Misplaced Pages

#366633

76-472: Flaming Creatures is a 1963 American experimental film directed by Jack Smith . The film follows an ensemble of drag performers through several disconnected vignettes, including a lipstick commercial, an orgy, and an earthquake. It was shot on a rooftop on the Lower East Side on a very low budget of only $ 300, with a soundtrack from Smith's roommate Tony Conrad . It premiered April 29, 1963 at

152-526: A 2000 edition of the art journal Art in America . It examined structural-formalism as a conservative philosophy of filmmaking. In the 1970s, Conceptual art pushed even further. Robert Smithson , a California-based artist, made several films about his earthworks and attached projects. Yoko Ono made conceptual films. The most notorious of these is Rape, which centers on a woman's life being invaded with cameras, as she attempts to flee. Around this time,

228-633: A Hollywood Extra (1928), by Slavko Vorkapich and Robert Florey . However, much pre-war experimental film culture consisted of artists working, often in isolation, on film projects. In the early 1930s, Painter Emlen Etting (1905–1993) directed dance films that are considered experimental. Commercial artist ( Saturday Evening Post ) and illustrator Douglass Crockwell (1904–1968) made animations with blobs of paint pressed between sheets of glass in his studio at Glens Falls, New York . In Rochester, New York , medical doctor and philanthropist James Sibley Watson and Melville Webber directed The Fall of

304-656: A cinematic equivalent of the first person in literature. Brakhage 's Dog Star Man (1961–64) exemplified a shift from personal confessional to abstraction, and also evidenced a rejection of American mass culture of the time. On the other hand, Kenneth Anger added a rock sound track to his Scorpio Rising (1963) in what is sometimes said to be an anticipation of music videos , and included some camp commentary on Hollywood mythology. Jack Smith and Andy Warhol incorporated camp elements into their work, and Sitney posited Warhol's connection to structural film. Some avant-garde filmmakers moved further away from narrative. Whereas

380-437: A coffin and drains some of the lifeless creatures. This reignites the action, and the creatures rise again to dance with one another. Smith shared an apartment with artist Marian Zazeela for a period during the early 1960s. He began taking seminude black-and-white photographs with her as a model, along with Francis Francine, Joel Markman, Mario Montez , Arnold Rockwood, and Irving Rosenthal. This grew into The Beautiful Book ,

456-555: A critical defense of Flaming Creatures , and it became a cause célèbre for the New American Cinema movement. Judge Abe Fortas , who had spoken in favor of reversing the convictions, faced scrutiny for his position years later when he was nominated to become Chief Justice of the United States . Flaming Creatures eventually fell out of circulation. After Smith's death, a restoration was undertaken to preserve

532-572: A form of mash-up cinema that has strong socio-political undertones. Chris Marker 's La Jetée (1962) consists almost entirely of still photographs accompanied by narration, while Jonás Cuarón 's Year of the Nail (2007) uses unstaged photographs which the director took of his friends and family combined with voice acting to tell a fictional story. Other examples of films created in the 21st century with this technique are Lars von Trier 's Dogville and David Lynch 's filmography . Animated films in

608-469: A garden and dance. In what Smith called the "smirching sequence", characters apply lipstick while a mock advertisement poses the question, "Is there lipstick that doesn't come off when you suck cocks?" Two creatures chase each other, and one throws the other to the ground. Several creatures gather around her in a rape scene, which grows into a large orgy. The earth begins to quake, and the creatures collapse. A vampire resembling Marilyn Monroe climbs out of

684-401: A huge debt to the photography of Edward Weston , Paul Strand , and others, and in fact celebrate illusion. Further, while many filmmakers began making rather academic "structural films" following Film Culture ' s publication of an article by P. Adams Sitney in the late 1960s, many of the filmmakers named in the article objected to the term. A critical review of the structuralists appeared in

760-501: A large collection of films of that period were restored and re-released on DVD, titled Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant Garde Film 1894-1941 . With Slavko Vorkapich, John Hoffman made two visual tone poems, Moods of the Sea (aka Fingal's Cave , 1941) and Forest Murmurs (1947). The former film is set to Felix Mendelssohn 's Hebrides Overture and was restored in 2004 by film preservation expert David Shepard . Meshes of

836-438: A mainstream film genre . Many of its more typical features—such as a non-narrative, impressionistic , or poetic approaches to the film's construction—define what is generally understood to be "experimental". In the 1920s, two conditions made Europe ready for the emergence of experimental film. First, the cinema matured as a medium, and highbrow resistance to the mass entertainment began to wane. Second, avant-garde movements in

SECTION 10

#1732786566367

912-556: A mythic center from which they had been closed off." Jonathan Rosenbaum called the film "one of the greatest and most pleasurable avant-garde movies ever made". According to The Village Voice Film Guide , Gregory Markopoulos "was only slightly exaggerating when he commented that ... early audiences were astounded when their secret Hollywood fantasies burst upon the screen". Flaming Creatures became Smith's best-known work and his last finished film. Although he continued filmmaking, his subsequent projects were never given fixed form. Smith

988-592: A new generation was entering the field, many of whom were students of the early avant-gardists. Leslie Thornton , Peggy Ahwesh , and Su Friedrich expanded upon the work of the structuralists, incorporating a broader range of content while maintaining a self-reflexive form. Andy Warhol , the man behind Pop Art and a variety of other oral and art forms, made over 60 films throughout the 1960s, most of them experimental. In more recent years, filmmakers such as Craig Baldwin and James O'Brien ( Hyperfutura ) have made use of stock footage married to live action narratives in

1064-429: A number experimental queer filmmakers such as G.B. Jones (a founder of the movement) in the 1990s and later Scott Treleaven , among others. With very few exceptions, Curtis Harrington among them, the artists involved in these early movements remained outside the mainstream commercial cinema and entertainment industry. A few taught occasionally, and then, starting in 1966, many became professors at universities such as

1140-681: A patriarchal gaze. Their response was to resist narrative in a way to show its fissures and inconsistencies. Chantal Akerman and Sally Potter are just two of the leading feminist filmmakers working in this mode in the 1970s. Video art emerged as a medium in this period, and feminists like Martha Rosler and Cecelia Condit took full advantage of it. In the 1980s feminist, gay and other political experimental work continued, with filmmakers like Barbara Hammer , Su Friedrich , Tracey Moffatt , Sadie Benning and Isaac Julien among others finding experimental format conducive to their questions about identity politics. The queercore movement gave rise to

1216-428: A projection booth to screen Flaming Creatures and pretended to tie up the projectionist, filmmaker Jean-Marie Buchet . They managed to show a portion of the film, but festival staff turned off power for the projector. As chaos broke out in the theatre, Minister of Justice Piet Vermeylen came to calm the crowd. The incident made news across Europe, and Vermeylen promised reforms in censorship laws. In February 1964,

1292-577: A small volume of photographs published with the help of Piero Heliczer . The book began to develop the aesthetic of Flaming Creatures . Smith conceived the idea of making a film to serve as a vehicle for Zazeela. However, she began working with composer La Monte Young and was unable to participate in Smith's project. After she moved out, he became roommates with Tony Conrad and replaced Zazeela with Sheila Bick. Filming of Flaming Creatures took place over eight weekend afternoons in mid to late 1962. Many of

1368-420: A springboard into commercial film-making or transition into academic positions. The aim of experimental filmmaking may be to render the personal vision of an artist, or to promote interest in new technology rather than to entertain or to generate revenue, as is the case with commercial films. The term experimental film describes a range of filmmaking styles that frequently differ from, and are often opposed to,

1444-763: Is Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí 's Un chien andalou (1929). Hans Richter's animated shorts, Oskar Fischinger 's abstract films, and Len Lye 's GPO films are examples of more abstract European avant-garde films. Working in France, another group of filmmakers also financed films through patronage and distributed them through cine-clubs, yet they were narrative films not tied to an avant-garde school. Film scholar David Bordwell has dubbed these French Impressionists and included Abel Gance , Jean Epstein , Marcel L'Herbier , and Dimitri Kirsanoff . These films combine narrative experimentation, rhythmic editing and camerawork, and an emphasis on character subjectivity. In 1952,

1520-791: Is a 2004 experimental film directed by Ken Jacobs , consisting almost entirely of archive footage, depicting Jacobs' view of the United States in film. Jacobs began compiling material in the late 1950s, and premiered the film (almost seven hours in length) at the 2004 New York Film Festival . It won the Douglas Edwards Experimental/Independent Film/Video Award at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards 2004 . This article related to an avant-garde or experimental film

1596-559: Is due largely to Smith's nimble use of the handheld camera. His unexpected framings yield dense images of fabrics, body parts, and heavily made-up faces." Video artist Bec Stupak , having never seen the original film, created a "remake" of Flaming Creatures in 2006 based only on descriptions of it. Todd Haynes alluded to the film with a fictional band named the Flaming Creatures in his 1998 feature Velvet Goldmine . Guy Maddin 's 2009 film The Little White Cloud That Cried

SECTION 20

#1732786566367

1672-709: Is known to a relatively small number of practitioners, academics and connoisseurs, it has influenced and continues to influence cinematography , visual effects and editing . Experimental film reached mainstream audiences at world exhibitions, especially those in Montreal, Expo 67 , and Osaka, Expo 70 . The genre of music video can be seen as a commercialization of many techniques of experimental film. Title design and television advertising have also been influenced by experimental film. Many experimental filmmakers have also made feature films, and vice versa. Star Spangled to Death Star Spangled to Death

1748-624: The Bleecker Street Cinema in Greenwich Village . Because of the film's sexual content, some venues refused to show Flaming Creatures , and in March 1964, police interrupted a screening and seized a print of the film. The screening's organizers ( Jonas Mekas , Ken Jacobs , and Florence Karpf) were prosecuted, and the film was ruled to be in violation of New York's obscenity laws. Mekas and critic Susan Sontag mounted

1824-879: The Bleecker Street Cinema in Manhattan, New York . Later screenings were held at the Gramercy Theatre . Because the film had not been submitted for licensing, the shows were free and audiences were asked to donate to the "Love and Kisses to Censors" Film Society. Jonas Mekas and Ken Jacobs presented the film as a midnight screening at the Flaherty Film Seminar in August 1963, a trip depicted in Mekas's film Lost, Lost, Lost . Film Culture voted in December 1963 to award Smith its Independent Film Award for

1900-943: The British Film Institute in London, the National Film Board of Canada and the Collective for Living Cinema. Some of the more popular film festivals, such as Ann Arbor Film Festival , the New York Film Festival 's "Views from the Avant-Garde" Side Bar, the International Film Festival Rotterdam , and Media City Film Festival prominently feature experimental works. The New York Underground Film Festival , Chicago Underground Film Festival ,

1976-946: The Centre Pompidou in Paris often include historically significant experimental films and contemporary works. Screening series no longer in New York that featured experimental work include the Robert Beck Memorial Cinema, Ocularis and the Collective for Living Cinema . All these associations and movements have permitted the birth and development of national experimental films and schools like "body cinema" ("Écoles du corps" or "Cinéma corporel") and "post-structural" movements in France, and "structural/materialism" in England for example. Though experimental film

2052-821: The LA Freewaves Experimental Media Arts Festival, MIX NYC the New York Experimental Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, and Toronto's Images Festival also support this work and provide venues for films which would not otherwise be seen. There is some dispute about whether "underground" and "avant-garde" truly mean the same thing and if challenging non-traditional cinema and fine arts cinema are actually fundamentally related. Venues such as Anthology Film Archives , San Francisco Cinematheque , Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, California , Tate Modern, London and

2128-547: The Lettrists avant-garde movement, in France, caused riots at the Cannes Film Festival , when Isidore Isou 's Traité de bave et d'éternité (also known as Venom and Eternity ) was screened. After their criticism of Charlie Chaplin at the 1952 press conference in Paris for Chaplin's Limelight , there was a split within the movement. The Ultra-Lettrists continued to cause disruptions when they announced

2204-612: The London Film-Makers' Co-op , and Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Center. Following the model of Cinema 16, experimental films have been exhibited mainly outside of commercial theaters in small film societies , microcinemas , museums , art galleries , archives and film festivals . Several other organizations, in both Europe and North America, helped develop experimental film. These included Anthology Film Archives in New York City, The Millennium Film Workshop,

2280-551: The Senate Judiciary Committee , requested that the print seized at the University of Michigan be sent to Washington. James Clancy, representing Citizens for Decent Literature , showed the film among other material, inviting senators to view what Fortas had held in several decisions did not constitute obscenity. Nixon adviser Pat Buchanan , who dubbed it the "Fortas Film Festival", identified it as one of

2356-928: The State Universities of New York , Bard College , California Institute of the Arts , the Massachusetts College of Art , University of Colorado at Boulder , and the San Francisco Art Institute . Many experimental-film practitioners do not in fact possess college degrees themselves, although their showings are prestigious. Some have questioned the status of the films made in the academy, but longtime film professors such as Stan Brakhage , Ken Jacobs , Ernie Gehr , and many others, continued to refine and expand their practice while teaching. The inclusion of experimental film in film courses and standard film histories, however, has made

Flaming Creatures - Misplaced Pages Continue

2432-575: The University of New Mexico was raided by police, who seized the print. In November 1966, a screening by the UT Austin chapter of Students for a Democratic Society was broken up. A January 1967 screening at the University of Michigan resulted in the confiscation of the film and the arrest of four students, triggering protests and a sit-in by students. A screening at the University of Notre Dame at its Pornography and Censorship Conference in 1969

2508-683: The mythopoetic film , the structural film, the trance film and the participatory film, in order to describe the historical morphology of experimental cinema in the American avant-garde from 1943 to the 2000s. The film society and self-financing model continued over the next two decades, but by the early 1960s, a different outlook became perceptible in the work of American avant-garde filmmakers. Filmmakers like Michael Snow , Hollis Frampton , Ken Jacobs , Paul Sharits , Tony Conrad , and Ernie Gehr , are considered by P. Adams Sitney to be key models for what he calls " structural film ". Sitney says that

2584-413: The original camera negative of the film, and when Smith requested access to it so he could re-edit it, Mekas refused, out of fear that the print would be damaged. This led to a long-running dispute between the two, with Smith accusing Mekas of stealing the print on behalf of Anthology. The negative was lost until 1978, when Jerry Tartaglia found it in a discarded pile of scrap and returned it to Smith. It

2660-626: The "Art in Cinema" series of experimental films at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art , where Oskar Fischinger's films were featured in several special programs, influencing artists such as Jordan Belson and Harry Smith to make experimental animation. They set up "alternative film programs" at Black Mountain College (now defunct) and the San Francisco Art Institute . Arthur Penn taught at Black Mountain College, which points out

2736-507: The 21st century such as Don Hertzfeldt 's It's Such a Beautiful Day , a 2012 American comedy-drama film, and Frederick C.G. Borromeo's film debut Distortion , a 2023 non-narrative film made in RPG Maker engine, are landmark examples of experimental animated films. Laura Mulvey 's writing and filmmaking launched a flourishing of feminist filmmaking based on the idea that conventional Hollywood narrative reinforced gender norms and

2812-463: The Afternoon (1943) by Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid is an early American experimental film. It provided a model for self-financed 16 mm production and distribution, one that was soon picked up by Cinema 16 and other film societies . Just as importantly, it established an aesthetic model of what experimental cinema could do. Meshes had a dream-like feel that hearkened to Jean Cocteau and

2888-612: The Film-Makers' Cinematheque successfully showed the films from the Tivoli program at the New Bowery Theater, as a program titled "Our Infamous Surprise Program". During the program's third showing on March 3, police stopped the event while Flaming Creatures was being screened. They arrested Mekas, Jacobs, Florence Karpf, and Jerry Sims and seized the film reels and projection equipment. The police department did not return

2964-523: The House of Usher (1928) and Lot in Sodom (1933). Harry Smith , Mary Ellen Bute , artist Joseph Cornell , and Christopher Young made several European-influenced experimental films. Smith and Bute were both influenced by Oskar Fischinger, as were many avant garde animators and filmmakers. In 1930, the magazine Experimental Cinema appeared. The editors were Lewis Jacobs and David Platt. In October 2005,

3040-507: The New American Cinema was marked by an oblique take on narrative, one based on abstraction, camp and minimalism, structural filmmakers like Frampton and Snow created a highly formalist cinema that foregrounded the medium itself: the frame, projection, and most importantly, time. It has been argued that by breaking film down into bare components, they sought to create an anti-illusionist cinema, although Frampton's late works owe

3116-619: The Surrealists, but equally seemed personal, new and American. Early works by Kenneth Anger , Stan Brakhage , Shirley Clarke , Gregory Markopoulos , Jonas Mekas , Willard Maas , Marie Menken , Curtis Harrington , Sidney Peterson , Lionel Rogosin , and Earle M. Pilgrim followed in a similar vein. Significantly, many of these filmmakers were the first students from the pioneering university film programs established in Los Angeles and New York . In 1946, Frank Stauffacher started

Flaming Creatures - Misplaced Pages Continue

3192-581: The Tivoli until police could clear the building. At the third Knokke-Le-Zoute Experimental Film Festival  [ fr ] , the selection committee rejected Flaming Creatures out of concern that it fell afoul of Belgium's obscenity laws. In protest, Mekas resigned from the festival jury, and several American filmmakers threatened to withdraw their films. Mekas smuggled in the film in a canister for Stan Brakhage 's Dog Star Man and held continuous private screenings out of his hotel. On New Year's Eve, Mekas, Rubin, and P. Adams Sitney forced their way into

3268-638: The case, believing it would potentially reach the U.S. Supreme Court . Sims, who had been taking tickets, managed to avoid prosecution by claiming he had not seen what was on the screen. People of the State of New York v. Kenneth Jacobs, Florence Karpf and Jonas Mekas was heard on June 12, 1964. As part of the defense, expert testimony came from filmmaker Shirley Clarke , poet Allen Ginsberg , writer Susan Sontag, filmmaker Willard Van Dyke and film historian Herman G. Weinberger. The defendants were convicted but given suspended sentences. They unsuccessfully appealed in

3344-547: The closing dance sequence. The earthquake sequence was shot in intense summer heat, with Smith and Ronald Tavel throwing dust from ceiling plaster onto the actors. Francis Francine was injured after being hit by a large piece of plaster. Smith had observed the effects of using out-of-date film while working on Ken Jacobs' Star Spangled to Death and decided to use the technique after seeing Ron Rice 's The Flower Thief . He mixed multiple black-and-white reversal film stocks, mostly specialty or Army surplus stock stolen from

3420-435: The cultural field. While "experimental" covers a wide range of practice, an experimental film is often characterized by the absence of linear narrative, the use of various abstracting techniques—out-of-focus, painting or scratching on film, rapid editing—the use of asynchronous ( non-diegetic ) sound or even the absence of any sound track. The goal is often to place the viewer in a more active and more thoughtful relationship to

3496-577: The death of cinema and showed their new hypergraphical techniques; the most notorious example is Guy Debord 's Howlings in favor of de Sade ( Hurlements en Faveur de Sade ) from 1952. The Soviet filmmakers, too, found a counterpart to modernist painting and photography in their theories of montage . The films of Dziga Vertov , Sergei Eisenstein , Lev Kuleshov , Alexander Dovzhenko , and Vsevolod Pudovkin were instrumental in providing an alternative model from that offered by classical Hollywood . While not experimental films per se, they contributed to

3572-589: The discard bins at a Camera Barn store. These included Kodak Plus-X, Perutz Tropical, Agfa - Ferrania , and DuPont . The rolls were out-of-date, giving parts of the film a foggy or high-contrast texture. The film's working title was Pasty Thighs and Moldy Midriffs ; Smith also considered using Flaking Moldy Almond Petals , Moldy Rapture , or Horora Femina . He was highly influenced by director Josef von Sternberg and actress Maria Montez , both of whom he discussed in essays published in Film Culture before

3648-853: The discovery of American avant-garde in 1958 with Brakhage's films and many others European and American filmmakers. From 1947 to 1963, the New York-based Cinema 16 functioned as the primary exhibitor and distributor of experimental film in the United States. Under the leadership of Amos Vogel and Marcia Vogel, Cinema 16 flourished as a nonprofit membership society committed to the exhibition of documentary, avant-garde, scientific, educational, and performance films to ever-increasing audiences. In 1962, Jonas Mekas and about 20 other film makers founded The Film-Makers' Cooperative in New York City. Soon similar artists cooperatives were formed in other places: Canyon Cinema in San Francisco,

3724-472: The film Ballet Mécanique (1924), which has been described as Dadaist , Cubist , or Futurist . Duchamp created the abstract film Anémic Cinéma (1926). Alberto Cavalcanti directed Rien que les heures (1926), Walter Ruttmann directed Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis (1927), and Dziga Vertov filmed Man with a Movie Camera (1929), experimental " city symphonies " of Paris , Berlin , and Kiev , respectively. One famous experimental film

3800-410: The film language of the avant-garde. Italy had a historically difficult relationship with its avant-garde scene, although, the birth of cinema coincided with the emerging of Italian Futurism . Potentially the new medium of cinema was a perfect match for the concerns of futurism, a renowned for promoting new aesthetics, motion, and modes of perception. Especially, given the futurist fascination with

3876-533: The film's release. Smith admired von Sternberg's films for their extravagant, exoticist settings; their preferential treatment of visual texture over plot; and the androgynous sexuality of actress Marlene Dietrich . Smith was interested in Maria Montez, a Dominican actress who starred in exotic adventure films during the 1940s, because of her intense, passionate acting style. He incorporated allusions to earthquake scenes from White Savage and Cobra Woman ;

SECTION 50

#1732786566367

3952-483: The film. Most of the film's characters are sexually ambiguous, including transvestite , intersex , and drag performers. Flaming Creatures is largely non-narrative, and its action is often interrupted by cutaways to close-ups of body parts. The film opens with a credits sequence set to the soundtrack of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and the announcement that "Ali Baba comes today!". Two creatures laze in

4028-430: The film. At least through the 1960s, and to some extent after, many experimental films took an oppositional stance toward mainstream culture. Most experimental films are made on very low budgets, self-financed or financed through small grants, with a minimal crew or, often a crew of only one person, the filmmaker. Some critics have argued that much experimental film is no longer in fact "experimental" but has in fact become

4104-593: The film. It rented the Tivoli Theatre, known for showing sexploitation films , and planned a screening of Flaming Creatures , excerpts from Smith's Normal Love , and Andy Warhol 's Newsreel . However, the theatre canceled the event due to the obscene content in Flaming Creatures . Several hundred people gathered at the theatre, and Smith was given his award in an impromptu ceremony. A crowd of several hundred people, led by Barbara Rubin , occupied

4180-477: The footage to filmmaker Stan Brakhage in Denver so it could be processed . Brakhage had developed a close relationship with a laboratory there through his own experiences dealing with contentious footage. With the processed footage in hand, Smith edited the film and used most of the production footage in the final cut; Flaming Creatures had a low shooting ratio and only 15 minutes of outtakes. A credit sequence

4256-427: The futurists were amongst the first avant-garde filmmakers group devoted to the potential of the image, praising motion and aiming towards an anti-narrative aesthetic. As an example, Marinetti's quote: "The cinema is an autonomous art. The cinema must therefore never copy the stage. The cinema, being essentially visual, must above all fulfil the evolution of painting, detach itself from reality, from photography, from

4332-481: The graceful and solemn..." As exemplified in the quote, the image is the real subject, not the story or the acting, an approach and attitude that remain true for the whole history of experimental filmmaking. Anton Giulio Bragaglia is undoubtedly the most known filmmaker from the futurist movement. The United States had some avant-garde films before World War II , such as Manhatta (1921), by Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand , and The Life and Death of 9413:

4408-404: The key elements of structural film are a fixed camera position, flicker effect, re-photography off screen, and loop printing. Artist Bruce Conner created early examples such as A Movie (1958) and Cosmic Ray (1962). As Sitney has pointed out, in the work of Stan Brakhage and other American experimentalists of early period, film is used to express the individual consciousness of the maker,

4484-484: The models from The Beautiful Book made appearances in the film. Smith held shoots on the roof of the Windsor Theatre, at 412 Grand Street on the Lower East Side . Dick Preston offered his loft above the theatre for use as a prop department and dressing room. Unable able to review rush prints between shoots, Smith made extensive preparations before each session. He filmed the scenes out of order, beginning with

4560-504: The most effective tactics in undercutting the nomination. Anthology Film Archives has placed Flaming Creatures in its Essential Cinema Repertory collection. The Austrian Film Museum has included the film in its cyclical Was ist Film program, preceding Leni Riefenstahl 's propaganda film Triumph of the Will . The film is listed in the reference book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die , which says "The film's distinctive beauty

4636-440: The only print of Warhol's film, about the making of Normal Love , and it is now considered lost. Mekas held a benefit screening of Un chant d'amour to raise money for a legal defense fund, but was arrested again for violating obscenity laws. The charges were dismissed under an agreement that Flaming Creatures not be shown until the legal status of Un chant d'amour was decided. Civil rights lawyer Emile Zola Berman accepted

SECTION 60

#1732786566367

4712-399: The popular misconception in both the art world and Hollywood that the avant-garde and the commercial never meet. Another challenge to that misconception is that late in life, after their Hollywood careers had ended, both Nicholas Ray and King Vidor made avant-garde films. Film theorist P. Adams Sitney offers a concept of "visionary film", and he invented a few genre categories, including

4788-434: The practices of mainstream commercial and documentary filmmaking . Avant-garde is also used, for the films of the sort shot in the twenties in France, Germany or Russia, to describe this work, and " underground " was used in the sixties, though it has also had other connotations. Today the term "experimental cinema" prevails, because it's possible to make experimental films without the presence of any avant-garde movement in

4864-643: The seizure of the film, the director of the Homosexual League of New York called Flaming Creatures "long, disturbing and psychologically unpleasant". Curator Amos Vogel likened it to a film noir that "despite flashes of brilliance and moments of perverse, tortured beauty" was full of "limp genitalia and limp art." Sontag praised the film in a 1966 essay as a "rare modern work of art: it is about joy and innocence." P. Adams Sitney described Flaming Creatures as "a mythic vision of redeemed innocence" in which Smith "utterly transforms his sources and uncovers

4940-434: The sensation of speed and the dynamism of modern life. However, what is left of futurist cinema is mostly on paper, many films very lost, and other never got made. Amongst those literatures it is worth noting The Futurist Cinema (Marinetti et al., 1916), Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature (1912), The Variety Theatre (1913), The Futurist Synthetic Theatre (1915), and The New Religion – Morality of Speed (1916). Perhaps,

5016-607: The state court on the grounds that the trial had excluded the expert testimony provided, and "whatever view this Court might hold as to the obscenity of 'Flaming Creatures,' it is manifest that the appellants herein believe in good faith that the film is not obscene." The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed an appeal. Fifty years later, the prosecutor for the case issued an apology to Mekas, writing, "Although my appreciation of free expression and aversion to censorship developed more fully as I matured, I should have sooner acted more courageously." In April 1965, an off-campus screening by students of

5092-452: The visual arts flourished. The Dadaists and Surrealists in particular took to cinema. René Clair 's Entr'acte (1924) featuring Francis Picabia , Marcel Duchamp , and Man Ray , and with music by Erik Satie , took madcap comedy into nonsequitur. Artists Hans Richter , Jean Cocteau , Marcel Duchamp, Germaine Dulac , and Viking Eggeling all contributed Dadaist/Surrealist shorts. Fernand Léger , Dudley Murphy , and Man Ray created

5168-551: The wedding procession in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves ; a slave, portrayed by Jeni Le Gon , who attends to Montez's character in Arabian Nights ; and promotional imagery of Montez reclining languidly. He made Flaming Creatures as a way to depict "different ideas of glamour" and film "all the funniest stuff he could think of". The film was produced for a very low budget of $ 300. After filming had completed, Smith sent

5244-572: The work more widely known and more accessible. Beginning in 1946, Frank Stauffacher ran the "Art in Cinema" program of experimental and avant-garde films at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art . From 1949 to 1975, the Knokke-Le-Zoute Experimental Film Festival  [ fr ] —located in Knokke-Heist , Belgium —was the most prominent festival of experimental cinema in the world. It permits

5320-504: Was being completed, Smith began screening unfinished versions of it to friends. Heliczer held a benefit for the film at painter Jerry Joffen 's loft. Mekas discussed a private screening of the film through his column in The Village Voice , and Conrad produced a second version of the soundtrack for the film's theatrical premiere. Flaming Creatures premiered on April 29, 1963 as part of a double feature with Blonde Cobra at

5396-441: Was canceled. When students attempted to screen prohibited films, police interrupted the event, leading to the school's first known violent conflict between police and students. Smith was opposed to giving his works a fixed form, preferring to continue re-editing his films. He continued to show Flaming Creatures , but by the late 1960s his print had degraded to the point that it was difficult to project. Anthology Film Archives held

5472-451: Was conceived as a tribute to Flaming Creatures . Experimental film While some experimental films have been distributed through mainstream channels or even made within commercial studios, the vast majority have been produced on very low budgets with a minimal crew or a single person and are either self-financed or supported through small grants. Experimental filmmakers generally begin as amateurs, and some use experimental films as

5548-536: Was not until after Smith's death in 1989 that larger institutions started to screen Flaming Creatures . Critic J. Hoberman and performer Penny Arcade saved Smith's belongings and had a restoration of the film made, a project which took five years. The New York Film Festival showed the film in 1991, and the Museum of the Moving Image included it in a 1997 retrospective of Smith's work. When Flaming Creatures

5624-493: Was often resentful of the publicity that surrounded the film. His feud with Mekas over the distribution of Flaming Creatures became a recurring subject of his performance pieces, with Mekas represented by a character named "Uncle Fishhook". In 1968, Associate Justice Abe Fortas was nominated to be Chief Justice of the United States. Fortas had previously spoken in favor of reversing the original convictions for screening Flaming Creatures , so Senator James Eastland , chairman of

5700-484: Was painted by Zazeela. Tony Conrad, with whom Smith shared an apartment, produced the film's soundtrack. The two lived in a building on the Lower East Side , where musician Angus MacLise lived and into which Mario Montez ended up moving. They held informal group sessions during the evening, which Conrad recorded. The soundtrack, a tape collage , incorporates " Siboney " by Ernesto Lecuona , " Amapola " by Joseph Lacalle , and various pasodobles . As Flaming Creatures

5776-652: Was released in 1963, Film Culture reviewer Ken Kelman described it as a Miltonian "ancient ritual chant…not for the Paradise Lost, but for the Hell Satan gained." In the Saturday Review , Arthur Knight called the film a "faggoty stag-reel ... defiling at once both sex and cinema." Pete Hamill , writing for The Saturday Evening Post , described it as "a sophomoric exercise in the kind of sex that Henry Miller dealt with 30 years ago." Following

#366633