Cosmic Ray (film)

With both found footage and original material, it features images of countdown leader, a nude woman dancing, a Mickey Mouse cartoon, and military exercises.

[2] This leads to a passage in which Pewther appears holding a skull and painter Joan Brown sits stationary wearing different types of headgear.

He filmed local artist Beth Pewther dancing and painter Joan Brown wearing various costumes.

[5] Conner's highly kinetic approach to the handheld camera led to images that were often out of focus or streaked from loss of registration.

[4] Discussing the connection between the music and image, he explained, "I felt that I was, in a way, presenting the eyes for Ray Charles, who is a blind musician…I was supplying his vision.

[5][10] Conner's editing made use of layered superimpositions and abraded the film strip using punch holes.

[11] Critics P. Adams Sitney and R. Bruce Elder draw parallels between the structure of Cosmic Ray and that of a sexual encounter, with the Mickey Mouse sequence serving as the climax.

And that process was being twisted and turned around into alienation, distancing between people so that you couldn't understand them at all.The mushroom cloud is a recurring image in Conner's work, also appearing in A Movie and Crossroads.

[19] Curator John Coplans arranged a show at California College of Arts and Crafts later that year but had difficulty finding a museum or theatre to screen it.

[22] Chick Strand recalled Canyon's first screening of it, at the Berkeley YMCA, "The audience would not let us stop showing it.

"[24] In a review for The New York Times, Brian O'Doherty described it as "a Pop art masterpiece, with a sophistication of means, a control of ambiguous effects and expressive intent far removed from surrealism.