bob kaufman

This edited Ektachrome home movie with titles documents a 1959 street fair, upper Grant Avenue, San Francisco--the center of Beat culture. The film includes shots of filmmaker Dion Vigne and his wife Loreon, artist and occultist Marjorie Cameron and her daughter Crystal, artist Wallace Berman and his wife Shirley, and Beat poet and surrealist Bob Kaufman.

As a young film student immersed with the works of Godard and cinema verite, Will Combs barged into the backyard of the remaining Beats in San Francisco’s North Beach in the mid-1970’s. Using surplus film stock and a spring-wind Bolex, he began to capture the temperament of the Era, kabuki style. HEARTBEAT features rare and personal footage of Bob Kaufman, Jack Micheline and Hube the Cube in their environment, infusing poetry with a concise inquiry into the Beat Era.