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James Broughton (b. 1913-1999) The Gardener of Eden, 1981, 149.1 mb (AVI) This Is It, 1971, 174.5 mb (AVI) "James Broughton's creation myth, THIS IS IT, places a 2-year-old Adam and a bright apple-red balloon in a backyard garden of Eden, and works a small miracle of the ordinary. And since that miracle is what his film is about, he achieves a kind of casual perfection in matching means and ends." - Robert Greenspun, The New York Times "It's simple, inspired, and ecstatic. To watch Broughton's film you need a certain silence, a certain descending to the more subtle, more fragile levels of your being - otherwise, the film and its content will not reach you, it will break to pieces. I figure this is the main reason why films of the stature and subtlety and ecstasy of THIS IS IT never reach the New York Film Festival screen." - Jonas Mekas, The Village Voice "A seminal film that promises to affect the course of film art for some time to come." - Hollis Frampton Awards: First Prize, Yale Film Festival, 1972; First Prize, Hawaii Int'l Film Festival, 1972; First Prize, Sinking Creek Film & Video Festival, 1972; First Prize, Kenyon Film Festival, 1972. High Kukus, 1973, 49.3 mb (AVI) "A visualization of the Zen dictum of 'sitting quietly, doing nothing,' HIGH KUKUS uses a single beautiful visual image while it delights with a poetic soundtrack composed of 14 gems of Broughton's wit and wonder." - Freude Bartlett "A High Kuku is, of course, a cuckoo haiku. In inventing this form James Broughton has concocted zany verses which are 'high' in the sense that they are often metaphysical and are keenly aware of the metacomedy of things.... In the contemplation of lofty themes most people are serious, though not always sincere. Broughton, however, is always sincere but hardly ever serious. Indeed, seriousness is a questionable virtue; it is gravity rather than levity, and it was that devout Catholic, G.K. Chesterton, who maintained that the angels fly because they take themselves lightly. And, in company with the angels, Broughton laughs with God rather than at him." - Alan Watts RESOURCES: Purchase these films from Canyon Cinema James Broughton: Wikipedia Entry This UbuWeb resource is presented in partnership with GreyLodge UbuWeb Film | UbuWeb PennSound | GreyLodge | Artmob | EPC | WFMU