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Bunker77
DirectOr takuJi masuDa bUnker77film.com Rich, flamboyant, dangerously addicted, and wildly in love with surfing, Bunker Spreckels died young in 1977. Using never-before-seen footage from famed surf photographer Art Brewer taken during Spreckels’s last years, Japanese filmmaker Takuji Masuda tells the story of the enigmatic wave rider while trying to put his extravagance in its proper cultural context. What did Bunker Spreckels mean to surfing in the 1970s? What does he mean now? Bunker was a visionary. He was a very stylish American rebel who chose to live an extraordinary life. He not only elevated the surf community by riding very short boards with edges in the dangerous waves of Hawai‘i’s North Shore almost 50 years before that style of equipment became the norm, but, in his later years, he cleverly blazed the praxis of programming his own reality in a successful effort to become a media personality. This is what most professional surf stars must do today in order to get noticed, stay relevant, and be paid from sponsors. He was definitely an avant-garde.
How was he remembered by the people you interviewed? After recording the interviews, I got that his friends miss him, adore him, and are still angry at his early departure, etc. But, in general, the community was very confused by his behavior when I began reviewing his life. His is both a celebration and a cautionary tale. Both elements often coexist in someone taking the risk to pursue one’s original vision. What is Bunker’s legacy to surfing and Southern California beach culture? He has influenced some of the biggest names in board riding like Tony Alva, Laird Hamilton, and Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew, who all defined the style and attitude of who we are as board riders today. But, above all, his story reminds us to keep “going for it” while also showcasing the very real risk that comes with it. What is your goal in telling the Bunker Spreckels story so many years after his death? Many of us have had someone like Bunker in our lives or, maybe, a similar moment or two of his paradigm in ourselves. I hope that my film becomes a reminder of those moments to help us reflect as well as be able to relive a little bit of that adolescent period of West Coast beach culture that was Bunker Spreckels’s life.
30 | February 2, 2017 | Santa BarBara InternatIonal FIlm FeStIval | independent.com/SBIFF
— Ethan Stewart