Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Currently Reading 7
One book occupies my time currently; Nick Land's Fanged Noumena: Collected Writings 1987 - 2007. Published by Urbanomic and wrapped in a beautiful cover by the Chapman brothers (from their Disasters of War IV), these essays engage with the kind of cutting edge of radical thinking that Land is best known for. Only read two chapters and already proving to be essential, an utterly engaged dance through the abyss.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Flaming Creature
FilmInk column:
Jack Smith (1932 – 1989) was a vast influence on the underground, he created beautiful art as a photographer of vividly coloured exotic tableaux, he wrote, he worked as an actor appearing in underground films by the likes of Andy Warhol and Ken Jacobs in the ‘60s and Beth & Scott B and Ela Troyano in the ‘80s, he created theatrical events and he directed movies.
In the early ‘60s Jack Smith collaborated with filmmaker / musicians Tony Conrad, Angus MacLise and John Cale on a series of recordings at their shared apartment on Ludlow Street, in NYC’s Lower East Side. MacLise and Cale would go on to form the Velvet Underground, while Conrad would compose experimental music and direct the film Flicker (1966). But Smith’s masterwork was the underground movie Flaming Creatures (1963), a film which includes the immortal line, “Is there a lipstick that doesn’t come off when you suck cocks?”
Dionysian mayhem reigns throughout the film, as exotically attired figures grope, dance, laugh and seduce one another, culminating in a ‘rape’, orgy and earthquake. Shot on the rooftop of the old Windsor Theater in NYC, Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures was – and still is – one of the most radical of underground movies. Filmed on grainy, outdated stock the film is a pure exotic celebration of sexuality, fancy costumes and orgiastic mania. For the cast Smith gathered together various friends, performers and artists, drawing on the local community of drag queens, cross-dressers, beatniks and poets, and swathing them all in exotic costumes constructed from thrift store finds, transforming the bohemian cast into the ‘creatures’ that populate the film. Influenced by the luxurious splendour of movies starring the likes of Sabu and Maria Montez, Flaming Creatures recreated the mysterious Hollywood Orient of the b-movie world of Arabian Nights and Sinbad the Sailor on a downtown rooftop. Smith scored the whole movie with Latin pop, rock and roll and Chinese music, adding further layers to its complexity.
When Flaming Creatures was screened at lofts and artists' spaces in NYC it had instant cult status, with its lavish scenes of camp debauchery, but, in 1964 the city wanted to clean up and their targets included underground filmmakers. The police raided a screening of the film, seizing the print. Despite the likes of academic essayist Susan Sontag and beatnik poet Allen Ginsberg defending Flaming Creatures it was branded as obscene in June 1964.
Over the following years, as various censorship battles were won, the film gained a mythical status, not least because it was technically banned in NYC. Smith, meanwhile started work on other films Normal Love (1963) and No President (1967) but these works were never formally completed and he would screen footage as part of expanded performances which would take place in his Manhattan apartment to enthusiastic audiences.
But it is for Flaming Creatures that he is best remembered, a genuinely unique example of cinema and essential for any fans of underground film.
Jack Smith (1932 – 1989) was a vast influence on the underground, he created beautiful art as a photographer of vividly coloured exotic tableaux, he wrote, he worked as an actor appearing in underground films by the likes of Andy Warhol and Ken Jacobs in the ‘60s and Beth & Scott B and Ela Troyano in the ‘80s, he created theatrical events and he directed movies.
In the early ‘60s Jack Smith collaborated with filmmaker / musicians Tony Conrad, Angus MacLise and John Cale on a series of recordings at their shared apartment on Ludlow Street, in NYC’s Lower East Side. MacLise and Cale would go on to form the Velvet Underground, while Conrad would compose experimental music and direct the film Flicker (1966). But Smith’s masterwork was the underground movie Flaming Creatures (1963), a film which includes the immortal line, “Is there a lipstick that doesn’t come off when you suck cocks?”
Dionysian mayhem reigns throughout the film, as exotically attired figures grope, dance, laugh and seduce one another, culminating in a ‘rape’, orgy and earthquake. Shot on the rooftop of the old Windsor Theater in NYC, Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures was – and still is – one of the most radical of underground movies. Filmed on grainy, outdated stock the film is a pure exotic celebration of sexuality, fancy costumes and orgiastic mania. For the cast Smith gathered together various friends, performers and artists, drawing on the local community of drag queens, cross-dressers, beatniks and poets, and swathing them all in exotic costumes constructed from thrift store finds, transforming the bohemian cast into the ‘creatures’ that populate the film. Influenced by the luxurious splendour of movies starring the likes of Sabu and Maria Montez, Flaming Creatures recreated the mysterious Hollywood Orient of the b-movie world of Arabian Nights and Sinbad the Sailor on a downtown rooftop. Smith scored the whole movie with Latin pop, rock and roll and Chinese music, adding further layers to its complexity.
When Flaming Creatures was screened at lofts and artists' spaces in NYC it had instant cult status, with its lavish scenes of camp debauchery, but, in 1964 the city wanted to clean up and their targets included underground filmmakers. The police raided a screening of the film, seizing the print. Despite the likes of academic essayist Susan Sontag and beatnik poet Allen Ginsberg defending Flaming Creatures it was branded as obscene in June 1964.
Over the following years, as various censorship battles were won, the film gained a mythical status, not least because it was technically banned in NYC. Smith, meanwhile started work on other films Normal Love (1963) and No President (1967) but these works were never formally completed and he would screen footage as part of expanded performances which would take place in his Manhattan apartment to enthusiastic audiences.
But it is for Flaming Creatures that he is best remembered, a genuinely unique example of cinema and essential for any fans of underground film.
Friday, June 3, 2011
State of Things 11
The next session of the Decadent Society has been scheduled for Sunday 12th June, full details on this month's lecture can be found here. Needless to say those with an interest in the stranger areas of culture are encouraged to attend.
Currently Reading 6
About to devour Paul Hegarty's Noise / Music: A History, having just worked my way through Touch & Go: The Complete Hardcore Punk Zine 79 - 83. Two versions of 70s into 80s sonic culture, both offering their own insights. Michael Goss's Young Lusty Sluts: A Pictorial History of Erotic Pulp Fiction which features some incredible sleazy-beautiful-exploitation artwork that once graced the covers of sordid spunk stained paperbacks is a fascinating resource. Also, just read Grant Morrison's perfectly realised graphic novel The Filth, which proves to be an incredible exploration of everything that is repressed, hidden in the unconscious and in the decay of the everyday. Then there's Marlin Marynick's Charles Manson Now, purchased on a recent visit to the ever wonderful Museum of Death in Hollywood, this book sheds some new light onto both Manson and those who are, in various ways, part of his life now. Finally, the new volume of Collapse is imminent and will no doubt be essential reading.
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