Underground film-maker with a bent for the tawdry and camp
If ever there were an exemplar of Susan Sontag's definitions of camp, it would be the work of the underground film-maker George Kuchar, who has died of prostate cancer aged 69. Although Kuchar was unknown to Sontag at the time she wrote Notes on Camp (1964), she could have been referring to his no-budget pictures with her general description of camp as being "serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious. The essence of camp is its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration. Camp sees everything in quotation marks. The ultimate camp statement is it's good because it's awful."
Around the time of Sontag's seminal essay, there emerged a series of influential "outrageous" camp films such as Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures (1963), which depicted a transvestite orgy, Andy Warhol's Blow Job (1963) and Kenneth Anger's gay biker movie...
If ever there were an exemplar of Susan Sontag's definitions of camp, it would be the work of the underground film-maker George Kuchar, who has died of prostate cancer aged 69. Although Kuchar was unknown to Sontag at the time she wrote Notes on Camp (1964), she could have been referring to his no-budget pictures with her general description of camp as being "serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious. The essence of camp is its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration. Camp sees everything in quotation marks. The ultimate camp statement is it's good because it's awful."
Around the time of Sontag's seminal essay, there emerged a series of influential "outrageous" camp films such as Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures (1963), which depicted a transvestite orgy, Andy Warhol's Blow Job (1963) and Kenneth Anger's gay biker movie...
- 10/19/2011
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
George Kuchar, a San Francisco experimental filmmaker who was said to have inspired Andy Warhol and John Waters, died of prostate cancer at the age of 69. Kuchar and his twin brother Mike made over 500 films and videos in San Francisco's Mission District as well as the Bronx, New York.
The movies touted a similar grotesque camp that Waters, particularly, emulated; among them are I Was a Teenage Rumpot (1960), Hold Me While I'm Naked (1966), The Devil's Cleavage (1975) and Insanitorium (1987). Kuchar and his brother were honored with a lifetime achievement award at a San Francisco festival in 2009.
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The movies touted a similar grotesque camp that Waters, particularly, emulated; among them are I Was a Teenage Rumpot (1960), Hold Me While I'm Naked (1966), The Devil's Cleavage (1975) and Insanitorium (1987). Kuchar and his brother were honored with a lifetime achievement award at a San Francisco festival in 2009.
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- 9/8/2011
- by Anna Breslaw
- Filmology
The name George Kuchar (right, with Marion Eaton in Thundercrack!) will probably not ring a bell to the vast majority of moviegoers anywhere in the world. Yet, Kuchar, who died of cancer last night, September 6, directed more than 200 movies — mostly shorts and video productions — from the mid-1950s to the late 2000s. The New York-born (Aug. 31, 1942) Kuchar brothers' penchant for experimental, micro-budget underground films with bizarre plots and characters would inspire the likes of John Waters in the '70s. “The Kuchar brothers,” Waters wrote in the introduction to the Kuchars' memoirs Reflections in a Cinematic Cesspool, “gave me the self confidence to believe in my own tawdry vision.” Of course, whether or not that's a good thing depends on whether or not you appreciate Waters' "tawdriness." As for George Kuchar, among his efforts, solo or with his twin brother Mike Kuchar, are A Bathtub Named Desire (1956), The Naked and...
- 9/7/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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