ENDLESS SUMMER Filmmaker Bruce Brown Passes Away at 80
For those of you not familiar with documentary filmmaker Bruce Brown, he is the man who brought us the legendary surfing film The Endless Summer (1966) and it's sequel The Endless Summer 2 (1994). He made a few other documentaries as well, like On Any Sunday (1971), which was nominated for an Oscar. I loved those movies and I'm sad to report that Bruce Brown passed away this past Sunday. He was 80-years-old. These are his best known films and just a small part of the legacy that he left behind. According to his official website he died of natural causes.
Prior to 1964, the media saw surfers as rebellious thugs, and Hollywood made them out to be a bunch of idiots. Filmmaker Bruce Brown single- handedly changed that with The Endless Summer. It portrayed the wave as a kind of Holy Grail and surfers as knights on a quest. In one stroke, he replaced Hollywood’s buffoonery with the popular mythology that endures today.
The Endless Summer was Brown’s sixth surfing film in a career that started almost accidentally and proceeded according to the guerrilla template of the times — shoot all winter, edit in the spring, run your ass off all summer showing the damn thing (including doing your own live narration) in school auditoriums and small halls, then pack up for another winter on the road and do it all over again. With The Endless Summer, Brown broke that mold.
Having grown up in Southern California, I grew up at the beach. To this day when I find the time I head over to the beach to catch some waves and do a little surfing. I even have a big poster for The Endless Summer hanging up in my home signed by the artist. That's how much these films mean to me.
Brown was inducted into the Surfers’ Hall of Fame in 2009 and was awarded the first Surfing Heritage and Cultural Center Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014. In 2015, the Smithsonian Institute held an exhibit called “Wave of Innovation: Surfing and the Endless Summer.” Barry Haun, creative director for the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center, told the Los Angeles Daily News:
“I think he helped shape our culture. He gave us all that idealized lifestyle. It’s always summer. You go, ‘That’s what I want. I want it to always be warm and sunny and fun.’ I think that was the main thing, he made it look really fun.”
You can watch the trailers for Brown's three best known films below. Our thoughts and prayer go out to Brown's family and friends.
Bruce Brown, legendary filmmaker of The Endless Summer, inspired many to surf and follow their dreams pic.twitter.com/njRmY9Qzc9
— World Surf League (@wsl) December 11, 2017