George Kuchar
This grift will never be finished.
George Kuchar -- although I've told you this before -- you are my hero. Also, my heroin. You overwhelm me. Last weekend at the Telluride Film Festival I didn't learn anything new. There, Edith Kramer honored you as a distinguished guest and lavished you a gratuitous amount of compliments on your importance to avant-garde cinema. Nevertheless, I spent six hours with you on the big screen and it was incredible.
Here's what I can steal from the situation: Kuchar's penchant for melodrama is only surpassed by his idiosyncratic obsessions. These respective characteristics are exemplified through the differentiation between his early film-based work versus the moment wherein he landed his first video camera.
Kramer makes a similar distinction between the years 1961-1977 and then 1987-2005. Some of Kuchar's 200+ films fall outside this timeframe, truth be told. Even so, taking sides here is important to understanding.
In the late 50's, George and his always-mentioned-in-writings twin brother Mike are consumed in the underground comic world and are making short 8mm films in the Bronx. Soon thereafter, George's metabolism for creating "pictures" manifests and he starts working in 16mm.
The medium switch from film to video liberates George in the 80's. Audio and video can be recorded at the same time; he doesn't have to impersonate the soundtrack for his actors. Tape is cheaper than film. As a direct result, the pictures become a massive purge of data. The dam breaks. He vomits (sometimes literally) his life into sub-$200-budget moving image diaries.
Sidenote: George never calls his films films or movies or pieces. They will always nonchalantly be denied such distinction and simply just be pictures -- or rather -- pik-chas (squawked in a thick Bronx accent).
His cogent focus is often suspect. However, here's what I can try to say: George looks huge when he's projected. His notion of the self-portrait is so complex and problematic. After watching six hours of it in two days I am convinced that what he is doing is deeply important. I laugh. I cry. His haphazard insertion of himself comes across as both desperate and calculated. It's self-deprecating. His body is constantly confronting the audience. Moreover, his relationship with the audience is cold (or maybe he doesn't believe in the audience). However, his connection with these cameras is intimate.
Is all this some DIY no-budget concoction of an American tragedy/comedy? Maybe a bad, good and light-hearted self-portrait?
Whatever the case, he is a good 65-year-old melodramatist of multiple media. His films, videos, comics, paintings and (especially (in my opinion)) his writing reveal his prolific genius. He creates flops. Stupid pictures. The most amazing stupid, sad, hilarious and asinine pictures that I know. I'm confident in saying this.
Interestingly, there's momentum around the cult. Although they are still few, the underground audiences are climbing stairs and bringing friends. Casey Kaplan just sold a water color that George painted 15 years ago for a lot of money. He's being recognized at not the most subversive of film festivals. This useless journal is publishing his writing, etc.
Here: In a Q&A George essentially said in so many words that an alien visited him at his apartment one day and conveyed that he was related to the Kuchar family. George then tried to make-out with said alien, made him tea. Then the alien left apartment.
I'm a believer.