Castro Street

Castro Street (The Coming of Consciousness), a non-narrative 10-minute experimental example of poetic cinema by Bruce Baillie, was filmed on the streets of Richmond, California — most notably Castro Street — near the Standard Oil Refinery. Its bright, primary colors and lateral tracking shots illustrate Baillie's fascination for opposites, as he described, "that are one, both in conflict and harmony, opposing each other and abiding together and requiring each other."

Upon a retrospective of his work, the New York Times wrote that Baillie "makes avant-garde films with the gifts of a painter and the objectives of a sign painter."

Castro Street was added to the National Film Registry in 1992. The Library of Congress has a review of the film by Scott MacDonald, which can be found at this link.