Date: 31 March 2006 | Season: London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2006 | Tags: London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival
IN LUST WE TRUST: 8MM FILMS BY THE KUCHAR BROTHERS
Friday 31 March & Sunday 2 April 2006
London BFI Southbank NFT1
Twins Mike & George Kuchar began filming aged 12, wearing dresses from their beloved mother’s closet. In lurid Kodachrome, they cast Bronx neighbours as the unlikely psychos and sexpots of their tawdry teenage fantasies. With their lust-filled lenses, the brothers created a rampant stack of camp classics that have inspired filmmakers from Warhol to Waters to Solondz. Home movie melodramas have never been so epic, or so moist.
“George and Mike Kuchar’s films were my first inspiration ? These were the pivotal films of my youth, bigger influences than Warhol, Kenneth Anger, even The Wizard of Oz. Here were directors I could idolize – complete crackpots without an ounce of pretension, outsiders to even “underground” sensibilities ? The Kuchar Brothers gave me the self-confidence to believe in my own tawdry vision. They still make funny, sexy, insanely optimistic films and videos every day of their lives ? The Kuchars may be the only real underground filmmakers left in America today.” (John Waters)
Rarely seen outside of New York, the Kuchar Brothers’ earliest films receive their belated British premieres at this year’s LLGFF, screening in brand new 16mm preservation prints. The 8mm films of the Kuchar Brothers have been preserved in 16mm by Anthology Film Archives, with the support of the National Film Preservation Foundation, The Film Foundation and Cineric Inc.
Kuchar Brothers – Programme One
Kuchar Brothers – Programme Two
Date: 31 March 2006 | Season: London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2006 | Tags: London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival
IN LUST WE TRUST: 8MM FILMS BY THE KUCHAR BROTHERS
Friday 31 March 2006, at 6:30pm
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival at BFI Southbank
KUCHAR BROTHERS: PROGRAMME ONE
George Kuchar, Sylvia’s Promise, USA, 1962, 9 min
Love comes in all sizes. But the bonds of love extract a terrible price to be paid in flesh.
Mike Kuchar, Born of the Wind, USA, 1962, 24 min
‘A tender and realistic story of a scientist who falls for the mummy he restored to life. 2,000 years as a mummy couldn’t quench her thirst for love!’ GK
George Kuchar, The Thief and the Stripper, USA, 1959, 25 min
An unlikely ménage à trois, doomed to end in a tornado of wanton violence.
George Kuchar, A Town Called Tempest, USA, 1963, 33 min
‘What happened that afternoon that left a town in shambles, its people in search of God?’ GK
PROGRAMME NOTES
IN LUST WE TRUST: 8MM FILMS BY THE KUCHAR BROTHERS
PROGRAMME 1
Friday 31 March 2006, at 6:30pm
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival at BFI Southbank
SYLVIA’S PROMISE
George Kuchar, USA, 1962, 8mm on 16mm, colour, sound, 9 min
‘Love comes in all sizes. But the bonds of love extract a terrible price to be paid in flesh. A vow weighs heavily on the heart. Sylvia makes a promise but can she keep it ?’ (George Kuchar)
BORN OF THE WIND
Mike Kuchar, USA, 1962, 8mm on 16mm, colour, sound, 24 min
Donna Kerness and Bob Cowan, whose torrid off-screen romance caused a sensation in the steam room of the St. George Hotel, are teamed for the first time in this poignant film of shriveled beauty and bloodless vengeance. Mr. Cowan is a striking performer resembling a vulture with shoestrings on its head. He and the buxom Miss Kerness battle front and center in the biggest clash of the hams since Godzilla and King Kong, and it’s one of the mysteries of gravity that Kerness doesn’t flop on her face, she being so top-heavy.
‘A tender and realistic story of a scientist who falls in love with a mummy he has restored to life … 2,000 years as a mummy couldn’t quench her thirst for love!’ (George Kuchar)
THE THIEF AND THE STRIPPER
George Kuchar, USA, 1959, 8mm on 16mm, colour, sound, 25 min
Three years to complete … It dares to lay bare the naked carcass of a generation gone mad with moral decay. Starring Tony Reynolds and Candy Newman in the film that got them married!
‘An early film, depicting today’s youth … raw and brutal.’ (George Kuchar)
A TOWN CALLED TEMPEST
George Kuchar, USA, 1963, 8mm on 16mm, colour, sound, 33 min
Rarely has the cinema equaled such spectacle! Seldom have movies probed so deeply in the rotten core of hypocrisy and weakness! Only the talents of Larry Leibowitz and Zelda Kaiser, his cousin from Hawaii, could make this tale of hatred and fanaticism come alive from the screen and hit you in the face with truth.
‘What happened that afternoon that left a town in shambles, its people in search of God?’ (George Kuchar)
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LINKS
www.llgff.org.uk
Programme Notes PDF 2.1 MB
Programme Notes 2.1 MB
Date: 2 April 2006 | Season: London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2006 | Tags: London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival
IN LUST WE TRUST: 8MM FILMS BY THE KUCHAR BROTHERS
Sunday 2 April 2006, at 4:15pm
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival at BFI Southbank
KUCHAR BROTHERS: PROGRAMME TWO
George Kuchar, A Woman Distressed, USA, 1962, 12 min
Her destiny is to be condemned to an insane asylum, where the staff are as crazy as the inmates.
Mike Kuchar, Night Of The Bomb, USA, 1962, 18 min
Only the chaos of an atomic blast can interrupt the erotic mission of these Cold War kids.
Mike Kuchar, The Confessions Of Babette, USA, 1963, 15 min
How much depravity can one woman crave?
George Kuchar, Anita Needs Me, USA, 1963, 16 min
‘All the horrors and guilt of the human mind exposed! Your emotions will be squeezed.’ GK
Mike & George Kuchar, I Was A Teenage Rumpot, USA, 1960, 10 min
‘A documentary about people like you and me, people with a zest for life.’ GK
Mike & George Kuchar, The Slasher, USA, 1958, 21 min
An insane killer stalks the grounds of a resort house, bringing sudden violence to those of easy virtue and godlessness.
PROGRAMME NOTES
IN LUST WE TRUST: 8MM FILMS BY THE KUCHAR BROTHERS
PROGRAMME 2
Sunday 2 April 2006, at 4:15pm
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival at BFI Southbank
A WOMAN DISTRESSED
George Kuchar, USA, 1962, 8mm on 16mm, colour, sound, 12 min
‘The movie club put out a newsletter and one of my early 8mm films, A Woman Distressed, was the only picture that they ever panned in the pages of their cinematic rag. The film was a brash, reckless, comic-drama about the drug Thalidomide and its deforming effect upon the offspring of a big-city maternity ward. Stories of the horrors caused by the drug were permeating the newspapers at the time and I used the reported material as a basis for the comic-drama (or dramedy as it is now called by prime-time practitioners of the TV medium). ’ (George Kuchar)
NIGHT OF THE BOMB
Mike Kuchar, USA, 1962, 8mm on 16mm, colour, sound, 18 min
Teenage lust and deranged delinquence combine to create a cautionary tale for the ages. The Chernobyl of Comedy!
‘The bomb in Night of the Bomb was a vehicle to use as a spectacular image – people in conflict – otherwise it’s hard to make a narrative if something drastic doesn’t happen.’ (Mike Kuchar)
THE CONFESSIONS OF BABETTE
Mike Kuchar, USA, 1963, 8mm on 16mm, colour, sound, 15 min
Following on the heels of Powell’s Peeping Tom, it almost matches that film classic in progressing truly disturbing psychological horror in contemporary cinema. (www.imdb.com)
ANITA NEEDS ME
George Kuchar, USA, 1963, 8mm on 16mm, colour, sound, 16 min
‘As one man learns of another man’s troubled relationship, he understands how to handle his own troubles at home. The only film to have any dialogue, this tale of tragedy and the scars it leaves on the human psyche is wonderfully told through a voice-over monologue that dives into the deepest shades purple prose.’ (Ryan Sarnowski)
‘All the horrors and guilt of the human mind exposed! It reaches deep into the workings of a woman’s cravings. Your emotions will be squeezed.’ (George Kuchar)
I WAS A TEENAGE RUMPOT
Mike & George Kuchar, USA, 1960, 8mm on 16mm, colour, sound, 10 min
With the birth of I Was A Teenage Rumpot, George and Mike Kuchar stumbled upon something big: their names were Arline, Edie, and Harry. Sensing the tremendous physical potential embedded in this trio’s glands, plans were immediately drawn up to star them in two new films: The Flesh Is Plentiful and Butterball 8. Arline and Harry’s divorce shattered all future films and Arline went on a drunken binge which ended with her head being shaved by a French woman on grounds of ‘husband-stealing’.
‘A documentary about people like you and me, people with a zest for life.’ (George Kuchar)
THE SLASHER
Mike & George Kuchar, USA, 1958, 8mm on 16mm, colour, sound, 21 min
‘An insane killer stalks the grounds of a resort house, bringing sudden violence to those of easy virtue and godlessness.’ (George Kuchar)
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Programme Notes PDF, 2.1 MB
