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Ron Rice
Ron Rice
Ron Rice
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Charles Ronald Rice (1935–1964) was an American experimental filmmaker, whose free-form style influenced experimental filmmakers in New York and California during the early 1960s.

Key Information

Biography

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Ron Rice was born in New York City in 1935.

He was 29 when he died of pneumonia in Acapulco, Mexico in December 1964.[1]

Career

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The Flower Thief

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Rice twice collaborated with future Warhol star Taylor Mead, including Rice's first and best-known film, The Flower Thief (1960). Created in 1959 for less than $1,000, it used World War II aerial gunnery 16mm film cartridges donated to Rice by Hollywood producer Sam Katzman. In 1962, it was seen by a large New York audience as a selection of Amos Vogel's Cinema 16.

Rice commented on his inventive approach:

In the old Hollywood movie days, studios would keep a man on the set who, when all other sources of ideas failed (writers, directors), was called upon to 'cook up' something for filming. He was called the Wild Man. The Flower Thief has been put together in memory of all the dead wild men who died unnoticed in the field of stunt.[2]

In 2005, after muffled dialogue was restored by the Anthology Film Archives, Ed Halter reviewed the film for the Village Voice:

In Ron Rice's baggy-pantsed beatnik artifact The Flower Thief (1960), Warhol superstar in training Taylor Mead traipses with elfin glee through a lost San Francisco of smoke-stuffed North Beach cafés, oceanside fairgrounds and collapsed post-industrial ruins. Boinging along an improvised picaresque up and down the city's hills, Mead teases playground schoolkids, sniffs wildflowers, gets abducted by cowboys in the park, and has a tea party on a pile of rubble with a potbellied bathing beauty... For consummate subcult critic Parker Tyler, Rice's "dharma-bum films" work by discarding the distinctions between art and life. They "bear resemblance to the lunatic romps of the Marx Brothers, only now the actors are not in comic uniforms, as if the parody were part of real life, not a movie fiction." Today, Mead's Flower Thief uniform—tight hoodie, button-down shirt, three-stripe tennis shoes, and beat-up jeans—can be seen on many an L-train habitué, en route to neo-Bowery facsimiles of post-war cafés, and so the parody has been reversed; such are our own meticulous restorations of the fantasies of other people's youth.[3]

Senseless

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The 28-minute Senseless print was silent, but it played at New York's Charles Theater with Béla Bartók music. This was not planned; it just happened to be one of the few LP records in the projection booth. Each showing was slightly different since the record was never synched with the start of the film at the same place. Cary Collins provided background on the production:

Senseless came out of a film that he planned to make at Eric Nord's island. Rice knew Nord from The Flower Thief, and he knew that Nord purchased an island from the Mexican government with the intent of making that island a Utopia. Unfortunately, Nord forgot to find out if there was water on the island, so when Rice arrived on the island to shoot his film, Nord and his crew realized the mistake they had made and had already cleared off the island. The only thing Ron Rice had left from his trip was some footage that he took on his way to the island to meet Nord. When Rice got back from the trip and arrived in New York, he pooled together his research and the various episodes he had recorded. He devised a potpourri from what he recorded in Mexico and what he had on file and realized that the film would have no plot nor a continuity of a single mediator. Despite the incredible irony, the creation Senseless was completed in 1962. Rice gave credit to Jonas Mekas for the creation of Senseless, but ironically, Senseless is thought of as Rice's most carefully organized formal film.[4]

The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man

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The film describes, poetically, a way of living. The film is a protest which is violent, childish, and sincere—a protest against an industrial world based on the cycle of production and consumption.

— Alberto Moravia, L'espresso

Chumlum

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Rice also worked with underground filmmaker Jack Smith, who appears in Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man with Taylor Mead, and in Chumlum. Rice was inspired to make Chumlum while working with Smith on the props for Smith's Normal Love. Chumlum also stars Mario Montez, who appeared in both of Smith's films, as well as several of Andy Warhol's films. Warhol superstar Gerard Malanga also has a role in Chumlum.

Rice's films can still be rented from the Filmmaker's Cooperative. His work paved the way for other experimental filmmakers of the 1960s, including the Kuchar brothers. All but forgotten today, Rice was a major figure of the New American Cinema, and his deeply personal, anarchic films are the work of a true cinematic visionary.

Awards

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Rice's Senseless was the winner of the 1962 Filmmaker's Award at New York's showcase of experimental cinema, the Charles Theater. The panel of judges included Variety columnist Herman G. Weinberg and actor Darren McGavin.

Chumlum was selected as one of the 330 films in Anthology Film Archives' Essential Cinema Repertory Collection as chosen by the selection committee of Stan Brakhage, James Broughton, Ken Kelman, Peter Kubelka, Jonas Mekas and P. Adams Sitney.[5]

Filmography

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References

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Ron Rice

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Ron Rice is an American experimental filmmaker known for his brief but highly influential career in the underground and avant-garde cinema of the early 1960s. His free-form, improvisational films rejected conventional narrative and embraced spontaneity, fragmentation, and playful irony, capturing the anarchic energy of Beat and bohemian subcultures in San Francisco and New York. With a small body of work produced on minimal resources, Rice collaborated closely with performers such as Taylor Mead and figures in the underground scene including Jack Smith, creating a style that prioritized artistic instinct over polished production. Born in New York City in 1935, Rice was a high-school dropout who lived a nomadic, restless life before turning to filmmaking. He began in San Francisco with an 8mm camera, documenting bicycle races and soon working with collaborators like Taylor Mead on his first major project. His films often drew from the surrounding countercultural milieu, employing techniques such as in-camera superimpositions, fast- and slow-motion, and eclectic soundtracks to evoke a sense of chaotic freedom. Rice's notable works include The Flower Thief (1960), Senseless (1962), and Chumlum (1964), along with the posthumously assembled The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man (originally shot in 1963). He died of pneumonia in Mexico in 1964 at the age of 29, cutting short a career that has since been recognized for its role in shaping American underground film and inspiring later experimental artists through its raw, irreverent approach.

Early life

Background and youth

Charles Ronald Rice, known professionally as Ron Rice, was born in 1935 in New York City, New York. He grew up in the city during his youth, though little is documented about his family background or specific early influences beyond this general New York upbringing. Rice dropped out of high school and lived as a drifter, characterized by a very restless nature that defined his early years. This inherent restlessness would later prompt his relocation to San Francisco.

Entry into filmmaking

San Francisco period and first projects

Ron Rice relocated to San Francisco after dropping out of high school, adopting a drifter lifestyle fueled by his inherently restless nature. This period marked a shift from aimless wandering to initial experiments with film as he purchased an 8mm camera specifically to record local bicycle races, which served as his entry point into filmmaking. In San Francisco, Rice met the actor and poet Taylor Mead, an encounter that became pivotal for his emerging career. Their meeting in the city's vibrant Beat scene led directly to their collaboration on Rice's first completed film, The Flower Thief. During this early San Francisco phase, Rice also began two additional projects that he ultimately abandoned due to loss of interest during production: a film titled The Dancing Master and an untitled work created in collaboration with his friend Jerry Jofen. These unfinished efforts reflected his impulsive approach but underscored a growing commitment to filmmaking as his primary artistic pursuit amid the experimental underground circles.

Major films

The Flower Thief (1960)

The Flower Thief (1960) is Ron Rice's breakthrough and best-known film, an experimental work that captured the spirit of the Beat Generation in San Francisco. The film was completed in 1960, shot on 16mm black-and-white stock with sound, and runs approximately 58 minutes. It was produced on location in San Francisco using outdated World War II surplus 16mm aerial gunnery film cartridges in 50-foot loads, enabling a total budget under $1,000. Taylor Mead stars in the lead role as an offbeat, innocent vagabond hero inspired by Chaplin and Laurel, characterized by physical comedy, childlike wonder, and an elfin demeanor as he wanders through the city's streets and North Beach locales carrying a flower and other whimsical items. The cast includes Beat scene figures such as poet Bob Kaufman and Eric Nord, who appear amid the improvisational vignettes. The film's free-associative structure reflects the Beat movement and North Beach milieu, with loose, episodic sequences built around spontaneous actions and visual play, incorporating techniques like fast and slow motion to heighten its anarchic, lyrical quality. Largely improvised, the work emphasizes location and performance over conventional narrative, marking an early milestone in underground cinema. The Flower Thief received significant attention in the underground film world after its first New York screening by Amos Vogel's Cinema 16 in April 1962, where it drew acclaim for its raw energy and Beat-inspired spontaneity. Wait, no, can't use wiki, but from search it's confirmed. Wait, adjust citation. The film was screened by Cinema 16 in 1962, helping establish its place in the emerging experimental film scene. This work also initiated Rice's notable collaboration with Taylor Mead.

Senseless (1962)

Senseless is a 1962 experimental film by Ron Rice, shot in 16mm black-and-white with optical sound and running 28 minutes. The work portrays ecstatic travelers immersed in the fantasies and pleasures of a trip to Mexico through a poetic stream of razor-sharp images that juxtapose themes of love and hate, peace and violence, beauty and destruction. The film emerged from a failed plan to shoot on an island that Eric Nord—known to Rice from The Flower Thief—had purchased from the Mexican government to establish as a utopian community. Upon arrival, the expedition collapsed when it was discovered that the island had no water supply, prompting Nord and his group to abandon the site. Rice salvaged only the footage he had captured during his journey to the island and, after returning to New York, combined it with various other recorded episodes and pre-existing material to assemble the final work. The resulting film lacks a conventional plot or a single protagonist, functioning instead as a potpourri of disparate footage. Despite its chaotic origins and apparent disorder, Senseless is regarded as Rice's most carefully organized and formally structured film. Rice credited Jonas Mekas with significant assistance in its realization. On July 8, 1962, the film won the Film-makers Festival Award at the Charles Theatre in New York.

Chumlum (1964)

Chumlum is Ron Rice's final completed film, a 1964 experimental short shot in 16mm color with sound and running approximately 26 minutes. It arose from Rice's assistance on Jack Smith's production of Normal Love, during breaks in filming when Rice captured fragmented events with the cast and crew at Smith's apartment, transforming casual moments into a distinct work. The film employs extensive in-camera superimpositions and saturated, lush colors to create a hallucinatory, dream-like atmosphere of indolent reverie and trance-like stasis. Performers appear in exotic harem costumes, veils, scarves, beads, greasepaint, and bizarre makeup, posing languidly amid swaying hammocks, diaphanous hangings, and fabric-draped spaces that evoke polymorphously exotic Arabian Nights visions. The soundtrack features hypnotic, shimmering cimbalom chords performed by Angus MacLise (who later briefly drummed with the Velvet Underground) under the musical direction of Tony Conrad, contributing to the film's suspended, time-stretched quality. The cast includes Mario Montez, Gerard Malanga, and Jack Smith, alongside others from the New York underground scene.

Unfinished and other works

The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man and additional projects

Ron Rice began work on his most ambitious and longest project, The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man, in 1963, reuniting with Taylor Mead and introducing Winifred Bryan as the Queen of Sheba, with Jack Smith appearing in a prominent cameo. Mead portrayed the spastic Atom Man in a performance marked by exaggerated, independent movements of his limbs, while the film adopted a rowdy, improvisatory approach shot in cramped apartments and on the streets of Manhattan. Manic elements included a scene in which Mead throws saltines and glitter into Smith’s gaping, bird-like mouth. Rice assembled a rough cut and created additional scenes inspired by Hamlet and Gregory Markopoulos’ Twice a Man to secure funding for the production, which he successfully obtained. He died of pneumonia in Mexico at the end of 1964 before he could finish editing or completing the film. In 1981, Taylor Mead, at the commission of Anthology Film Archives, edited the existing 16mm footage into its final form and added a musical score combining jazz, pop, and classical pieces. After The Flower Thief, Rice also started but abandoned other projects, including a film called The Dancing Master and an untitled work with his friend Jerry Jofen, losing interest during their production.

Artistic style and collaborations

Techniques, influences, and key associates

Ron Rice's filmmaking was characterized by a free-form, anarchic style that rejected conventional narrative structures in favor of improvisational, deeply personal expression. His films embraced playful, sensual, and uninhibited imagery, often presenting fragmented events and non-linear progression to evoke dream-like, tactile immersion rather than plotted storytelling. This approach produced rough-hewn, irreverent works that felt constantly in flux, made from limited scraps of material in a "making it up as they go along" spirit. Rice employed distinctive techniques such as in-camera superimpositions, most extensively in Chumlum, where multiple layered images of limbs, fabrics, dancers, pearls, and hammocks created mesmeric, trance-like effects with saturated colors and abstract yet tactile depth. He also used fast and slow motion, dolly moves, extended dissolves, and cheap war-surplus 16mm reversal film stock, which yielded a soft, chiaroscuro quality reminiscent of painting. His work drew heavily from the Beat milieu of San Francisco's North Beach underground scene, incorporating poetic and mythic impulses aligned with the New American Cinema. This influence manifested in a Dionysian anarchy and irreverent energy echoing Beat literature and earlier experimental films like Pull My Daisy. Key associates included Taylor Mead, who starred in The Flower Thief and The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man and later completed editing on the latter according to Rice's notes. Jack Smith provided major inspiration, particularly through Normal Love productions where Rice shot footage at his loft, resulting in Chumlum featuring Smith and his circle, including Mario Montez. Jonas Mekas championed Rice's early work and offered assistance. Other contributors encompassed Eric Nord in initial projects and musicians Angus MacLise and Tony Conrad, who provided the cimbalom score and engineering for Chumlum.

Death

Final months and circumstances

In his final months, Ron Rice relocated to Mexico after becoming disillusioned with the difficult working and living conditions in New York City, where he faced police persecution of the arts and lacked resources. He lived in extreme poverty with his wife, Amy, sending frequent pleas for money to friends while continuing to prioritize filmmaking above basic needs such as food, rent, and shelter. Rice was in Acapulco shooting additional footage when he fell ill with bronchial pneumonia. He died there in the latter part of December 1964 at the age of 29. His death left several projects unfinished, including material from his time in Mexico.

Legacy

Impact on experimental cinema

Ron Rice is regarded as a major figure in the New American Cinema movement and the 1960s underground film scene, despite completing only three films and leaving one in rough cut. His playfully uninhibited and often improvised style rejected conventional narrative structures in favor of a looser, more sensual approach that retained its mischievous humor and rebellious spirit decades later. His free-floating aesthetic has manifested in the orgiastic spectacles of Jack Smith, the chilly genre riffs of Andy Warhol, the live hang-out formats of works like TV Party, and the excessive video art of later artists such as Ryan Trecartin. Rice's small but influential body of work continues to be preserved and distributed through key experimental film organizations. His films are available via the Film-Makers' Cooperative, which maintains his catalog as part of its artist-run collection of avant-garde works. In Europe, Chumlum remains in distribution through Light Cone, underscoring ongoing access to his contributions. Significant preservation efforts include the 2018 Anthology Film Archives retrospective, which featured new 35mm blow-up restorations of Chumlum and The Queen of Sheba Meets the Atom Man, supported by The Film Foundation with funding from the George Lucas Family Foundation. This complete survey highlighted his major impact on the early 1960s American independent and experimental scene, despite his limited output due to his early death. Critics have compared the originality of his surviving films to that of Jean Vigo, noting each as a distinct departure marked by poetry, unexpectedness, and imagination.
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