Scott Bartlett (1943 – September 29, 1990 in
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
, CA) was one of the premiere abstract/experimental cinematic artists of the late 1960s and the 1970s. His acclaimed works, such as ''Off/On'' and ''Moon 1969'', were greatly admired by many movie directors, including
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American filmmaker and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Stanley Kubrick filmography, his films were nearly all adaptations of novels or sho ...
,
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola ( ; born April 7, 1939) is an American filmmaker. He is considered one of the leading figures of the New Hollywood and one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. List of awards and nominations received by Francis Ford Coppo ...
and
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker and philanthropist. He created the ''Star Wars'' and ''Indiana Jones'' franchises and founded Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. He served as chairman ...
.
His notable abstract movies and visual avant-garde motion pictures includes ''Serpent'', ''Medina'', ''Metanomen'', ''Lovemaking'', and the poignant interior documentary ''1970''.
[The films of Scott Bartlett (VHS tape, 1987) - WorldCat.org](_blank)
/ref> His 1967-1972 experiment ''OffOn
''OffOn'' is an experimental film created by Scott Bartlett made and released in 1968.
Summary
It is most notable for being one of the first examples in which film and video technologies were combined. The nine-minute film combines a number of v ...
'', shot on 16mm, was groundbreaking for its use of new video imagery technologies.
Late career
His science fiction epic feature ''Interface'' was in pre-production for many years, having completed a pre-visualization version starring a then unknown William Hurt
William McChord Hurt (March 20, 1950 – March 13, 2022) was an American actor. For his performances on stage and screen, he received various awards including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and a Cannes Film Festival Award for B ...
.Francis Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola ( ; born April 7, 1939) is an American filmmaker. He is considered one of the leading figures of the New Hollywood and one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. Coppola is the recipient of five Academy Awards, a BAFTA Aw ...
's Zoetrope Studios
American Zoetrope (also known as Omni Zoetrope from 1977 to 1980 and Zoetrope Studios from 1980 until 1991) is a privately run American film production company, centered in San Francisco, California and founded by Francis Ford Coppola and Georg ...
. He continued to work in various artistic endeavors and was regularly consulted by special effects crews for large Hollywood movies including ''Altered States
''Altered States'' is a 1980 American science fiction horror film directed by Ken Russell, and adapted by playwright and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky from his 1978 novel of the same name. The novel and the film are based in part on John C. Li ...
'', and George Lucas
George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker and philanthropist. He created the ''Star Wars'' and ''Indiana Jones'' franchises and founded Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. He served as chairman ...
hired him to create the "montage design" for the sequel ''More American Graffiti
''More American Graffiti'' is a 1979 American coming-of-age comedy film written and directed by Bill L. Norton, produced by Howard Kazanjian. The film, shot in multiple aspect ratios for comedic and dramatic emphasis, is the sequel to the 1973 ...
''.[SCOTT BARTLETT: THE MEANING OF THE UNIVERSE - Spectacle Theater](_blank)
/ref>
Personal life
He graduated from the Illinois Institute of Technology
The Illinois Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Illinois Tech and IIT, is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the m ...
. Scott Bartlett was married to filmmaker Freude Bartlett with whom he had a son, Adam. They were divorced. He died of complications from a kidney and liver transplant.
Selected filmography
*''Metanomen'' (1966)
*''OffOn'' (1968) - National Film Registry
The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation (library and archival science), preservation, each selected for its cultural, historical, and aestheti ...
inductee
* ''A Trip to the Moon'' (1968), black and white, 33 minutes
*''Moon 1969'' (1969),
/ref>
References
*Youngblood, Gene. Expanded Cinema. E. P. Dutton & Co., New York 1973,
*Michael Goodwin and Naomi Wise, On the Edge: The Life and Times of Francis Coppola. William Morrow & Co; 1st edition (November 1989)
External links
*
on UbuWeb
UbuWeb is a "a pirate shadow library consisting of hundreds of thousands of freely downloadable avant-garde artifacts." It offers visual, concrete and sound poetry, expanding to include film and sound art mp3 archives. The site was created by ...
OffOn (1968)
at the National Film Preservation Foundation
The National Film Preservation Foundation (NFPF) is an independent, nonprofit organization created by the U.S. Congress to help save America's film heritage. Growing from a national planning effort led by the Library of Congress, the NFPF began o ...
Films of Scott Bartlett
at The Film-Makers' Cooperative
The Film-Makers' Cooperative (a.k.a. The New American Cinema Group, Inc.) is an artist-run, non-profit organization founded in 1961 in New York City by Jonas Mekas, Andy Warhol, Shirley Clarke, Stan Brakhage, Jack Smith (film director), Jack Smit ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bartlett, Scott
American experimental filmmakers
1943 births
1990 deaths
Film directors from California
American video artists