黒い太陽 (Black Sun)

Directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara
1964
Japan


In a decrepit wasteland of rubble, detritus, and debris, a crumbling Christian church shivers in the Japanese morning sunlight. In its lone spire, a car thief named Mei relaxes and plays a jazz record. Though the artist sings in a language he doesn’t understand, he feels a desperate, inner connection with them. His walls are plastered with photos and clippings of jazz musicians and the floor is hidden by a layer of albums. He plays with a dog affectionately named “Thelonious Monk.” Life is hard, but enjoyable.

Mei listening to his new record.

At least until he discovers a wounded machine-gun toting American GI hiding in his room. What’s more, he isn’t an ordinary American GI. No...this man happens to be black.

On a totally unrelated side-note, I got these screencaps from Hulu. I have no idea how to take them without that "Buffer" bar at the upper top showing up.

Ecstatic at his discovery, Mei tries to communicate and calm the GI who is screeching for help: “Today’s my lucky day! . . . All black men are my friends . . . Negro jazz! . . . I love you!” But the GI ignores him. He is on the run from the military police, having been involved in an incident where two other GI’s were shot and killed. What follows is a brilliantly unsettling examination of cultural boundaries and racial tensions in post-war Japan. Such is the world of Koreyoshi Kurahara’s Black Sun.


Black Sun is one of those special films that could only have come into fruition under the right historical and cultural circumstances. Set in the Japanese post-war reconstruction years, Kurahara’s film is more than just a crime drama; it is a kind of anthropological time capsule. Kurahara’s film perfectly captured the atmosphere of his time and all of its inherent contradictions, such as how Japanese society was experiencing an unheard of level of economic and social freedom while living under the suffocating presence of American occupiers. While jazz clubs and bars flourished and gave birth to a new form of wild night life, many still lived in the remains of bombed-out buildings and collected scrap for a living. And, most importantly, how the unprecedented level of intermingling with another foreign culture managed to entrench racist sentiments and xenophobia.

For example, despite Mei's love of jazz and black musicians, he is openly and virulently hostile and racist to white GI's.

Take Mei. Mei openly idolizes black jazz musicians. But he had probably never seen one before his run-in with Gill. Even the GI’s that he sees on the street are white. As a result, Mei doesn’t just worship black jazz musicians, but black people in general, lumping them together into an autonomous whole separate from other white Americans. As Gill writhes in pain, Mei eagerly offers him a trumpet and asks him to play.

Now may not be the best time, Mei...

But the misguided sentiments don’t end with Mei’s assumption of Gill’s musical prowess. When Gill accidentally kills “Thelonious Monk,” Mei calls him a nigger, runs to a bar, and starts to complain about how worthless black people are. Even after he gets over his depression concerning his dog, he introduces Gill to a bar full of friends as his "slave."



In any case, Mei decides to help Gill escape from the police. In order to get through military roadblocks, Mei paints Gill’s face white and his own black. When the roadblock officers begin to interrogate Mei, mistaking him for a black GI, they soon realize that he is just a Japanese in blackface and let him through. Why Gill needed to be in whiteface is left unclear.

Gill, in whiteface, and Mei, in blackface.

But together they embark on a quest to reach “the sea.” For some inexplicable reason, Gill, desires to reach “the sea” so he can return to his “mama.” A bond begins to grow between the two, reminiscent of the one found between the two on-the-run white and black prisoners chained together in The Defiant Ones (1958). As Gill slowly loses his mind to the pain and infection from his bullet wound, Mei begins to risk life and limb to get him to “the sea.” In a hauntingly surreal scene, Gill straps himself to a giant balloon and begs Mei to shoot the rope holding him to the ground. With the police quickly closing in, Mei tearfully obliges and sets Gill free, shouting, “Go back home to your mama!”

Gill going home.

Koreyoshi Kurahara’s Black Sun is a loud, ugly, gritty, and gripping film. It is a tortured shriek of post-war anguish from one of Japan’s leading filmmakers of the 1960s. Every aspect of the film is a visceral assault on the senses. Cinematographer Mitsuji Kanau delivers bleak, jagged black-and-white cinematography the likes of which would make Sven Nykvist and John Alton proud...and jealous. Max Roach, one of Mei’s idols whose album provided the title of the film, provided a blood-curdling soundtrack reminiscent of “Triptych: Prayer/Protest/Peace” from his We Insist! - Freedom Now Suite. Chico Roland’s performance as Gill is so intense and unsettling that it can only be likened to a doctor torturing a naked nerve during a root canal.

Ignore the progress bar, please...

But most of all, Black Sun is terrifying for its unflinching glare into Japanese society. I lived in Japan for a few months during my Junior year at college, so I know first hand how even today the Japanese have a tendency to rely on stereotypes for their interactions with foreigners. This is not the symptom of some in-bred hatred, but rather a side-effect from a culture that for centuries prided itself on isolation from the rest of the world. As such, Mei’s story can be interpreted as symbolic of the cultural shock that all Japanese people faced at the end of World War Two when the world imposed its will upon them. Regardless, Black Sun is unequivocally a treasure of Japanese cinema that hasn’t lost a single bit of power over the years.

Passport to Pimlico

Directed by Henry Cornelius
1949
Great Britain


Henry Cornelius' Passport to Pimlico is the kind of comedy that I hold near and dear to my heart. It is one of the films that proves that good comedy doesn't have to rely on vulgarity, shock value, or gross-out humor. Don't misunderstand me. There is a time and a place for such things. But recently it seems like Hollywood has come to the conclusion that good comedies need to contain explicit content. But that isn't true. Many of the greatest comedies ever made contain almost no graphic material. Instead, they rely on witty and intelligent writing and brilliant comedic performances. Some films are able to combine the two, like Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) which featured a stunning screenplay and a bevy of historic comedic performances. Other comedy films focus more on performances. The works of the silent comedians such as Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin come to mind. And then, there are comedies where the writing pulls the most weight. Passport to Pimlico belongs to this category. But that isn't because it lacks memorable performances. Instead, this is because the plot doesn't give any one character enough screen-time to truly develop a mature comedic persona. This is because Passport to Pimlico isn't really about any one character, but about a group of people thrown into bizarre circumstances.


The citizens of the Pimlico district of London awake one morning to a resounding explosion that rocks their otherwise quiet community. Some local boys accidentally set off an undiscovered German bomb from the Battle of Britain. The townsfolk discover that the bomb had unearthed a forgotten cache full of treasure.

What? It happens.

Among the jewelry and works of art, a strange piece of ancient parchment is discovered. A professor identifies it as a royal charter of King Edward IV, who reigned in the late 1400s. The parchment ceded the area to Burgundian Duke Charles VII who sought refuge in England after being presumed dead at the Battle of Nancy (January 4, 1477). Much to the horror of the British government, the charter was never revoked. As such, Pimlico officially becomes Burgundian soil.


A realization dawns upon the citizens of the newly emancipated Pimlico: they are no longer governed by the laws of the British government. As such, post-World War Two rationing gets thrown out the window and Pimlico becomes swamped with black market goods and cheap foodstuffs. Total anarchy breaks out to such a degree that the streets are barely navigable.

The new marketplace of Pimlico.

The citizens of Pimlico try to appeal to the British government to control the influx of illegal merchants, but they refuse. After all, the Pimlico affair has caused them great embarrassment and want them to rejoin the Crown. In a brilliantly passive-aggressive political maneuver, the British government insists that they will only recognize laws passed according to the rules of the non-existent Dukedom of Burgundy. Since Burgundian laws could only be passed by a council appointed by their Duke, the citizens of Pimlico seem defeated. That is, of course, until a young Frenchman named Dijon appears from out of the blue and provides proof that he is the heir of the dukedom. Pimlico’s new Duke chooses a council of townsfolk and thwart the British governments attempts to bring them back into the Empire.

Dijon, the new Duke of Pimlico.

The rest of the film follows the increasingly absurd and ridiculous lengths that the British government goes to in order to force Pimlico to rejoin Great Britain and the equally preposterous methods in which Pimlico fights back. The police literally shut off the Pimlico “border” with barbed wire fences and guards. In the madness, people are stranded in Pimlico and not allowed to leave or enter because they didn’t have their passports (leading to one of the film’s great lines where a woman complaining that she can’t leave Pimlico results in a police officer saying “Don't blame me Madam, if you choose to go abroad to do your shopping.”

The "Burgundian" border.

And so the Burgundians strike back by confiscating an Underground train when it goes beneath them. As a result, we see the professor who validated the authenticity of the Pimlico charter being asked if she has anything to declare when she storms off the train.

Pimlico takes possession of the train.

The British government cut off their electricity, food, and water. So the Burgundians organize night raids where they steal water from fire hydrants across the “border.” When they run out of food, sympathetic passersby throw food and provisions over the “border” to them. In one preposterous scene, a helicopter flies over Pimlico, lowers two giant hoses, and is “milked” by a Burgundian. As this film was made during the West Berlin Blockade, the symbolism of this event could not have been missed by audiences.

A helicopter prepares for a delivery of milk.

Even the inevitable end of the conflict comes not from an explosive denouement, but a sensible and surprisingly clever compromise between the Burgundians and the British wherein both sides are able to walk away without losing any face. Because, at its core, Passport to Pimlico is a comedy concerning a battle of wits. The screenwriter, an Ealing Studios favorite named T.E.B. Clarke, crafted a phenomenal story that despite all of its over-the-top eccentricities remains believable. The events in this film were, after all, inspired by an actual case during the Second World War where the royal family of the Netherlands flew to Canada and had the Ottawa Civic Hospital maternity ward declared international territory so their daughter could be born Dutch and thereby still qualify for the throne. Is it a far-fetched story? Of course. But that’s why it’s such a good one. It showcases the valiant British will-power and stubbornness borne under the fires of war against the Nazis like almost none other. As one character explained, “We've always been English and we'll always be English; and it's precisely because we are English that we're sticking up for our right to be Burgundians!”

Hell's Hinges

Directed by Charles Swickard, William S. Hart, and Clifford Smith
1916
The United States of America

Hell’s Hinges is by far one of the most cynical and bleak Westerns that I have ever seen. The fact that it was made in 1916, a full thirteen years before John Ford would officially legitimize the Western as more than just B-movie trash with Stagecoach (1939), is all the more astounding. And yet, Hell’s Hinges, clocking in at barely over an hour, could very well be as essential to the survival and evolution of the Western genre as Mr. Ford’s film. To say that it was ahead of its time is an understatement as it seems akin to Revisionist Westerns, such as Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) and Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven (1992). It is dark, murky, ugly, nasty, and despite an ending that could be classified as “happy,” remains unrepentant.

A shot of the eponymous town of Hell's Hinges, a place which the narration describes as a town to "ride wide of."

But perhaps first some history is in order. It’s important to note the general state of Westerns before Hell’s Hinges. It’s generally accepted that one of the most important Westerns of all time was Edwin Porter’s The Great Train Robbery (1903) which helped pioneer such techniques as cross-editing to tell a story from more than one point of view. However, subsequent Western fare did little to continue Porter’s tradition of using the genre as a platform for cinematic innovation. As Moving Picture World reported in 1911, Westerns by and large featured “always the same plot, the same scenery, the same impossible Indians, the wicked halfbreeds, the beautiful red maidens, the fierce warriors, the heroic cowboys, the flight from the Indian village at night.” In fact, it was widely accepted that the Western genre had exhausted itself and was doomed to die.


Thankfully, before the genre could expire, producer Thomas Ince breathed new life into it. He set his films in a sprawling twenty-thousand acre ranch above Santa Monica that was dubbed “Inceville.” For actors, he sought out members of the Oglala Sioux tribe and a Wild West show troupe. But perhaps the most important addition to his stable of actors was William S. Hart.

William S. Hart, seen here in Hell's Hinges, began his film career when he was nearly 50 years old.

Hart, with his aged stoicism akin to a Wild West Buster Keaton and a unflappable presence that predated and predicted the likes of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, would forever be known as the first star of feature length Westerns.

And, is it just me, or do I detect a little hint of James Stewart, too?

Forgive the pun, but Hart was truly the heart of what made Hell’s Hinges great. In an era defined by overdramatic acting reminiscent of the theater, Hart’s restraint spoke louder and more forcibly than any exaggerated expression or body movement. And that restraint is what helped propel Hell’s Hinges from the realm of pulp to cinematic genius.


The plot plays as an inversion of the famous Western trope of the arrival of the schoolmarm who brings law and civility to the untamed West. In such stories, there is a town or piece of country ruled by lawlessness and godlessness which is eventually saved and reformed by an outsider, usually from the East. And, at first, Hell’s Hinges seems to fit that story. A minister and his sister arrive from New York to Hell’s Hinges in order to aid the few moral citizens, referred to as the “Petticoat Brigade.”

The "Petticoat Brigade," a "drop of water in a barrel of rum."

However, in reality, the minister is a hypocritical charlatan who was sent Westward because his superiors wanted to keep him away from the temptations of the city. Once he arrives, he is seduced by one of the town’s most notorious prostitutes.

The reverend and his sister, Faith, arrive in Hell's Hinges.

His sister, Faith, an exemplar of ingenue Christian piety the likes of which would make Lillian Gish proud, becomes the object of “Blaze” Tracy’s affections. Tracy, played by Hart, was the hired gunman of Silk Miller, the owner of the local saloon and tyrant of Hell’s Hinges. Together, they swore to keep the law and God out of Hell’s Hinges at any cost. However, upon seeing Faith and at the church, he instantly abandons his wicked ways and converts to Christianity.

"I reckon God ain't wantin' me much, ma'am, but when I look at you, I feel I've been ridin' the wrong trail."

What results is nothing short of all-out war between Tracy, the new defender of the faith, and Silk Miller. Mobs form, shots are fired, and the church is burned to the ground. Before escaping with Tracy and Faith, the reverend is shot and soon dies once they are outside of town.

The church burns.

Enraged at the wickedness of Hell’s Hinges, Tracy returns to wreck horrible vengeance upon the town. He traps the remaining population of the town into Silk Miller’s saloon, sets it on fire, and shoots anybody who tries to flee. Instead of bringing salvation and civilization, the East has brought the damnation of Hell’s Hinges.

Tracy keeps the evil townsfolk hostage while the saloon burns.

Although the Western would again atrophy into cinematic trash by the 1930s, Hell’s Hinges was essential to the genre’s survival. Not only was Hell’s Hinges one of the darkest and most brutal Westerns ever made, its craftsmanship was so flawless that it remains riveting even to this day. Hell’s Hinges is a searing fable of Old Testament wrath, not in the Holy Land, but in the land that God forgot: the Old West.

The Negro Soldier

During the terrible years of World War Two, the United States realized that if they were going to win the fight, then they would need more manpower than had ever been mustered before in their history. The government decided that despite segregation within their armed forces, they needed to do everything in their power to recruit African Americans. To achieve this end, the government hired none other than Frank Capra to head the production of a film unlike any other in history. It would be a film that would revolutionize the depiction of African Americans not only within the cinema, but in society as well. That film would be The Negro Soldier.


In hindsight, The Negro Soldier seems contrived and even manipulative in its depiction of African Americans and their contributions to American society.

You don't say...

The film is composed of two different testimonies delivered in the context of an African American church.

Don't be put off by his uniform, he has a lovely singing voice.

One Sunday morning, the minister (played by Carlton Moss, also the film’s writer) delivers a sermon directed at the African American servicemen currently in attendance. He then launches into a description of the various achievements made by African Americans throughout history: the athletes who beat Germany in the Berlin Olympic Games, Crispus Attucks being the first casualty of the Boston Massacre, the soldiers who fought and died in World War One. Moss deliberately emphasizes that African Americans were essential to the development of the United States, all the while ignoring such unpleasantries as slavery and civil rights violations. Curiously, the great African American abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass and heroes of the Underground Railroad such as Harriet Tubman are noticeably absent.

Carlton Moss addressing his congregation.

After Moss successfully riles the congregation up with reports of Nazis destroying French monuments to World War One African American soldiers, he is interrupted by a Mrs. Bronson who reads a letter from her recently enlisted son.

The Nazis destroying a French monument to African American soldiers.

What follows is a montage of the training undergone by African American soldiers. The son happily reports that he is treated very well and has significantly improved himself. He fails to mention how the Army is still heavily segregated. But that doesn’t seem to matter. The letter paints a picture of the Army as a massive machine full of men of every race fighting an unspeakable evil. As the letter ends, the congregation rises in song and we see soldiers marching off to war.

Mrs. Bronson reading a letter from her son.

As I said, The Negro Soldier and the world it presents where African Americans have equal rights and freedoms to white men seems contrived by today’s standards. But that’s because it actually was: The Negro Soldier was a carefully manicured illusion whose production was more fascinating than the actual film.

I know it's hard to tell from this image, but there are, in fact, several black men in this photo.

Let me start by acknowledging Thomas Cripps and David Culbert’s invaluable essay The Negro Soldier (1944): Film Propaganda in Black and White as the source for the following production details. Cripps and Culbert describe how when production began on The Negro Soldier in March 1942, Frank Capra asked the Research Branch to “draw up a list of ‘do’s and don’ts’ regarding the cinematic depiction of black.” The result was a list that included such things as:

-Avoid stereotypes such as the Negroes’ affinity for watermelon or pork.
-Avoid colored soldiers who are the most Negroid in appearance.
-Avoid such topics as Lincoln, emancipation, or race leaders/friends of the Negro.
-Include, but don’t play up too much, depictions of colored officers in command of troops.

My favorite part of this list is the last one concerning the depiction of “colored officers” which included the stunning side note: “The Negro masses have learned that colored men who get commissions tend to look down on the masses.” However, another request on the part of the War Department must also be noted: the deletion of a scene wherein a white nurse attends a black soldier. Even in their quest to revolutionize the depiction of African Americans in the cinema, the War Department was unwilling to challenge such a blatant racial and sexual taboo.

Of course, if both the nurse and the soldier were men, then it was apparently okay...

However, despite such difficulties, The Negro Soldier became a massive success. The film, while originally intended for black audiences, became mandatory viewing for all troops at replacement centers inside the United States. The film was still being shown as late as 1946, two years before Harry Truman’s desegregation order for the Army. Activist groups such as the NAACP and the National Negro Congress called The Negro Soldier “the best ever done” and clamored for it to receive a widespread distribution. The film was booked for church and civic functions by African Americans all over the country. In December 2011, The Negro Soldier was included in the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry, being cited as having “showcased the contributions of blacks to American society and their heroism in the nation’s wars, portraying them in a dignified, realistic, and far less stereotypical manner than they had been depicted in previous Hollywood films.”

Notice how none of them are carrying a banjo.

But is it right to praise The Negro Soldier considering that it was obviously made as a piece of Revisionist history that manipulated African Americans into the Army where untold thousands would eventually die? Consider this: what if in an attempt to lure homosexuals back into the Armed Forces with the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was done with a film entitled The Homosexual Soldier? And what if in this film, homosexuals were depicted as having been crucial and indispensable to the development of American history while sidestepping their systematic abuse, prosecution, and intolerance at the hands of bigots? Do the ends justify the means? Who knows if that question can ever be answered. But one thing is certain: The Negro Soldier got results. If viewed strictly from that perspective, then The Negro Soldier is one of the most successful films of all time.

Fake Fruit Factory

Directed by Chick Strand
1986
The United States of America

“If you want to make a documentary you should automatically go to the fiction, and if you want to nourish your fiction you have to come back to reality.” ― Jean-Luc Godard

The first job that I ever had was working as a cashier at a McDonald’s located right outside of the church where my father worked. The hours were long, the pay was low, and the work was incredibly tedious. Over the years, I would switch jobs several times, working as a Starbucks barista, a telemarketer for my college, and even doing a two year stint as a custodian for an elementary school. Though the jobs would change, they all had something in common: during particularly long shifts, after a few hours my mind would effectively turn off and I would start to do my work mechanically and automatically. In essence, it was as if my body went into autopilot. The whole world would glaze over as I would sink into the specifics of my routine. Little snatches of casual conversation would become islands in a sea of monotony. Fifteen minute breaks would become miniature vacations worth their weight in gold. And after a while, you learn to stop looking at the clock. I believe that anybody who has ever worked such a tedious kind of job has had experiences like that. Until you have actually gone out and done such work yourself, it is impossible for somebody to know what it feels like.

Don't mind us...we're just living what corporate America tells us is the American Dream.

Such a thing is virtually impossible to replicate in a fictional film. True, a director can get his actors to get all sweaty and greased up and do location shooting at a factory. Director Michael Cimino used this technique to transform Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken into steel workers in The Deerhunter (1978). But on a subconscious level, we all knew that once the shot was over, De Niro and Walken would retire to hot showers and a rest in their trailers.

Well...maybe not so much for Robert De Niro...the guy took his work kinda seriously.

Documentary filmmakers are somewhat more successful in capturing such experiences. Memories of the Maysles’ Salesman (1969) comes to mind. However, the inherent problem with the traditional documentary format is that they serve to witness a subject completely objectively. Discounting instances of documentaries designed to promote a political agenda, the documentary is designed to be a silent spectator. We can see people work monotonous jobs, but we can’t truly experience it.

After all, who wouldn't want to experience the life of a door-to-door Bible salesman?

So enters the role of the experimental filmmaker. Unfettered by traditional rules of cinematic orthodoxy, the experimental filmmaker can create works of art that are capable of transmitting atmospheres and emotions that fiction films and documentaries cannot. For proof, one would need to look no further than Chick Strand’s illuminating film Fake Fruit Factory (1986).

Another day, another fistful of pesos.

Bringing an “ethnographer’s eye” to the realm of documentary filmmaking, Strand creates a fascinating portrayal of Mexican women who toil to create decorative papier-mâché produce for a small handicraft company. Though barely 22 minutes in length, Fake Fruit Factory is the closest that I have ever seen a film come to truly capturing the atmosphere of mind-numbing, blue collar monotony.

It turns out not everything is made in China.

Made during a four year period of wandering between 1981 and 1985, Fake Fruit Factory watches as these poor Mexican women spend their days kneading plaster, painting fake watermelons, and watching their children. The women are employed by an American who casually jokes with them only to be mercilessly scorned and laughed at behind his back. Idle chat fills the air, usually about sex. We catch random figments of their various conversations:

-”Let’s do it again or else we’ll have to start from scratch.”
-”Patti is pregnant. The boss did it.”
-”They never cut them right.”
-”In sex?”
-”Are they good?...Two times?”
-”Their wives work and they sleep all day.”

At one point, the women are granted a brief reprieve when the boss takes them all to a pool where they bring their children and flirt with the men.

Surprisingly, they aren't quoting a song by The Beatles.

But it doesn’t last. Before long, they are back to hanging small pieces of fake fruit to dry in the sun. At the end of the film, a subtitle informs us that two weeks after the last pieces of footage were shot, the American boss skipped town with a blond blackjack dealer and his Mexican wife became wealthy after taking control of the factory. But I doubt that the women working under her really care. Different boss...same job...every single day.

I'm sure I could make a joke about scarcity of food in Mexico with this image...but I'm too classy for that.

So how does this film truly capture what it is like to work a mind-numbing job day-in and day-out? It does so by breaking almost all of the rules established by the majority of filmmakers who attempt to transcend the cinematic medium and capture a glimpse of real life. First, it is shot almost entirely in close-ups, focusing particularly on their hands and faces. The use of close-ups breaks the traditional role of the audience as mere spectators. We constantly squint and adjust our eyes to try and comprehend what we are seeing, transforming the act of viewing Fake Fruit Factory from being passive to active.

Can't...see...

Second, it frequently uses edits to carve up scenes into smaller pieces. Traditionally, edits create a distancing effect as they jar the audience from one image to another. In addition, the use of editing in and of itself denotes a subjective, and therefore biased, hand in the construction of a film, as they are used to focus our attention on scenes, locations, actions, and lines that (traditionally) serve to promote and further the film’s narrative. But when Strand combines her close-up shots with the liberal use of edits, we see a fragmented world that simultaneously captures real life and ignores it to create a symbolic one that encapsulates all members of the working class. It is both truth and lie, twisting our perception of the workers’ reality into something that we can truly experience alongside of them. This is how Fake Fruit Factory perfectly captures the zen of the 9-to-5 grind.



Source:
http://www.filmpreservation.org/preserved-films/screening-room/2011-nfr-fake-fruit-factory-1986

I, an Actress

Directed by George Kuchar
1977
The United States of America

The term “camp” gets thrown around a lot these days. Many times, it is used to refer to things that are over-the-top, cheesy, or just plain silly. Visions of Adam West dancing the Batusi and reaching for bottles of Bat-Shark-Repellant immediately spring to mind. But what does it truly mean to be “camp?” The first time that the term appeared in 1909, it was defined as “ostentatious, exaggerated, affected, theatrical, and effeminate behaviour.” But that explanation doesn’t seem quite to fit what has come to be identified as “camp.” After all, those words could all be used to describe the acting techniques of Japanese Kabuki actors or performers of Chinese Opera. And yet, those art forms do not fit what has generally become accepted as “camp,” at least in the American cultural mind-frame where the term first arose. So, perhaps it is best to revisit the explanation given by one of the very first people who defined the idea in a modern context: Susan Sontag. She described it as a “love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration.” Sontag went on in her essay Notes on “Camp” to emphasis the aesthetic’s focus on “artifice, frivolity, naïve middle-class pretentiousness, and ‘shocking’ excess.” With this definition, conceiving the idea of “camp” becomes easier with certain filmmakers beginning to melt into focus. Memories of Edith Massey crying out for the Egg Man in John Waters’ Pink Flamingos (1972) and Faye Dunaway screeching about wire hangers in Frank Perry’s Mommie Dearest (1981) swim into view.

Sweet, delicious camp...just like mama used to make!

But where exactly can we place the first development of Sontag’s “camp” in cinema? For the answer to that question, one need look no further than an apartment in the Bronx in the early 1950s. Within that apartment lived George and Mike Kuchar, a pair of twins who made over 200 films in a career that spanned several decades. Beginning their lives as filmmakers before they were even teenagers, the twins made no-budget movies on 8 mm film stock. They were tributes to Hollywood excess, featuring improvised costumes, sets, and props. They frequently focused on shocking and graphic material. In one instance, George Kuchar was punished for making a film that had a transvestite in it. George explained his casting decision to his mother by saying that she “didn’t realize how hard it is for a 12-year-old director to get real girls in his movies.”

Stills from The Naked and the Nude (1957) the earliest surviving complete film by the Kuchar Brothers.

Within these films, the Kuchar’s developed what would come to be seen as the “camp” sensibility. Their incessant cheapness and proclivity for exaggeration slowly evolved into a kind of aesthetic. As Deborah Allison explained in an essay for Senses of Cinema, “Amongst a visual cornucopia of effusively lurid costumes, props and lighting, [their film’s] blatant phoniness feeds into an aesthetic where the “artificial” exists on the same plane as the “real.” Most critics point to George Kuchar’s Hold Me While I’m Naked (1966) as their ultimate masterpiece.

A scene from Hold Me While I'm Naked.

However, I’d like to draw attention to another one of George’s films that I feel is ultimately more valuable in its depiction of their contributions to “camp.” That film is I, an Actress (1977). Made while George Kuchar was working at the San Francisco Art Institute, I, an Actress was the result of a collaboration that he made with his students. One of his students, Barbara Lapsley, had desires to become an actress. As such, she requested to star in a short film that she could use to launch her new-found career. So one day, with ten minutes of class left, Kuchar arranged for Lapsley to feature in a classic Hollywood screen test. He gave Lapsley a script from a ludicrous melodramatic monologue, positioned her against a wall next to a draped post with a wig on top that would serve as her lover, and started the camera. The film then records the next ten minutes in real-time without any breaks. Lapsley starts out trying her best to act out the inconceivably hammy script with some semblance of dignity.

Lapsley's first attempt.

However, after only a few lines, George interrupts her and starts to give her off-screen directions.

A demonstration of the "George Kuchar Acting Method."

He tells her to be more passionate. Eventually, he walks into the frame and starts to give her explicit directions. He mimes how she should grope her breasts as she confesses to her “lover.” As they proceed, he starts interrupting her more and more often. Eventually, she can barely go one line before he interrupts her with more directions.

George Kuchar rubbing his breasts in order to show Lapsley how to properly sex it up.

George’s antics are absolutely hysterical. The only thing more entertaining than George is watching Lapsley try and make sense of his directions without cracking up and laughing. Watching her clench a cigarette in her teeth and sneering, “When I cheat it’s not for sex, it’s for revenge” is simply sublime.

“When I cheat it’s not for sex, it’s for revenge”

Soon, George gets her on the ground, flailing about in front of the post. Barely able to control her laughing, she yells, “aren’t you used to women on their knees, Harold, or are you only used to women on their backs?” And yet, it still isn’t enough for George. They get more and more frantic and over-the-top until everybody in the room, including the crew, are in fits of laughter.

Truly an Oscar-worthy performance.

It may seem strange to consider such an odd film which was clearly only an exercise for a class an essential part of cinematic history. Here’s the thing, though...this film serves as a kind of documentary of the Kuchar creative process. It was through these very antics that the aesthetic quality of “camp” truly evolved. In I, an Actress, we see the creation of “camp” before our very eyes: the exploitation of farcical melodrama. The aesthetic’s trademark self-awareness becomes more glaringly apparent than ever before with its creator in full view of the audience. “Camp” may be silly, over-the-top, and ridiculous. But through the efforts of the Kuchor Brothers in such films as I, an Actress, it is impossible to dismiss “camp” as unoriginal. Derivative? Yes. But “camp” transformed into something much more: a commentary, a celebration, and a cocktease of Hollywood conventions.



Sources:
http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2011/11-240.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_%28style%29
http://www.filmpreservation.org/dvds-and-books/clips/i-an-actress-1977
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2004/cteq/hold_me_while_im_naked/