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Film canister for REPORT
Film canister for REPORT
© Conner Family Trust, San Francisco. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion.

Film canister for REPORT

Datec. 1967
MediumMetal, patina, paper and plastic labels
DimensionsAssembled: 1 x 9 9/16 x 9 9/16 inches (2.5 x 24.3 x 24.3 cm)
.A : Bottom section: 15/16 x 9 9/16 x 9 9/16 inches (2.4 x 24.3 x 24.3 cm)
.B : Top/cover section: 5/8 x 9 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches (1.6 x 24.1 x 24.1 cm)
ClassificationsMiscellaneous
Credit LineGift of Kristine Stiles
Object number2018.18.33
Collections
  • ART OF THE UNITED STATES
  • MODERN & CONTEMPORARY
Label TextREPORT is one of Conner’s most respected and moving films, and represents his effort to come to intellectual, emotional, and aesthetic terms with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas. Appropriating segments of news reels of the parade route before, during, and after the assassination, Conner repeated selected frames, methodically dissecting the few minutes of the assassination. Repeating them again and again with slight variation, the thirteen-minute film gives the car carrying the President and the First Lady a staccato-like movement that has the visual effect of replicating the emotional experience of the tragic event in memory. The film is in the collection of Duke University’s Library Service Center.

When asked why he began making films, especially his first film, A MOVIE, Conner explained that he had “waited for someone to make that movie,” but that when “no one did…I decided it was my job to make A MOVIE.” Conner produced twenty-five films between 1958 and 2008 and left his documentary By and By: The Soul Stirrers unfinished at the time of his death. Conner’s first films—A MOVIE (1958) and COSMIC RAY (1961)—were met with acclaim, and in 1964 the Ford Foundation awarded him a $10,000 grant. His critical success as a filmmaker prompted Conner to resist being identified primarily with filmmaking, just as he had earlier rejected being associated with “Funk” art and assemblage. In response to the grant, he made LEADER (1964), a film using only film leader, the frames that count down before the film begins. Commenting on his film, Conner remarked that he intended it “to ruin my reputation as a filmmaker.” LA