of which have been grouped ...

and Sidney Peterson. The radio show '' I Love A Mystery'' (a program Bruce loved as a kid to the tune by

Sibelius Jean Sibelius ( ; ; born Johan Julius Christian Sibelius; 8 December 186520 September 1957) was a Finnish composer of the late Romantic and early-modern periods. He is widely regarded as his country's greatest composer, and his music is often ...

) also influenced ''Valse Triste''.A Symposium on Bruce Conner , MoMA LIVE
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References

External links

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MUBI
{{Bruce Conner 1970s avant-garde and experimental films 1977 short films Collage film Films directed by Bruce Conner 1970s American films