[Frameworks] Robert Nelson

Tue Jan 10 19:53:28 CST 2012

That is sad. I am so sad to hear of this.  What a loss. He was  
certainly an inspiration and an enormous presence in the scene back  
when I first got into film mid 60s in the Bay Area. I was there when  
these films came out, he would be at the screenings....oh the memories.
Myron Ort

On Jan 10, 2012, at 5:27 PM, Mark Toscano wrote:

> Can't really express at all how very sad I am to report that Robert  
> Nelson has died.  He was 81.  He had been diagnosed with terminal  
> cancer about a year ago, and had decided to not receive treatment,  
> to go out in his own way, as he could only do, as Chick Strand had  
> decided to do before him.
>
> All things considered, Bob was doing pretty well all year,  
> actually.  He had moments, sometimes days, of fatigue and feeling  
> kind of lousy, but had plenty of good days too.  I last spoke to  
> him about a week ago and we talked about meeting up soon.  He  
> sounded great, and was as sharp as ever.  So when I got the call  
> from Wiley today, the news was a bit of a shock to me, as Bob had  
> still seemed so vital and alive a week before.
>
> He hadn’t been taking any medication or treatment beyond the herbal  
> kind, and had continued to live on his own in the mountains in the  
> small house he built in gorgeous Mendocino County.  An inimitably  
> homespun and offhand philosopher, he would say things to me like,  
> “what the hell, I’ve had a good run.”  I made him some CDs to check  
> out a few months ago, and after he’d listened to and enjoyed them a  
> few times he unexpectedly sent them back, saying “they were really  
> good, I just don’t want to accumulate any more shit.”
>
> Bob has easily been one of the most important people in my life, a  
> massive source of influence, inspiration, support, friendship, and  
> good company for the past ten years.  His films are still huge for  
> me. and will be til I die.
>
> I sought him out in 2001 when I worked at Canyon Cinema.  I had  
> seen Bleu Shut and Hot Leatherette, and they had both knocked me  
> out, especially Bleu Shut.  At the time, my friend Martha was a  
> preservationist at the Academy Film Archive in L.A., and she and I  
> concocted a proposal for Bob and the Academy to start getting his  
> filmography preserved, film by film.  After he answered my initial  
> letter, Bob and I had exchanged a few more letters (he was a great  
> letter-writer) without yet meeting.  One day without warning, he  
> just strolled into the Canyon office on Third.  Dominic hadn’t seen  
> him in a few years at least, and said, almost in shock, “…Well hi,  
> Bob!”  Bob and I met, had lunch and talked about the archiving  
> thing, and a deal was hatched.  He was still very skeptical about  
> the value of his work and his own desire for people to even see the  
> films, but a project at the Academy was worked out, and Martha  
> preserved The Off-Handed Jape and Deep Westurn right away, with Bob  
> still not really wanting the films to see the light of day.  I took  
> over when I was hired to replace her in ’03, when she left to work  
> in Tanzania, and have worked on a bunch of ‘em since then.
>
> Over the years, a certain visceral block about his films, a desire  
> to destroy many of them or at least keep them withdrawn from view,  
> loosened and relented, in some cases title by title.  I worked on  
> him to do screenings, and though he wouldn’t initially appear in  
> person, he approved the occasional showing of individual films  
> starting in late 2003.  In 2004, with Craig Baldwin’s help, we were  
> able to do a 3-day retrospective at Other Cinema, with Bob in  
> person, which marked a big change in his attitude about the work.   
> The voluminous positive feedback from audiences I was able to pass  
> on encouraged him more and more to lighten up about it all.  He  
> started making appearances, including some brilliant ones at  
> Oberhausen, Vienna, and elsewhere.  He even started working on  
> several new films (left uncompleted) in 2007 or so, one of which  
> was a collaboration we discussed at length, and which I hope I can  
> actually complete now.
>
> I was always thrilled to pass word along to him about how much one  
> or more of his films had influenced someone I’d met, because by the  
> 1990s, he had gotten really apathetic about a lot of them.  But the  
> interest in his films over the past ten years was something he  
> really enjoyed, and he came around to re-embracing many of his own  
> films.  (Some of them remained to him nausea-inducing failures,  
> though.  Mention What Do You Talk About? or The Beard, and he would  
> groan.)  He was thrilled his work still resonated with people, or  
> just made them laugh.  Sometimes younger filmmakers would track him  
> down and send him their work, and he always looked at it with a  
> fresh, critical gaze, responding with his genuine and thoughtful  
> reactions, which sometimes led to extended correspondences.
>
> I always found him incredibly open, curious, wise, attentive,  
> interested.  He was just so fucking great to hang out with.  How  
> many people over 30 (let alone 80)  still approach life,  
> conversation, questions, EVERYTHING, with a completely open,  
> curious mind, capable of considering and reconsidering, changing,  
> reorienting…?  Even in screening Q&As, when asked a question about  
> Bleu Shut or Blondino that he’d probably been asked dozens of times  
> before, he would seriously consider the question and try to give a  
> unique, thoughtful answer.  He was so full of consideration and  
> wisdom, always gave me (and others) great advice.
>
> So many filmmakers are filmmakers in some way or other because of  
> Bob (among them Peter Hutton, Fred Worden, Chris Langdon, Curt  
> McDowell, Mike Henderson, numerous others).  Peter once told me  
> that when he saw Bob’s films for the first time, his reaction was  
> “wait, you can make movies like that?”, and started making films  
> himself.  David Wilson (of Museum of Jurassic Technology fame) was  
> deeply inspired by The Awful Backlash, and wasn’t the only one to  
> have that reaction.  Bob named the classic film Near the Big  
> Chakra, with his gift for evocative titles.  Bob could also be  
> burtally honest about someone’s work, because he felt a friend was  
> due that honesty and respect, even if it cost him a few  
> friendships.  Bob was the person I was most nervous and yet most  
> eager to show my own films, and his positive, thoughtful reactions  
> meant something immeasurable to me, as did the criticism of one  
> film of mine he thought was a stinker.
>
> When an artist dies, the inevitable retrospectives follow.  But  
> that’s OK.  Bob was happy to have his work rediscovered, and  
> thrilled that anybody still found it entertaining, funny,  
> enlightening, whatever.  I already miss him deeply, but am excited  
> that his films (and his spirit, a very palpable, inextricable part  
> of them) are, and will continue to be, very much with us.
>
> If anyone would like to send any thoughts, reminiscences,  
> testimonials, etc. about Bob or his work to me, I’d be happy to  
> share them with his family and friends.
>
> I'm posting this text up at my blog too, with some photos of Bob  
> and images from his films:
> http://preservationinsanity.blogspot.com/
>
> All the best,
>
> Mark Toscano
>
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