Influential writer, film theorist was pioneer in alternative cinema
Gene Youngblood was a visionary communication theorist who didn’t believe movies needed superstars, giant budgets, huge casts and shots from helicopters, a colleague said.
Bryan Konefsky, an emeritus professor at the University of New Mexico, called Youngblood a “rock star” in alternative and experimental cinema.
Another UNM film and digital arts professor, Deborah Fort, described Youngblood as a brilliant man whose 1970 book, Expanded Cinema, remains influential.
Youngblood, a faculty member at the now-defunct College of Santa Fe, as well as a film theorist, writer and intellectual, died April 6 at his home in Santa Fe at the age of 78.
His wife, Jane Youngblood, posted on Facebook that he died from complications related to a heart attack.
Among other positions, Gene Youngblood had been on the faculty of the California Institute of the Arts.
Expanded Cinema explored alternative techniques of filmmaking and accurately looked ahead to a time in which video, digital strategies and the internet would play big roles in cinema, communication and interaction.
“That’s his magnum opus,” said Fort, who worked with Youngblood at the College of Santa Fe. All of those who are seriously involved in film are familiar with the volume, she said.
Expanded Cinema was rereleased by Fordham University Press last year, the 50th anniversary of its publication.
Youngblood was in demand as a speaker across the nation and even globally, Fort said. She called Youngblood personable and funny. “He was very much an international scholar.”
Konefsky said Youngblood told fascinating stories from his time as a young journalist in Los Angeles, where he covered events such as the Watts riots and Marilyn Monroe’s funeral.
Konefsky had given up on the notion of making films many years ago because of the cost involved in the art form. Youngblood “reignited that passion” with his concepts of alternative cinema and “democratizing” film through the
use of video and 8- and 16-mm film, he said. Those movies could be made with $50 to $100.
Konefsky met Youngblood in 1991 and eventually founded the annual international festival in Albuquerque called Experiments in Cinema.
Experimental films, which are typically short, “come from the heart,” he said, and not from boardrooms filled with marketing executives. “They don’t require a cast of thousands. They don’t require Tom Cruise.”
One film shown at the festival was only one frame long, 1/48 by Jorge Lorenzo.
Another experimental film, Konefsky said, slowed Hitchcock’s Psycho to the point where it lasted 24 hours.
Former College of Santa Fe President Jim Fries, who later was president of New Mexico Highlands University, remembered Youngblood as a valued faculty member.
“Gene Youngblood brought a wealth of professional experience to his interactions with our students and was an important member of the moving image faculty at College of Santa Fe,” Fries said.
Konefsky said a memorial service probably will take place later this year.