Bruce Brown interview

image via Lapoularde

It’s pretty obvious to anyone who has turned even half an analytic eye on bike culture that On Any Sunday is one of the most interesting, and certainly the most beautiful, films on bike culture that was ever produced.

The music is superbly, the cinematography is craftsmanlike, meticulous in its saturated quality – and its sweeping view of American motorcycling scene is insightful.

But one of the main reasons the film works so well is the strangely otherworldly eye of Director Bruce Brown.

Brown had been at the centre of a band of surfer creative types who lived at Dana Point in Orange County California, had been nominated for an Oscar for Endless Summer.

The 1963 classic surf documentary had become a touchstone of the surfer aesthetic – shot through with the mickey-taking mock innocence – a nod and a wink to the core insiders – and a refreshingly quirky way of drawing in a willing mainstream audience who looked at the film’s subject like apes in a zoo.

Chris Malloy‘s interview with Bruce Brown, via californian surf culture citadel The Surfer’s Journal is an interesting insight into the film’s roots and teases out the cross-fertilisation of surf and bike culture – as well as Steve McQueen’s intimate creative and financial relationship with the film’s creative process.

Watch the two films back to back and you’ll ache to live in Brown’s gorgeously sun-saturated world. And you’ll be more committed to making the most out of your weekends than ever.