# R. Bruce Elder [Website](https://www.rbruceelder.com/) · [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._Bruce_Elder) · [Full bibliography](https://rbruceelder.com/bibliography.html) ## Description Canadian filmmaker, critic, and academic best known for *The Book of All the Dead*, a decades-long, multi-part serial film cycle, and for extensive scholarly writing connecting the avant-garde film tradition to early-twentieth-century art movements, technology, and philosophy/mysticism. ## Key Tags #film-poem #canadian-avant-garde #theorist #poetics ## Essential Works - *The Book of All the Dead* (c. 1975–1994) - his major multi-part serial film cycle, an epic engagement with poetics and mortality - *Harmony + Dissent: Film and Avant-Garde Art Movements in the Early Twentieth Century*. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008. - history connecting early-20th-century avant-garde art movements to film - *Cubism and Futurism: Spiritual Machines and the Cinematic Effect*. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2018. - on the machine aesthetics and spiritual dimensions of Cubist and Futurist film-adjacent art ## Details Research and critical writing consistently link the film avant-garde to early-twentieth-century art movements and their philosophical/mystical undercurrents, with particular attention to [[Stan Brakhage]], early absolute-film figures such as [[Walter Ruttmann]] and [[Hans Richter]], and Ezra Pound (whose *Cantos* inform *The Book of All the Dead*'s structure). Also wrote "The Structural Film: Ruptures and Continuities in Avant-Garde Art" (in *Neo-Avant-Garde*, 2006), engaging directly with the structural-film category named by [[P. Adams Sitney]]. Long associated with Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University). ### Concepts and Theories - [[Symbolism, Theology, and Occultism]] - writing repeatedly connects avant-garde film to mysticism and spiritual/theological undercurrents - [[The Body]] - recurring subject across his critical writing on early avant-garde art movements - [[Flicker and Entoptics]] - listed among his research subjects - [[Light Art]] - listed among his research subjects - [[Avant Garde Film]] - *Harmony + Dissent* and his essay on structural film are sustained historiographic contributions to the field ### Creative and Technical Practices %% none yet %% ### Collaborators %% none yet %% ### Institutional Affiliations and Associated Movements - Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University) - longtime faculty affiliation ## References ### Primary Sources Bibliography Elder, R. Bruce. "Body/Machine: On Fernand Léger, Machine Art, and Ballet Méchanique." 2001. Elder, R. Bruce. *Cubism and Futurism: Spiritual Machines and the Cinematic Effect*. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2018. [link](https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/219/monograph/book/59668). Elder, R. Bruce. *Harmony + Dissent: Film and Avant-Garde Art Movements in the Early Twentieth Century*. Film and Media Studies Series. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008. [TOC](https://www.rbruceelder.com/pdf/HarmonyAndDissent_TableOfContents.pdf) Elder, R. Bruce. "The Structural Film: Ruptures and Continuities in Avant-Garde Art." In *Neo-Avant-Garde*, vol. 20. Avant-Garde Critical Studies, 2006. [link](https://doi.org/10.1163/9789401203760_008). ### Secondary Sources Bibliography %% none yet %%