In the eighties, when the feminist critique of sex and violence in the media was making headlines and gaining adherents on both the left and the right, "transgressive" and "confrontational" were the mantras for any artist working for "underground" cred, and New York City filmmaker Richard Kern made a reputation with no-budget Super-8 shorts full of violence, eroticism, gore, sleaze, and black comedy. In making these shorts Kern had the help of some very high-profile names on the cutting edge of the music and art community at the time: Lydia Lunch, Henry Rollins, David Wojnarowicz, Karen Finley, J. G. Thirlwell (probably better known as Foetus), the Butthole Surfers, Sonic Youth, Clint Ruin, and Nick Zedd were some of the people who appeared in or contributed music to Kern's films. Film Threat put out a collection of these films on a two volume VHS edition called Hardcore, and lately I picked up a double sided DVD from Third Wave Media called The Hardcore Collection: The Films of Richard Kern.
Kern's films are painted with a large brush and indulge just a little too enthusiastically in shock to be quite disturbing. Kern takes pleasure in flaunting taboos and engineering collisions of sexy and violent images, but does not, with the exceptions of The Right Side Of My Brain (1985) and Fingered (1986), which were both scripted by Lydia Lunch, go seriously into problems or issues, but stays mainly in a sort of neo-exploitation groove. The two Lunch collaborations explore her ambivalent attraction to -- and repulsion from -- male violence. The Right Side Of My Brain is narrated by Lunch while she appears in fantasy sequences with various ominous-looking men, before she in turn dominates another woman (and, yep, that tattooed guy there is indeed Henry Rollins). Fingered is a tale of Lunch and her psycho boyfriend on the road on a sort of punk-Starkweather rampage, sparked by the guy's jealousy and his penchant for spontaneous violence, with Lunch's character eventually becoming herself brutalized and brutalizing by the end of the film. These are also probably Kern's best films. The balance of Kern's work is rather spotty, with a collection of shorter films, Manhattan Love Suicides, showing some odd little stories, such as a grimacing man following a middle-aged artist home and who spontaneously loses an arm and busts open a jugular when he doesn't get attention, in "Stray Dogs." You Killed Me First, with David Wojnarowicz and Karen Finley as the uptight parents of a misunderstood, rebellious daughter played by Lung Leg, a frequent Kern player, is a hilarious black comedy. Other films, like Submit To Me (1986) and Submit To Me Now (1987), are sorts of post-punk stag film which string together a lot of sexual and violent images with little concern for structure or theme, or the filmmaker indulging his interest in various kinks, which have a sort of peep-show charm to them, if you enjoy that sort of thing. The Evil Cameraman (1986) and My Nightmare (1993) are digs at Kern himself as a pervy filmmaker who gets rebuffed by women who come to his shoots.
In essence, Kern's aesthetic in these films is little removed from that of the kid who takes the opportunity of getting his friends together to make as wild a film as he can while his parents are away, which makes his work look more energetic and surprisingly less nihilistic over time. In time and in general tenor of material, he has a lot in common with "transgressive" underground artists and musicians like Genesis P-Orridge and G. G. Allin, without the pompous baggage that often went along with their work. In recent years Kern has been working mostly as a photographer, continuing a fascination with eroticism and voyeurism but in a lighter vein than at the time he made these films, but his films have had some influence, mainly on the fringes on the culture where art, porn, and the underground meet, as on the popular website Suicide Girls and their punk-meets-pinup aesthetic, and in the films of Bruce LaBruce, an underground filmmaker based in Toronto, who paid homage to Kern in his Super 8 1/2 with a cameo by Kern and a parody called Submit To My Finger.
BRUSH WITH GREATNESS? Lung Leg was one of Kern's more frequently-appearing performers, both as model and in speaking roles, and her presence in these films is hard to forget. Fragile and gangly in appearance, she looked hurt and vulnerable, but also tough and, above all, full of rage. Her presence embodied the "punk" attitude in Kern's films probably even better than Lydia Lunch's appearances. Lung Leg also appeared on the cover of Sonic Youth's album Evol in a photo taken by Kern at the time when Kern and the band were collaborating. When I saw these films for the first time about five years ago, I discussed them with my friend Susan and she told me that Lung Leg actually lived here in Minneapolis for awhile, which made me remember when I worked for a Kinko's on Lake and Hennepin some years ago and had some encounters with a woman who occasionally came in to make copies. She was pale, mostly dressed in black, with dark hair, cat-eye glasses, and dark lipstick which always seemed to be smeared. As a customer I remember her as somewhat curt and antisocial. I also seem to remember her waiting for buses in the neighborhood. I never learned her name or met her socially, and it was only years later, after having seen these films and discussed them with Susan that I began to wonder whether this mystery woman might not have been Lung Leg. If so, what brought her to Minneapolis? Did underground film fans recognize her on the street? What did she think of the films she made with Kern? After a few encounters, I never saw her again, and I don't think these questions will ever be answered.
Kern's films are painted with a large brush and indulge just a little too enthusiastically in shock to be quite disturbing. Kern takes pleasure in flaunting taboos and engineering collisions of sexy and violent images, but does not, with the exceptions of The Right Side Of My Brain (1985) and Fingered (1986), which were both scripted by Lydia Lunch, go seriously into problems or issues, but stays mainly in a sort of neo-exploitation groove. The two Lunch collaborations explore her ambivalent attraction to -- and repulsion from -- male violence. The Right Side Of My Brain is narrated by Lunch while she appears in fantasy sequences with various ominous-looking men, before she in turn dominates another woman (and, yep, that tattooed guy there is indeed Henry Rollins). Fingered is a tale of Lunch and her psycho boyfriend on the road on a sort of punk-Starkweather rampage, sparked by the guy's jealousy and his penchant for spontaneous violence, with Lunch's character eventually becoming herself brutalized and brutalizing by the end of the film. These are also probably Kern's best films. The balance of Kern's work is rather spotty, with a collection of shorter films, Manhattan Love Suicides, showing some odd little stories, such as a grimacing man following a middle-aged artist home and who spontaneously loses an arm and busts open a jugular when he doesn't get attention, in "Stray Dogs." You Killed Me First, with David Wojnarowicz and Karen Finley as the uptight parents of a misunderstood, rebellious daughter played by Lung Leg, a frequent Kern player, is a hilarious black comedy. Other films, like Submit To Me (1986) and Submit To Me Now (1987), are sorts of post-punk stag film which string together a lot of sexual and violent images with little concern for structure or theme, or the filmmaker indulging his interest in various kinks, which have a sort of peep-show charm to them, if you enjoy that sort of thing. The Evil Cameraman (1986) and My Nightmare (1993) are digs at Kern himself as a pervy filmmaker who gets rebuffed by women who come to his shoots.
In essence, Kern's aesthetic in these films is little removed from that of the kid who takes the opportunity of getting his friends together to make as wild a film as he can while his parents are away, which makes his work look more energetic and surprisingly less nihilistic over time. In time and in general tenor of material, he has a lot in common with "transgressive" underground artists and musicians like Genesis P-Orridge and G. G. Allin, without the pompous baggage that often went along with their work. In recent years Kern has been working mostly as a photographer, continuing a fascination with eroticism and voyeurism but in a lighter vein than at the time he made these films, but his films have had some influence, mainly on the fringes on the culture where art, porn, and the underground meet, as on the popular website Suicide Girls and their punk-meets-pinup aesthetic, and in the films of Bruce LaBruce, an underground filmmaker based in Toronto, who paid homage to Kern in his Super 8 1/2 with a cameo by Kern and a parody called Submit To My Finger.
BRUSH WITH GREATNESS? Lung Leg was one of Kern's more frequently-appearing performers, both as model and in speaking roles, and her presence in these films is hard to forget. Fragile and gangly in appearance, she looked hurt and vulnerable, but also tough and, above all, full of rage. Her presence embodied the "punk" attitude in Kern's films probably even better than Lydia Lunch's appearances. Lung Leg also appeared on the cover of Sonic Youth's album Evol in a photo taken by Kern at the time when Kern and the band were collaborating. When I saw these films for the first time about five years ago, I discussed them with my friend Susan and she told me that Lung Leg actually lived here in Minneapolis for awhile, which made me remember when I worked for a Kinko's on Lake and Hennepin some years ago and had some encounters with a woman who occasionally came in to make copies. She was pale, mostly dressed in black, with dark hair, cat-eye glasses, and dark lipstick which always seemed to be smeared. As a customer I remember her as somewhat curt and antisocial. I also seem to remember her waiting for buses in the neighborhood. I never learned her name or met her socially, and it was only years later, after having seen these films and discussed them with Susan that I began to wonder whether this mystery woman might not have been Lung Leg. If so, what brought her to Minneapolis? Did underground film fans recognize her on the street? What did she think of the films she made with Kern? After a few encounters, I never saw her again, and I don't think these questions will ever be answered.
1 comment:
Yeah I remember seeing these films back in '93 or'94. My co-worker at the time, Davide from Milan,Italy, introduced me to the films of R.Kern. Also the German film "Nekromantik".
J.G. Thirlwell(sp?) does music for the "Venture Brothers" I guess. (so he's 'Feotus'
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