Where is this available?
I saw it on www.ubu.com.
read Jack Smith’s Wait for Me at the Bottom of the Pool. It will all become clear. Smith is one of the great underground artists and Flaming Creatures (if not Normal Love) is his best film.
Yeah, Jazz: I was enthralled by the raggedy print and bleeding images; they seemed a part of the desperate and anxious fabric of the tale being told. I consider the work brilliant, but certainly non-linear and elusive.
For me, it almost feels like a precursor to the found footage movement that’s around right now. I would not want a cleaned up print because part of the mystery lies in trying to resolve the chaos. That’s the allure of the film for me.
If you can scare up a copy of my book “Film: The Front line —1984” (Arden Press), it’s opening chapter is about Jack.
“Flaming Creatures” and the short “Scotch Tape” were his only films to have achieved completed form. After that heshot and exhibited his films in a variety of free-form ways. He was a ’performance artist" long before the term was coined.
“Flaming Creatures” was shot on backdated stock — the better to look like a found object from the past. Visually its quite sophisticated, destroying one’s usual sense of up/down, foreground/background.
If you can scare up a copy of my book “Film: The Front line —1984” (Arden Press), it’s opening chapter is about Jack.
“Flaming Creatures” and the short “Scotch Tape” were his only films to have achieved completed form. After that heshot and exhibited his films in a variety of free-form ways. He was a ’performance artist" long before the term was coined.
“Flaming Creatures” was shot on backdated stock — the better to look like a found object from the past. Visually its quite sophisticated, destroying one’s usual sense of up/down, foreground/background.
@Z
I didn’t mind the non-linear aspects of the film, but I’m not sure if I call it brilliant. I’m curious to hear your thoughts about this.
@Den
The book interests me, but it seems like it’ll be hard to get a hold of. (It’s not in my local library.)
@David
Couldn’t find your book in the local library as well. :(
Try Abe Books on line.
Jazz: Did you know much about “FC” going into your viewing of it? Perhaps you were expecting a more orderly narrative? I see it, as I do Bunuel’s “Un chien andalu,” as a masterful foray into a kind og nightmarishly surreal dreamscape, one that operates by (and then nullifies) a series of completely unique narrtive “rules.”. It can hardly be parsed; it can only be experienced, surrendered to, on its own unforgettable terms.
It has a dreamlike feel that few people have ever captured.
It saw very well the ridiculousness of Hollywood films and humanizes in its parody.
If the participants had dialog I suspect it would sound like John Waters who was also adept at showing an unknown culture without any judgment.
It also captures or seems to the hippie commune type culture that was knocking on the door in 63. It would make a great double feature with American Graffiti, which lamented the death of certain times and certain types (like this one featured a killer soundtrack put to great use). Where were you in 62? In 63, there will be a crazy cultural free for all. Not sure there is any meaning for those outside a subculture (those Smith once labeled as normies) except a positive view into something that might be labeled transgressive
@Z
I knew that it was an underground film going in, so I didn’t expect a conventional narrative. I prefer Bunuel’s early silent films, btw.
Jazzaloha
Some thoughts:
1. I honestly wonder how I would react to this had I not known anything about it—specifically that it was critically acclaimed. I don’t know if I can answer that, but I do feel like there were some interesting visuals (mostly with the overhead shots and the positioning of the sprawling bodies).
2. I couldn’t understand some of the voice-overs (especially during the lipstick scene).
3. How much of the cinematography, film quality and editing were intentional, I wonder. I liked the beat-up quality of print at times and I think a better print would change the film quite dramatically. However, some of the editing made the film feel incomplete or tampered with. Then again, the film felt very experimental, so maybe that was intentional.
4. If there is any “meaning” to this film, I have no idea, but I’d be interested in hearing interpretation from others.
Not sure about whether this is significant work of art, but I know I didn’t really care for it.