You might wonder why a Winnipeg alt-weekly would bother to run the obit of a septuagenarian American beatnik, admitted peyote lover and junkie collage artist. (And, no, it's not because he shares the misfortune of having a frequently misspelled surname - see: 'Guy Madden.')

Devoted reader, it's because Bruce Conner - who passed away on July 7, aged 74 - was one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. (Applause.) He worked principally in collage-based sculpture and film, and to say that Conner revolutionized experimental filmmaking (whose formal techniques were inevitably, ultimately, co-opted by our pop culture) would be a dumb understatement. Resurrecting the muted golden fleece of assemblage-film pioneered by Joseph Cornell in the 1930s, Conner spawned a tradition of Found Footage filmmaking (making new, re-contextualized films through collages of pre-existing ones) that continues so predominantly to this day - both in obscure experimental filmmaking circles and in music videos, commercials, feature films, TV shows and Internet videos.

Verification of his time-worn importance - his approach of irreverent, ironic, scathing and hilarious cinematic re-contextualization - is evidenced by the fact that these strategies have matured to cliché stature.

Conner practically birthed the found footage tradition (unlike Cornell, whose film compilation was born of obsessive fetish) out of financial necessity, thus, his importance to our own parsimonious Winnipeg universe. Like us, Conner was a scavenger, a bargain-hunter and an honest-to-goodness cultural gleaner.

Conner brought his discount approach to the burgeoning American avant-garde film scene of the 1960s with his 1958 inaugural masterpiece, A Movie, which was conceptually the ultimate movie, replete with explosions, demolitions, death, birth and ethereal undersea wonderment all set to Respighi's enchanting Rites of Spring.

As with many geniuses, Conner's talent-net was cast wide. After the immense success and impact of A Movie, he focused on non-film projects and went on to produce only a handful of films for the remainder of his artistic career. Among them, Breakaway (watch it immediately, on YouTube), is considered by many to be the first music video, conceptually more than a mere film accompanying music. His Report is a haunting commentary on the death of JFK and the reaction of American media.

Keeping with his prioritizing of non-filmic artistic pursuits, Conner tragically withdrew his film prints from public circulation last year. Irene Thain's decision, during the recent destruction of the University of Manitoba's entire 16mm collection, to make Conner's Cosmic Ray (1961) one of the lone handful of films saved from destruction reiterates his importance. (Thank fucking God.)

Most importantly, Conner was not only a bargain-shopping cinéaste but also a true '60s art prankster. In 1967, he ran for the San Francisco civic office of Supervisor; his campaign speeches consisted of a shouted litany of every conceivable flavour of pie, "Cherry! Apple! Rubarb! Mincemeat!" etc. His spirit of counter-culture lives on.

Bruce Conner is dead! Long live Bruce Conner!

Walter Forsberg is a filmmaker with l'Atelier national du Manitoba.