Will Hindle

(December 29, 1929 – April 7, 1987)

PASTORALE D’ÉTÉ (1958)
16mm, bw & color, sound, 9m

NON CATHOLICAM (1958/63)
16mm, bw, sound, 10m
In 1958, Will Hindle shot, edited, and printed a film called Catholicam, which does not seem to have been circulated. He returned to this film in 1963, re-edited and augmented it with additional material, and released it as Non Catholicam.

29: “MERCI, MERCI” (1966)
16mm, bw, sound, 30m

FFFTCM (1967)
16mm, color, sound, 5m

CHINESE FIREDRILL (1968)
16mm, color, sound, 25m

BILLABONG (1968)
16mm, bw & color, sound, 9m

WATERSMITH (1969)
16mm, color, sound, 32m

SAINT FLOURNOY LOBOS-LOGOS AND THE EASTERN EUROPE FETUS TAXING JAPAN BRIDES IN WEST COAST PLACES SUCKING ALABAMA AIR (1970)
16mm, bw & color, sound, 12m

LATER THAT SAME NIGHT (1971)
16mm, color, sound, 10m

PASTEUR³ (1976)
16mm, color, sound, 23m

TREKKERRIFF (1985)
16mm, color, sound, 8.5m
This film was initially printed with a soundtrack consisting of an original music composition (composer TBD). Will didn’t end up liking this version of the film (which only seems to exist in a single print) and created an entirely different original soundtrack made up of an elaborate collage of radio recordings and other material. Although he died before he could place this film into distribution, this second soundtrack version should be considered his preferred version.
“Hindle had not completed a film in many, many years. It bothered him. It taunted him. He had plenty left to say… but others had convinced him that his ‘time’ had come and gone. He held fast to his idealism and his humanity. I can’t say the same for many who surrounded him. A certain kind of cruel competition requires the ones who were once on top be turned to dust. Never mind respect. Never mind who taught you. Never mind loyalty or gestures that might assist in the longevity of an artistic force that made a tremendous and indefatigable contribution. Will was discouraged. His health had taken a huge hit. He needed to make a film as a matter of his own self-respect.
“We fell into a pattern of going out to shoot for his film Trekkerriff with regularity… not every week… but with frequency that made it seem like he was making progress. In addition, we took regular trips to the studio in Alabama where a ‘roadside’ was literally constructed in the huge room that was his shooting space. But, he always seemed to get distracted by troubles at school… troubles with family (which in his case was exclusively his mother)… complications with friends. He qualified for a sabbatical and I urged him to take some time for himself to complete this work in a way that was satisfying to him. He got out his typewriter… known to all of his friends who received voluminous letters from him written on it… because it only typed CAPS. He applied for his creative time and got it.
“Trekkerriff got made. Not to Will’s satisfaction and even with its first printing he refused to show it publically [sic]. Two prints of the film exist from that time… each with a different sound track. He had actually planned on re-cutting some of the images… he even spoke of shooting some additional material.
“I made my almost daily call to Will on April 7th [1987]… a strange voice answered the phone. Will had died that morning in the basement parking garage of his doctor’s office.
…
“As I think back to that ‘set’ of the road for Trekkerriff in Hindle’s studio… to his last film that was an illustration of the things that have been abandoned along the side of the road… a contemplation of those who looked down that road, wondering ‘now what?’ I can only be amazed that I had not made such obvious connections years ago. I think back to those hours sitting beneath underpasses with him trying to get perfect graphic compositions through the viewfinder of his Bolex. He was trying to capture change… flow… ‘points after which ‘we’ would never be the same.’ Any sadness a viewer finds in this film is a result of their own attitude toward clinging to times past… the debris on the side of the road is inevitable… it was evidence of a life lived. A carefully lived life devours experience… and makes it a part of itself. There is no loss.” (Michele Fleming)

COMMERCIAL WORK

From 1961-62 (for certain, but possibly a longer span of time), Will Hindle produced short 16mm documentary segments for the Westinghouse-sponsored television program PM West in San Francisco. Apparently the original broadcast tape masters for these programs are long-lost, but some elements survive in Hindle’s film collection at the Academy Film Archive, including segments with the following names/topics notated by him:

-RUSSIA: AN ARTIST REPORT / EARL THOLLANDER
-BOCCE BALL SHOW [dated July 6, 1961]
-JAPANESE GARDENS
-GUMPS
-BLACK CHURCH
-EXPERIMENT IN TERROR
-STREET FAIR

In past bios, Hindle also referenced filming the 1960 Winter Olympics (his Olympics access badge still exists in his paper files), as well as accompanying Sterling Hayden on his schooner, Wanderer, to film one or more of its voyages, though I haven’t found any other information about either of these jobs outside of his own collection and words.