From: Jeff Kreines (email suppressed)
Date: Mon Oct 17 2005 - 18:55:24 PDT
I believe he was often referred to (perhaps on the poster for one of
his films) as "Humble Ben Van Meter."
On Oct 17, 2005, at 7:58 PM, Mark Toscano wrote:
> Just some info to share -
>
> Ben Van Meter was a Bay Area filmer who was also one
> of the co-founders of Canyon Cinema as a distributor,
> along with Nelson, Conner, et al. I believe he's
> originally from Oklahoma City, and was born in 1941.
>
> A few of his films were kinda big in the scene during
> this time, particularly Olds-Mo-Bile, The Poon-Tang
> Trilogy, Some Don't, SF Trips Festival, and
> Colorfilm... Of his films, I've only seen Some Don't.
> They've been out of distribution for decades, pretty
> much.
>
> I believe he did a lot of light shows, too. His
> filmography is somewhat mysterious, though, and he got
> outta the scene in the mid-to-late '70s for various
> reasons. One of the reasons apparently was his
> then-disgust at the direction the Canyon Cinemanews
> had gone in, feeling that the dues filmmakers paid
> didn't justify what he saw at the time as a rag of a
> newsletter. In an infamous letter pulling out of
> Canyon and the whole scene, he made the comment
> (quoting from memory, not verbatim) "what will be
> featured in the next issue of the Cinemanews? A
> centerfold picture of Brakhage's asshole?"
>
> Ben is still alive and apparently well, living way up
> north in CA, near the Oregon border. He recently
> scripted a play called Lost River, which has been
> performed a number of times in the northwest, I think.
>
> Just found his site, with some more info for the
> curious:
>
> http://www.aliengold.com/aboutauthor.html
>
> hope this info helps...
>
> mark t
>
>
> --- Andy Ditzler <email suppressed> wrote:
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Re: hip, hip, hippie goodbyeFor what it's worth, the
> only thing I know about Ben van Meter is that,
> according to several books on Kenneth Anger, van Meter
> shot the footage of Anger performing a ritual at the
> Straight Theater ca. 1967, which was subsequently used
> in Invocation of My Demon Brother.
>
> Andy Ditzler
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: jennifer fieber
> Sent: Oct 17, 2005 2:19 PM
> To: email suppressed
> Subject: Re: hip, hip, hippie goodbye
>
> On 10/17/05 3:38 AM, "zeno" <email suppressed> wrote:
>
> As odd as it might seem, Ben's homepage is
> www.aliengold.com
>
> Zeno
>
> A little while back I wrote one of the creators of
> Great God Pan magazine, concerned with “all things
> Californian”. (Just a little plug for their great
> magazine (www. greatgodpan.com)) After figuring out I
> worked at Anthology, Eric Bluhm there started asking
> me questions about experimental filmmakers he had
> heard of but hadn’t seen. He stumped me with Van
> Meter whom I’d never heard of.
>
> Good to have more information. Too bad I can’t see
> the films.
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at
> <email suppressed>.
>
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________For
> info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at
> <email suppressed>.
>
>
>
>
>
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> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
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__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.