119 West 25th Street PH
New York, NY 10001
PROGRAM
George & Mike Kuchar
Lovers of Eternity, 8mm on 16mm, 36min., 1964
Lust for Ecstasy, 8mm on 16mm, 24min., 1964
George Kuchar
Hold Me While I'm Naked, 16mm, 15min., 1966
Marie Losier
Electrocute Your Stars, 16mm, 8min., 2004
(starring George Kuchar)
Featuring a complimentary publication curated by [2nd floor projects] San Francisco with writings by Gina Basso, Nathaniel Dorsky, Johnny Ray Huston, Kevin Killian, Anne McGuire, Karla Milosevich, Irwin Swirnoff, Margaret Tedesco, John Waters, Steven Wolf and more.
Since the age of 12, George and Mike Kuchar have been staging bawdy remakes of Hollywood fare, carnal fantasias build out from the most home-spun means. Presaging Camp cults like that of John Waters by over a decade, Dirty Looks is proud to present an evening by and about these outrageous auteurs.
Lovers of Eternity and Lust For Ecstasy were two collaborative efforts made just as the avant-garde film scene, then called the underground, embraced the Kuchar brothers as members of the community. Before this point, the films caught in the Kuchars' lens were more home movies or family affairs outside of any conscious, artistic movement. But the brothers upped their production ante with Lovers of Eternity, a tale of a struggling artist, torn between his recent affections for a young woman and the ravenous secret in his closet. Lovers also features a hilarious cameo from underground filmmaker, Jack Smith.
Lust for Ecstasy is just that, a manic sexual explosion set in a hospital. An end of days is brewing and the staff seem to do quite little but assault one another with household instruments and dissolve into fits of hypersexual hysteria. This is one of the Kuchars' most excitable and excessive productions.
George Kuchar's first solo picture, Hold Me While I'm Naked,remains to this day his most celebrated. A tragic-comic self-portrait, the film follows the efforts of a burlesque filmmaker who tries in vain to finish a production abandoned by its busty starlet. A pitch-perfect melodrama, Hold Me oscillates between abject hilarity and heart-wrenching pathos, moment by moment.
Recently off the festival circuit with her documentary The Ballad of Genesis & Lady Jaye experimental portrait filmmaker, Marie Losier, will be present at the screening to show her film Electrocute Your Stars and discuss working with these original auteurs.