The Bamboozler (2007)
A film about death, legacy, keeping going, the Tyneside percussionist Bruce Arthur and the Aladdin’s Cave of instruments he left when he died in 2002.
Drums, gongs, wood blocks, marimbas, squeaky hammers, sound sculptures and much, much more, the collection occupied the whole bottom floor of his house and he left it all to his friend and ex-pupil Brendan Murphy. As sound sculptor Adrian Sander begins to make Bruce’s last ‘commission’, a thing of brass and bamboo, The Bamboozler, the film explores the story of Bruce and his collection and Murphy’s setting up of The Rumba Palace – a place for the sheer joy of hitting things well.
Amber Films, 47 mins, 2007
Watch an excerpt
