The Legacy of Bruce Brown Lives on With His Son Dana Brown
When we go to sleep, we are never fully certain of what will greet us beyond our closed eyelids and the inevitable darkness it brings – whether death or dreams. But of this we are certain, “As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well-used brings happy death.”
Leonardo Da Vinci here speaks of the celebration of one’s life and the joy one contributes to the world as one was still living, challenging us to focus on the impact one has had in the world with one’s work.
With this, we celebrate the life of one American documentary film director, Bruce Brown, who died in his sleep just yesterday at the age of 80, according to a statement made by his family. Like it said on his official website, the era of his movies might have come to an end, but his legacy lives on with all of whom continue to carry his torch.
The Californian native is a classic filmmaker of sports movies. One of our favourites, and of his most accomplished works, is a documentary film about motorcycle sport called On Any Sunday that was nominated for an Academy Award in 1972 for Documentary Feature. A few years after, he released various sequels - On Any Sunday II, On Any Sunday: Revisited, and On Any Sunday: Motocross, Malcolm & More.
He was an avant-garde in his time for he used innovative ways (for his generation) to film first-hand footages of characters’ movements such as mounting cameras onto helmets or the motorcycle itself for a more authentic scene – a technique that has been wildly used for a long time now. He also narrates his own movies which created a very private experience between Brown and the audience.
Brown once said, “I think many people changed their minds about motorcyclists after watching the movie,” who were only seen as hooligans and gangsters prior to the release of On Any Sunday.
It was not so surprising that this film helped increase motorcycle sales in the ‘70s what with “The King of Cool”, Steve McQueen, starring in and financing the movie. Alongside McQueen and his Husqvarna dirt bike are off-roader Malcolm Smith as well as Mert Lawwill and his business-style approach to racing.
We never truly lost Brown as his son, Dana, continued his father’s legacy and inherited not only his father’s love and passion for filmmaking but also for motorcycling. He documented the true essence of the Baja 1000 in the film Dust To Glory while also continuing the beloved On Any Sunday franchise with On Any Sunday – The Next Chapter starring various world champion racers like Marc Márquez and Travis Pastrana as well as Australian stunt rider Robbie Maddison and Spanish Grand Prix racer Dani Pedrosa.
Images:(Brucebrownfilms)