A man fondles objects, looks at himself in the mirror, poses in different clothes, smiles and makes faces at the camera while his voice on the soundtrack speaks of his despair, makes impressionistic statements and little songs, quotes greta garbo and maria montez, tells the story of a lonely little boy and (in drag) tells the story of a woman (Madame Nescience) who dreams of herself as the mother superior of a convent of sexual perversion. –IMDb
Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Ken Jacobs, was born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1933. He studied painting with one of the prime creators of Abstract Expressionism, Hans Hofmann, in the mid-fifties. It was then that he also began filmmaking (Star Spangled To Death). His personal star rose, to just about knee high, with the sixties advent of Underground Film. In 1967, with the involvement of his wife Florence and many others aspiring to a democratic rather than demagogic cinema, he created The Millennium Film Workshop in New York City. A nonprofit filmmaker’s co-operative open to all, it made available film equipment, workspace, screenings and classes at little or no cost. Later he found himself teaching large classes of painfully docile students at St. John’s University in Jamaica, Queens.
In 1969, after a week’s guest seminar at Harpur College (now, Binghamton University), students petitioned the Administration to hire Ken Jacobs. Despite his lack of a high school diploma, the Administration… read more
There are snatches within this which are worth viewing – Jack Smith is a fascinating subject, especially with his perverse take on nuns going insane years before the late Ken Russell created The Devils. But it feels too slight, ill-structured or potent enough for good experimental cinema. Smith’s own films like Flaming Creatures mould his ideas of sexuality and perverse humour into far more striking works than this.
