Film notes

Grayson Goga & Grace Stalley, For Will (2016) [digital, color, sound, 13 min] | Ten years after Robert Creeley’s death, his son Will reflects on the poet’s life and legacy.

Bruce Jackson & Diane Christian, Willy’s Reading (1982) [digital (16mm transfer), color, sound, 16 min] | “Filled with the levity and sweetness of new life, this family picture invites us into a sun-dappled afternoon of poetry and stories as Creeley shares anecdotes from his life interspersed with readings to his newborn son.” – Anthology Film Archives

Stan Brakhage, Two: Creeley/McClure (1965) [16mm, color, silent, 5 min] | “Two portraits in relation to each other, the first of Robert Creeley, the second of Micheal McClure.” – S.B.

Robert Haller, Notes on the Buffalo Conference: Autobiography in American Cinema (1973) [16mm, b&w, silent, 7.5 min] | A record of a conference held at the State University of New York at Buffalo on March 22-25, 1973. Among the participants filmed were Gerald O’Grady (who organized the conference), Will Hindle, Stan Brakhage, Jonas Mekas, Robert Creeley, Bruce Baillie, Scott Bartlett, Hollis Frampton, Ken Jacobs, Ed Pincus, Stan Vanderbeek, Ed Emshwiller, Sally Dixon and James Cox.

Gary Doberman, Nimbus (1978) 16mm, color, silent, 4.5 min | “Nimbus was Robert Creeley’s first choice to show in conjunction with a lecture at Rocky Mountain Film Center in 1978. This film owes much to Creeley’s poetry and Edward Hopper’s paintings, although no conscious consideration structured the working process—Hopper in the sense that Brian O’Doherty writes of the paintings as displaying ‘an observed, an observer and a witness.’” – G.D.

Jason Duval, Time Passes (2026) [16mm, color & b&w, silent, 8 min], with Steve Baczkowski in performance, saxophone & winds | Time Passes is an ongoing film diary begun in 2023 and continuing in the present day. The excerpt presented was composed under the influence of poems from Creeley’s middle period, specifically the collections Later, Windows and Mirrors. This premier screening is accompanied by a live performance from Steve Baczkowski, improvised in response to the film and his own readings of Creeley.

In-house presenter bios

Jason Duval works in painting and 16mm film. He is co-founder, with Dorota Kolodziejczyk, of Black Rock Arts, a local venue for art exhibitions and film screenings. 

Steve Baczkowski is a renowned multi-instrumentalist focused on improvised music. He has performed widely in Buffalo and beyond, and since 1999 has served as music director for Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center.