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Sarah Jacobson I Was a Teenage Serial Killer (1992)
‘Inspired by underground cinema, indie record labels and ‘zine culture, Sarah Jacobson was a one-woman powerhouse of independent filmmaking in the 1990s. Taking on every major function from production through distribution, Jacobson operated with a fuck-you, can-do attitude that shone through her work onscreen and beyond.
‘The 27-minute short I WAS A TEENAGE SERIAL KILLER was produced with the encouragement of filmmaker George Kuchar, Jacobson’s instructor at San Francisco Institute of the Arts. Like SLACKER meets Valerie Solanas, the film depicts a 19-year-old woman who responds to catcalls, condescension and bad sex the only way she knows how: murder.
‘Jacobson’s work stands in opposition to what she dubbed “Indiewood,” the ‘90s era of movies that claimed independence while playing it safe. In her short life, Sarah Jacobson proved herself as a shitkicker and rule breaker, finding fans in Allison Anders, Tamra Davis, and Kim Gordon. These films stand as a testament to the vision, grit, determination, and raw talent of the Queen of Underground Cinema.’ — Alicia Coombs
the entire film
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Birgit Hein and Wilhelm Hein Rohrfilm (1968)
‘One of the most important structural films of the period, Rohfilm demonstrates a radical anti-representational approach, destroying the figurative image and bringing attention back to the ‘raw’ photographic material, particularly its physical form. Resisting a stable reference point, the film is a multi-layered onslaught of blurred impressions, shifting surfaces and grating sounds that activates a form of sensuous viewing. In the making of the film, the Heins employed just about every technique of defamiliarization, including direct intervention on the surface of the film strip, rephotography, remediation, and different kinds of mechanical interruption and destruction. It is a striking example of a truly handmade approach. (Kim Knowles)
‘“Particles of dirt, hair, ashes, tobacco, fragments of cinematic images, sprocket holes and perforated tape are glued onto clear film. This is then projected and re-photographed from the screen, since the conglomeration of strips and glue technically only allow one projection. During this process the original gets stuck now and then in the projector gate, so the same image appears again and again, or film frames melt under the excessive heat of the projector, which is running at a very slow speed. The ensuing film is put through all kinds of reproduction processes, projected as video, appears on the editing board and on a movie-scope, and is filmed again in order to capture the specific changes engendered by the processes of reproduction. Other pieces from various positive and negative strips and from 8mm and 16mm strips with their different frame sizes are also glued together and re-filmed. 8mm film is run without a shutter through the viewing machine and rephotographed so that frame borders and perforations, in other words the film strip as material, become visible” (Hein 1971: 149).’ — Reset the Apparatus
Excerpt
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Timothy Carey The World’s Greatest Sinner (1962)
‘The World’s Greatest Sinner is the story of the mysterious transformation of insurance salesman Clarence Hilliard into a “rockabilly messiah.” Clarence quits his job, changes his name to God, and exhorts his followers to become “superhuman beings,” working the crowds at his pep rallies into a frenzy! Urged on by a sinister image-maker, God Hilliard parlays his rock stardom into a career in national politics, founding the Superhuman Being Party. His followers wear jet-black uniforms with God’s name inscribed on their arm bands. At this point, Sinner becomes a souped-up, low-budget version of All the King’s Men (1949), a fictionalized account of the rise and fall of Louisiana Governor Huey Long.
‘The concert performances that Carey unleashes in Sinner are genuinely exciting. Goateed and with dangling oil-slicked hair, Carey looks great and has the rock gyrations down pat; he radiates boatloads of charisma and exhibits genuine showmanship. It’s also great to see this excellent actor (so often relegated to uncredited bit parts) in a lead role. Frank Zappa’s music is deft and compelling, not some fake rock ‘n roll soundtrack a la Les Baxter. Despite its limited distribution, Sinner’s reputation spread far and wide. In 1969, while Carey was shooting his scene for Elvis Presley’s last film, Change of Habit, the King approached Carey and asked for a copy of Sinner. He’d heard good things about it.
‘Carey shot most of Sinner in El Monte and Long Beach, California from 1958 to 1962. The movie was mainly self-financed from Carey’s earnings as an actor in such films as East of Eden (1955), The Killing (1956), Paths of Glory (1957), Gunfight at Dodge City (1959), The Boy and the Pirates (1960), and Mermaids of Tiburon (1962), as well as his frequent guest appearances on television in Westerns like Gunsmoke and Rawhide. Tim also got $25,000 in sponsorship from a man in Louisiana (M.A. Ripps, the producer of the drive-in classic Bayou, 1957, in which Carey starred),” recalls actor Gil Barreto, who played the Mexican gardener in Sinner. Tim kept on shooting until about 1965 and stopped, because he ran out of money and the guy wouldn’t give him any more.” (Even though Sinner was barely released in 1962, Carey continued working on it—re-editing the footage and shooting new scenes—for the rest of his life.)’ — Absolute Films
the entire film
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Storm de Hirsch Divinations (1964)
‘Despite the fact that De Hirsch’s contributions to the avant-garde film film scene of the 1960’s has been largely forgotten, her work remains a source of inspiration to the underground. She started out as a poet before switching over to film as a medium of expression. In an interview with Jonas Mekas on the making of Divinations she said, “I wanted badly to make an animated short and had no camera available. I did have some old, unused film stock and several roles of 16mm sound tape. So I used that- plus a variety of of discarded surgical instruments and the sharp edge of a screwdriver- by cutting, etching, and painting directly on both film and tape.”
‘Divinations is a hallucinatory, dizzying, and meditative collage of image and sound. The work is part of de Hirsch’s (1912-2000) trilogy of films entitled The Color of Ritual, the Color of Thought (1964–67). To make the work she subjected rolls of 16mm sound tape and unused film stock to a process of cutting, scratching, and painting. Richly hued, abstract swaths of painted film are interspersed by black and white footage of a series of interior spaces. Multiple scenes depict a kind of circular motion–the camera spins around a room or tea leaves eddy at the bottom of a cup. An early film by de Hirsch, Divinations attests to the artist’s interest in form, color, and process, as well as myth, ritual, and mysticism.’ — collaged
the entire film
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Bette Gordon Variety (1983)
‘In Bette Gordon’s pioneering indie film about voyeurism from a female perspective, a young woman (played by Sandy McLeod) works as a ticket taker in a porn theater, and her curiosity leads her to shadow a male patron. Variety radically subverts the classic narrative mode of presenting stories from the perspective of the male gaze (exemplified by such films as Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom and Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo), and in its place asserts the presence of female desire. Female director Bette Gordon subtly infuses the narrative with layers of ambiguity about the motives and movements of the female protagonist all the way through to the final image of the film.
‘Gordon developed her filmmaking craft in the avant-garde circles of the 1970s, making her own small-format films as well as in collaboration with James Benning on a series of loosely strung narratives depicting the American landscape. With her features Empty Suitcases (1980) and Variety (1984), Gordon became identified with the No Wave cinema movement emerging from the punk rock music scene of the Lower East Side (see Blank City, TFF ’09). Variety features an unparalleled collaborative team of downtown artists and performers, including composer John Lurie, cinematographer Tom DiCillo, writer Kathy Acker, photographer Nan Goldin, and actors Spalding Gray and Luis Guzmán. In retrospect, Variety also represents a time capsule of New York City, filmed at bygone landmarks like the Variety Theatre, Fulton Fish Market, and Yankee Stadium, as well as an edgier incarnation of Times Square.’ — Tribeca Film Festival
the entire film
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p.s. Hey. The episode of ‘Bookworm’ devoted to PERMANENT GREEN LIGHT with Zac and myself as guests is out and listenable if you click this. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. I Think the camp in the slave posts comes from the re-contextualising, but I guess I do at least have an eye for how that works, true. Well, the ghost in our next movie is a pretty important aspect of it, so I think it’ll probably be our ‘ghost’ movie. ** _Black_Acrylic, I am indeed (still into Eurovision), and I’m rushing a bit this morning due to an imminent meeting, but I am highly intrigued to get a gander at Hatari, so this afternoon .. click. Thanks for thinking of me thereby, Ben. ** Sypha, I thought that might perk up your eyes. Yes, MySlaveName appears to have a good understanding of what his niche audience wants. ** Natty, Hi, Natty! How lovely to see you, sir! You’re coming to Paris? Whoa, great! Why, or, I mean, why not? Well, I don’t know my sched. for September yet, but chances are I’ll be here, and I’ll make an extra effort to be here if that means we can meet up. Do you know your dates yet? Fantastic! How are you? What’s going on? ** Steve Erickson, That was my guess too. No clue as to what Caverta is. Re: the pills, you know as much as I do. Good for Morris for self-distributing the film. Given the dire state of distribution possibilities for uncommercial films in the US these days, that’s the way to go when necessary and given the resources to do so. Given my my admittedly limited experience re: US film screenings and distribution with ‘PGL’, and my knowledge of other filmmakers’ experiences there, I think the ‘political correctness’ problem is a very, very real problem. ** Brendan Lott, Sweet! I honestly wasn’t sure if they were still in operation. I saw OM a number of years ago, and it was totally killer. Let me know how the show is now. Enjoy maximally. ** Bill, Hi. Ha ha, me too, the resemblance. We’re supposed to get heat again on Monday, but the workers have not confirmed the appointment yet, so fuck knows, but, yes thank you, because March is starting chill-ily. ‘Akira’s’ fun? I’ve been on the fence, but, okay, fun sounds very nice. ** Right. Today you a quintuple feature of some awesome and not easy to see otherwise films. Pick one to five of them and kick back, if you can and want. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
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Brilliant. Friday night here in Australia so will watch these tonight.
Loved the Bookworm episode BTW. Especially Zak at the end – “It’s was like a dream”.
That kid that left for ISIS was from Melbourne where I currently live. Naturally was a big deal when it all happened. Salerno’s probably told you that though previously.
Speak soon!
Heya! Thanks for the movie tips. Welllll I’m going to Paris because I turned 40 in January and my gift to myself is a trip to Europe cause I’ve never been anywhere but North America. I’ve got a friend in Berlin so I’ll probably go from there to Paris or vice versa. Paris? No particular reason but one is to take you out to dinner and to stay in a cute spot and I dunno, eat a croissant or something. Adventure! Most likely Sep 8-21ish. I’m good! Back in Pittsburgh after two years of living on the commune in Tennessee. It’s been a weird slow adjustment back to city life, but I’m working now as a secretary and enjoying time with my boyfriend and working on the second draft of this incest novel I wrote a couple winters ago. xoxoxo
Movies Bonanza today!
“The world’s Greatest Sinner” needs no introduction to Timothy Carey fans. It used to be shown a lot at the Palace theater in San Francisco, where The Cockettes performed.
Strom DeHirch was a very lovely woman. She used to have an annual Cat film festival consisting of films made about cats and some — she claimed — made BY cats. She was Louis Brigante’s girlfriend.
Without having seen AMERICAN DHARMA or the other Bannon doc, I’m not sure what the differences are that would make Morris’ film scare off distributors. I can say that everyone I know who’s seen it dislikes it and thinks that Bannon used Morris to promote himself, despite the director’s intentions. But despite his high reputation, his last 2 films barely got theatrical release in the US, and I’m sure that played a role; I expected HBO or PBS to announce a deal that might bypass theaters altogether. Since Netflix produced and (barely) distributed WORMWOOD, they seem to have passed on AMERICAN DHARMA.
Bette Gordon’s work is really underrated. Her last film, THE DROWNING, which flips around cliches around stalkers, deserved more attention than it got. I haven’t seen I WAS A TEENAGE SERIAL KILLER, ROHRFILM or DIVINATIONS, but I will try and check them out.
Two links to my work: a review of Angel-Ho’s DEATH BECOMES HER: https://www.gaycitynews.nyc/stories/2019/5/angelho-music-2019-02-28-gcn.html and my Shomi Patwary interview: http://www.studiodaily.com/2019/03/director-shomi-patwary-music-video-dreams-nightmares-nostalgia-offset-pusha-t-ava-max/
Dennis, oh, I finished reading NEGROPHOBIA a few days ago. Don’t know if you’re on Goodreads so I don’t think you saw my review of it, but I’ll repost it here:
I knew I was going to love this book when, in the new preface original to this edition, the author states the following: “The only thing a new generation of readers might need to know is that this book is not a ‘safe space.’ It’s loaded with ‘triggers,’ and I hope NEGROPHOBIA gives you nightmares.” Darius James’ NEGROPHOBIA is a difficult novel to classify (in fact, in some ways it’s more like a screenplay to a Surrealist non-existent movie). Imagine Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and William S. Burroughs having a baby (with Kathy Acker acting as the surrogate) and you may get some idea of the nature of this work. Or perhaps a voodoo/splatterpunk ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND, a psychedelic bad acid trip down the festering rabbit hole rectum of America’s racist past, present and future (indeed, there are numerous references to the Alice books in the text itself). In her introduction Amy Abugo Ongiri likens the novel to ‘Afrofuturism’ (among other things), and while there are certainly sections of the book that bear witness to this observation, I would also say that NEGROPHOBIA could be read as a horror novel: certainly there are many allusions to the iconography of horror, what with zombies erupting from the Earth to disembowel the screaming masses, disgusting body horror, lycantrophic shape-shifting, leering satyrs, voodoo curses, necromancy, and, in perhaps the book’s pièce de résistance, a gigantic Godzilla-sized nose monster. The novel could thus be seen through the lenses of the Grand Guignol tradition, and it’s a delightful perverse and scatological narrative… and yet, unlike many humorless examples of transgressive fiction, there’s also a playfulness and sense of humor at hand, and though not all of the satire works for me (the comparisons between Walt Disney’s omnipresent empire and the Nazi Party seems a little done to death now, though perhaps it was a novelty when this book was first published, back in 1992), for the most part I feel the humor succeeds, and the prose is very rococo and even poetic at times. In any event, it’s hard for me to say a bad word about a book that features a disembodied John F. Kennedy head (“complete with exit wounds”) scuttling around the floor of a necromancer’s laboratory on “spindly spider legs,” or, for that matter, a massacre at Walt Disney World that concludes with Goofy’s grinning head placed atop a wooden stake, with blood dripping from his eyes.
D- They haven’t put out a record in a long time. But they still tour occasionally. This time around there was a third guy playing mellotron, guitar and additional percussion. It was AMAZING. Everything was slowed down, super heavy, long and drawn out. And the crowd was stupendous – a wonderful mix of metalheads, new-agey types, urban hipsters. The best dressed metal show ever. Wish you were there! -B
Hey Dennis – Great selection of films. I’ve always wanted to see ‘The World’s Greatest Sinner’ and will try to check it out this weekend.
Did you ever get a chance to see ‘The Other Side of the Wind’? Or the extended cut of ‘Tree of Life’? Curious what you thought about both.
I listed to the Bookworm episode with you and Zac and loved it, no surprise. Michael seemed super insightful as usual and I loved hearing you talk about its relation to your other work. And it made me even more impatient to see the film itself.
I emailed you a bunch of stuff for the Song Cave / Roussel guest post. Let me know if anything seems missing or you have any questions.
And whenever you have any updates on PG trilogy film possibilities, I’ll all ears.
I enjoyed the Storm de Hirsch film, especially the soundtrack. Feel as though I’d like to put that on in the chill out room of particularly messy nightclub so that viewers could zone out and have mystical experiences to it.
Today I was at our local artist-run space the Generator where they were showing their annual Members Show, and it was the regular wildly heterogenous mix of work by mostly young emergent local artists. One piece I did like was this ceramic sculpture by Penelope Matheson with the title You Promised You’d Tell Us About Pointed Sticks.
Hi Dennis! This post is wonderful. I’ve been wanting to re-watch “World’s Greatest Sinner” for years after catching a screening of it in Austin. “Variety” is another I’ve been wanting to re-watch but never found easy access to (it was on Netflix for a while back when they weren’t afraid to program less obvious stuff). I’ll have to share a friend’s movie with you someday when it’s ready for release. It would have fit in well with this bunch: the whole thing is made from assorted 16mm stag films that have been variously processed and painted on by the filmmaker. It’s really beautiful. The filmmaker died before it could see proper release, unfortunately, and I’ve been working to help get it out into the world.
Hope you’ve been doing well. I missed your recent Los Angeles screening (that happened right? I didn’t imagine it?) due to an unusually busy dayjob/filmmaking schedule. Talk soon!
I really really enjoyed “I Was a Teenage Serial Killer” and “Divinations.” They both got a lot of gears turning about what kind of filmmaking is possible for me right now with my current skill set and available resources. I saw “Smithereens” recently which I’d recommend but I found overall much less enjoyable than “Teenage Serial Killer” because of mushy angst crowding out the punk aesthetic. I’ll still probably go on to watch “Desperately Seeking Susan.” I’m really psyched to watch Robert Kramer’s “Mileestones” and “Ice” this week. Have you seen them or any of his other work?
By the way, do you or anybody else here know of a website that curates online film series based on what’s available streaming for free? Kind of like what you do here when a day is dedicate to somebody who works in film, but only with full films that are available, not excerpts (shorts are more than OK of course). For example, a programmer would write a little essay based on a filmmaker, style, or theme, link to full examples of films (from YouTube, Vimeo, Internet Archive, etc.), and give little capsule descriptions for each film that they link to. The idea would be to make it easy for cinephiles to find stuff to watch outside of official streaming services. I feel like this must exist somewhere already.
Limiting to what’s available streaming for free could get programmers thinking creatively, kind of like how at my college film society we pretty much limited ourselves to films on celluloid that we could convince distributors to trust us with.