A Man Whose Life Was Full of Woe Has Been Surprised By Joy

A Man Whose Life Was Full of Woe Has Been Surprised By Joy is about transformations: about transformations of imagery through collage and montage, about history as transformation, about eros as a transformative power, and, most of all, about the transformations of the self. It rejects modernity’s inhumane technological order and seeks to reconnect the body and the self. Filmmaker R. Bruce Elder is one of Canada’s most celebrated experimental filmmakers and critics. His films have assumed theorem of the epic, after Ezra Pound. They reflect an exhaustive tour of history, philosophy and vision, qualities that led Jonas Mekas to call him “the most important North American avant-garde filmmaker to emerge during the 1980s.” Co-presented with Black Zero, a home video company dedicated to Canadian underground film.

Program:

A Man Whose Life Was Full of Woe Has Been Surprised By Joy (1997, 16mm-on-digital, 100 mins.)

AD HOC aims to rethink what an experience of cinema can be. We seek to reposition historical landmarks and buried treasures within the on-going tradition of experimental and other non- commercial modes of filmmaking, drawing on work from Toronto, throughout Canada, and internationally. Within these parameters, we aspire to diversity in programming, as well as to multimedia and interdisciplinary screening events that bring together varied communities.

AD HOC = Stephen Broomer, Madi Piller, Jim Shedden, Tess Takahashi, Bart Testa.

AD HOC would like to thank James Cahill, Denise Ing, Charlie Keil, and the staff of Innis College and the Cinema Studies Institute.