Bruce Baillie’s lyrical portrait of an Oakland school for emotionally disturbed children regards the world of the classroom with open curiosity. His camera thrives on the unpredictable movement of students and fog; every new composition is a new window unto the school space. This impressionistic style realizes many small epiphanies of play and private reverie. A soundtrack of bird-song and cello only deepens the quietude. Though filmed in a style akin to cinéma-verité, “Here I Am” flows as a poem.
Bruce Baillie
Bruce Baillie (Aberdeen, SD, USA, 1931) served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War and studied filmmaking at the London School of Film Technique. He moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1950s, becoming soon a guiding light of the New American Cinema. He founded Canyon Cinema in 1961, bringing to light underground authors of the time, and transforming it into a distribution company in 1967. He also founded, along with fellow filmmaker Chick Strand, The San Francisco Cinematheque. His film Castro Street (1966) was selected in 1992 for preservation in the United States' National Film Registry.
