Danny Lyon: American Life

Danny Lyon is a self-taught, American photographer and filmmaker and also an accomplished writer, primarily of accompanying text for his photographs. At a time when picture magazines were still the holy grail for young photographers, Lyon began his career as the first staff photographer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. His first book, the classic Bikeriders – made after spending more than two years as a member of the Outlaws motorcycle gang – was not just a pioneering example of New Journalism but, as he later described it, an attempt "to destroy Life magazine" and what he saw as its anodyne vision of American life.

Alongside his photographic work Danny Lyon has produced an impressive cinematographic oeuvre, best described as 'essay films' – closer to his photo book work than to regular documentaries. Here we have the pleasure of showing three of his most recent films, which visit two of his regular subjects, his family and outsiders.

BORN TO FILM
Director: Danny Lyon. USA 1982. 33 mins.
An intimately autobiographical work – film as family and social history, but about "human continuity, the power of instinct to survive, the grace that love and play bring to it, the wonder of being alive".

TWO FATHERS
Director: Danny Lyon. USA 2005. 30 mins.
In this sequel, Raphael, the child star of BORN TO FILM is now 27 years old and returns to his father's farm to plant corn and "experience fatherhood". Intercut is a film that takes place in the world of Germany in the 1920s, and Queens, of the 1940s, as Lyon's grandfather's remarkable album photographs bring to life worlds long gone.

MURDERERS
Director: Danny Lyon. USA 2006. 30 mins.
MURDERERS tells the story of five murderers in three American states, one of whom explains, after beating someone with a baseball bat, "I didn't kill him… he died on his own". It includes a devastating interview with Michael Guzman, who appeared as a teenager in Lyon's film WILLIE.

Print source: Bleak Beauty Films