Clinton
Street Theater,
2522 SE Clinton St.
The Fabulous
Films of Mike Kuchar: Sins of the Fleshapoids, The
Craven Sluck and Tales of the Bronx
7
and 9:15 pm Friday, July 7
The Fabulous
Films of George Kuchar:
Corruption
of the Damned, Hold Me While I'm Naked and Color
Me Shameless
7
and 9:15 pm Saturday, July 8
Film geeks, cinemaniacs and fans of underground filmmaking
have reason to rejoice. For two nights only, the Clinton
Street Theater presents what could very well be a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity to view a bit of underground film history. Anyone
who's ever seen Eraserhead or heard of John Waters
might think they know all there is to know about filmmaking
on the fringe. But they haven't even begun to scratch the
surface of a cinematic underworld where the laws of taste
and quality have been suspended, a world whose convention-defying
pioneers include filmmakers like Herschell Gordon Lewis,
Doris Wishman and Andy Warhol. The two filmmakers who reign
supreme in this world--influencing Lynch, Waters, Warhol
and a whole host of others--are Mike and George Kuchar.
Crafting a unique style of film, twin brothers George and
Mike Kuchar have left a lasting legacy of moving-picture
images. From the exploitative sex scene in Hold Me While
I'm Naked, shot artistically through stained glass,
to the cyborg-slave giving birth to a baby robot in the
campy Sins of the Fleshapoids, the work of the Kuchars
illustrates a marriage of madness and genius that resonates
in everything from Blue Velvet to There's Something
About Mary. You may not see anything as nasty as Divine
eating dogshit, as witnessed in Waters' Pink Flamingos,
but Mike Kuchar's The Craven Sluck features the obvious
precursor to that bit of shock cinema, as Kuchar's dog Bocko
pinches a loaf--an image that still shocks 34 years later
in Me, Myself & Irene.
The Kuchar Brothers' early work in film came in the form
of editing together old 8mm home movies found in their aunt's
closet. The twins began producing their own films using
a DeJur 8mm movie camera they received for their 12th birthday.
Largely improvised, these early films included The Wet
Destruction of the Atlantic Empire (1954), The Thief
and the Stripper (1959) and Screwball (1957).
By the early '60s, the Bronx-based brothers were venturing
across the river to explore the burgeoning underground film
scene in Manhattan, where the likes of Warhol and Kenneth
Anger were beginning to make their marks. The working-class
Kuchars were a striking contrast to the downtown hipsters
and beatniks who went to screenings at the Gramercy Arts
Theater, but films like I Was a Teenage Rumpot (1960)
were big hits, going on to influence the most important
of underground filmmakers.
In 1965 the Kuchars switched to 16mm productions; more
importantly, it was the year the brothers began to explore
their individual visions. George's first solo endeavor was
Corruption of the Damned (1965), a noir-style action
film he describes thus: "Big in everything it says, big
in everything it does, this picture bursts from its girdle
of traditional Hollywood pyrotechnics and falls all over
the place in a paroxysm of flabby sensuality, senselessness
and insanity."
Traveling down a path of stylized, experimental narratives,
George produced films like Color Me Shameless (1967)
and emerged as a filmmaker of contradictory extremes. With
its apparent lack of scripts and incomprehensible stories,
George Kuchar's work shows the signs of a filmmaker without
a clue. But his keen ability to compose shots and create
mood through silent moving images hints at a genius operating
on a higher level of creativity.
While George was dabbling in a more serious style of storytelling,
Mike was embracing a camp aesthetic. Sins of the Fleshapoids
(1965) is a 43-minute schlockfest of Ed Wood proportions.
Mike describes Fleshapoids as being a tale of "love,
a million years in the future, in a world that abandons
all mechanical knowledge and plunges itself into the abyss
of erotic pleasure and stomach-churning hate!"
In the past five decades the Kuchar brothers have been
collectively involved in more than 100 films. Yet even in
the hippest of film circles their work remains largely unknown
and unseen. Their influence, however, is so far-reaching
that it can be seen in the work of every filmmaker who has
ever been labeled "underground" or "alternative."
|
