Education

B.A. (McMaster); B.A.A. (Ryerson); M.A. (Toronto)

Biography

R. Bruce Elder is a filmmaker, critic, and teacher of Film Studies at Ryerson Polytechnic University. He is considered as one of Canada's foremost avant-garde filmmakers. Retrospectives of Prof. Elder's work have been mounted by The Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), the Cinematheque Quebecoise (Montreal), Senzatitolo (Trento, Italy) and Anthology Film Archives (New York) and he has exhibitions at New York's Museum of Modern Art, Los Angeles Film Forum, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, Kino Arsenal in Berlin, and many other centres. Prof. Elder also has a background in applied mathematics and computer science, and has a strong interest in digital image processing; he has developed computer applications for applying signal processing algorithms in his filmmaking. Besides teaching at Ryerson and making his own films, Bruce Elder has been a guest lecturer at institutions across the continent and in Europe. He has written books and articles on film, music, poetry and the visual arts. He has curated a number of film festivals and exhibitions and been involved with organizations such as the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Center, the Film Studies Association of Canada and The Funnel Experimental Film Theatre.

Research Interest

History and theory of avant-garde; Canadian cultural studies; modernisms and modernity; avant-garde movements in art and literature of the twentieth century.

Selected Publications

• The Films of Stan Brakhage in the American Tradition of Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein and Charles Olson. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1998.
  
  
• A Body of Vision: The Image of the Body in Recent Film and Poetry. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1997.
  
  
• Image and Identity: Reflections on Canadian Film and Culture. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1989.
  
  
• The Body in Film. Toronto : Art Gallery of Ontario, 1989.
  

Films

• The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1979) 55 min 16mm
  
• Azure Serene (1992) 95 min 16mm
  
• Barbara Is a Vision of Loveliness (1976) 8 min 16mm
  
• The Book of All the Dead (1975-1994) 16mm
  
• Breath/Light/Birth (1975) 6 min.
  
• The Book of Praise: A Man Whose Life Was Full of Woe Has Been Surprised by Joy (1997) 120 min 16mm
  
• Burying the Dead: Into the Light (1993) 90 min 16mm
  
• Consolations (Love Is an Art of Time) (1988) 16mm
  
• Et Resurrectus Est (1994) 135 min 16mm
  
• Exultations: In Light of the Great Giving (1993) 90 min 16mm
  
• Flesh Angels (1990) 110 min 16mm
  
• 1857 (Fool's Gold) (1981) 25 min 16mm
  
• Illuminated Texts (1982) 176 min 16mm
  
• Lamentations: A Monument to the Dead World; Part One, The Dream of the Last Historian (1985) 3 hrs 15 min 16mm
  
• Lamentations: A Monument to the Dead World; Part Two, The Sublime Calculation (1985) 4 hrs 16mm
  
• Look! We Have Come Through! (1978) 12 min 16mm
  
• Newton and Me (1990) 110 min 16mm
  
• Permutations and Combinations (1976) 8 min 16mm
  
• She Is Away (1975) 13.5 min 16mm
  
• Sweet Love Remembered (1981) 14 min 16mm
  
• Trace (1980) 1 min 16mm