Creator of The Endless Summer, dead at eighty…
Last night, the creator of the seminal surf film The Endless Summer, Bruce Brown, died at his home in Santa Babs. Bruce was eighty, so it ain’t a surprise, but it does evaporate the owner of an important part of surf history.
Earlier today, Matt Warshaw and I back and forthed on Bruce’s legacy.
BeachGrit: Old man Bruce Brown, dead, eighty. Endless Summer clips filling our screens. How did he do what he did, anyway?
Warshaw: The four or five movies Bruce did before Endless Summer were warm-ups, kind of. He wouldn’t have viewed it that way at the time, but when you watch ES, then go back and look at the old stuff, you see him working out favorite camera angles, getting his voiceover schtick down, all of that. In 1966, newspapers and magazine reviewers all thought Endless Summer was some kind of freak home-run from this beachfront hayseed. But Bruce was so ready to make that movie. He’d been practicing for years.
Tell me about the next one he did, On Any Sunday.
It was the motorcycle version of The Endless Summer. I think it pulled in an documentary Oscar nomination! I hate motorcycles, but love that movie. There must be a half-million sixty-something motorcycle freaks out there who starting riding after seeing On Any Sunday.
What’s your learned opinion of The Endless Summer?
The Endless Summer proves that surf contests have nothing to do with how you’d present surfing to the rest of the world. Sure, you could hire Bruce to work your contest. He did color for the Duke event for two or three years in the mid-sixties. But when it came down to his own movies, he didn’t give a shit about contests. He stayed away. Never showed them. Surfing, for Bruce, meant chasing waves, and if you didn’t find waves, you had a good time anyway. The Endless Summer showed what it’s like to be a surfer on the hunt — or the family-friendly version, anyway; no drugs, no drinking, no pussy — and to me it still feels really true. Bruce and The Endless Summer are still in the back of our minds when we pack the boards and chase waves. You want Cape St. Francis, first of all. But you also, as your bumping along looking for it, you want to have as much fun as Bruce and his crew did.
Bruce didn’t give a shit about contests. He stayed away. Never showed them. Surfing, for Bruce, meant chasing waves, and if you didn’t find waves, you had a good time anyway.
Describe your relationship with Bruce?
I met Bruce Brown at the 1985 SURFER Poll. Him and Dana Brown both. Dana and I had just started working together, he wrote some articles for SURFER when I was there, and the two of them walked into the Poll, we met, then Bruce led us back to the limo he had in the parking lot. We had beers and shit-talked the Poll. Bruce was way saltier than he comes off in his movies.
He made the two movies he wanted to make, made his bundle, and quit. Went fishing, went surfing, played the stock market, collected cars. He only came out of retirement for ES II to get Dana started. Which makes him a great father, on top of everything else.
What happened to Bruce between Endless Summer and On Any Sunday and…Endless Summer II?
This is maybe what I love about Bruce most. He made the two movies he wanted to make, made his bundle, and quit. Went fishing, went surfing, played the stock market, collected cars. He only came out of retirement for ES II to get Dana started. Which makes him a great father, on top of everything else.
How’d you feel when ESII landed, and the buildup to it all?
Let down. His heart wasn’t in it.
Did you feel sad when y’heard Bruce had died? What sorta hole does he leave, if any?
Jack O’Neill, then Severson, now Bruce. Maybe I’m not processing right now, but my first thought when I heard that Bruce died was, 2017 has just been fucking brutal for surf legends.
(Editor’s note: Warshaw just told me he’d hit his thirty k. The Encylopedia of Surfing lives!)
i can honestly say seeing laird kick out of a jaws wave with the helicopter in the frame is the reason i started surfing.
thanks laird.
blame laird
Eighty awesome years, we should all be so lucky. Celebrate this legend.
You should try slowing down a little and using a condom.
BMX footage is RAD!
dude the headline ..you are making this look like The Sunday ..
“I hate motorcycles, but love that movie.” Huh? My WR250F likes the beach, but hates your book, er……, encyclopedia.
Who amongst has never said “There’s a shallow spot in the reef, just about there.”?
Forever in debt.
that is such a good scene. also, to this day, every single time i go fishing, i say to myself, “surfing fun, fishing no fun”
ah the secret to a happy life , no drugs , no booze , no pussy ……but what about the surfers he filmed, rumor has it they did it all and more , even to the point of maybe hollowing a few s/bds out to make ends meet, Leg end = foot!
On any Sunday is a bloody masterpiece. And Endless Summer? Oh the golden tonsils of his voice over!
Then he disappears for a couple of decades to go surfing and fishing and (probably) smash tins. Legendary.
Surf filmmakers owe Bruce a huge debt of gratitude. From Siestas and Olas, Zen and Zero, Sprout, September Sessions, and even modern stuff like The Australia Part, they all had their predecessors in style and format and it all points back to what Bruce Brown established. The Endless Summer is what surfing is to me with it’s journey for the perfect wave, adventure along the way, irreverent humor. Anytime I put it on and hear that music, I immediately relax and inevitably smile.
Congrats to Matt and his 30k. Threw a few coins in the bucket thanks to those urging here and elsewhere.
Has anyone else suffered through the new Stab podcast “The Drop”? Fuck me! The snooze dial turned up to 11. That shit could make a monk self-immolate!
Shit. Nothing could have prepared me for brutally terrible that is. It sounds like a high school media project. From a school for the deaf.
No but I stopped going there after rory’s latest retarded ramblings.
When I was learning to surf I think I watched ES2 on loop constantly. Even bought the ridiculous Joe Satriani soundtrack. Some nice moments in that film. The Cloudbreak section is all-time top -ten in surf film history.
Not to be pedantic but it was Gary Hoey.
Wait a damn second – Satriani was involved somehow though
Not that I know of. But you may be thinking of Satch’s Wank-Guitar masterwork “Surfing With The Alien.”
You know what? I think Satriani’s “Summer Song” may have been the intro to either H30 or Surfer TV or the Bud Pro Tour televised contests, or something else I watched around the time of ES2 and they’ve merged in the foggy mists of time.
Don’t really know how anyone could forget.
Me and my girlfriend broke up so I concur this has been a brutal year for surf legends.
So you’re saying she surfs like a boss ….