Program notes for screening of films by Mike Kuchar
(2/28/1978)
VISITING FILMMAKER SERIES TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1978
8:00 P.M.
VISITING FILMMAKER MIKE KUCHAR
MIKE AMD GEORGE KUCHAR (8 mm)
THE WET DESTRUCTION OF THE ATLANTIC EMPIRE (1954) Color, sound, 5 rain. SCREWBALL (1957) Color, silent, 6 rain.
THE NAKED AND THE NUDE (1957) Color, silent,
THE SLASHER (1953) Color, silent/sound, 20 rain.
THE THIEF AND THE STRIPPER (1959) Color, silent/sound, 20 min.
A TUB NAMED DESIRE (1959) Color.
I NAS A TEENAGE RUMPOT (1960) Color, silent/ PUSSY ON A HOT TIN ROOF (1961) Color, sound,
MIKE KUCHAR (8 mm)
BORN OF THE MIND (1961) Color, sound, 20 min. THE PERVERT (1963) Color, sound, 15 min.
MIKE KUCHAR (16 mm) :
SINS OF THE FLESHAPOIDS (1965) Color, sound, 50 min.
GREEN DESIRE (1965) Color, sound, 20 rain.
THE SECRET OF WENDELL SAMSON (1966) Color, sound, 15 min.
MADONNA (1966) Color, sound,15 min.
VARIATIONS (1969) Color, sound, 14 rain. FRAGMENTS Color, sound, 10 min.
LIGHT SKETCHES (1967) Color, sound, ca.7 min. CYCLES (1967) Color, sound, 15 min.
THE CRAVEN SLUCK b/w, sound,20 min.
sound, 12 min. 12 min.
CHRONICLES b/w, sound, 14 min.
TALES OF THE BRONX (1963) b/w, sound, 15 min.
AQUA CIRCUS, Color.
ABODE OF THE SNOWS (pre-73) Color, sou FAR AWAY PLACES (pre-73) Color, sound, DIDGERID00 (1972) Color, sound, ca.7 : DEATH. QUEST OF THE JU JU CULTS (1976) b/w, sound, ca. 30 min.
THE MASQUE OF VALHALLA (1977) b/w, sou ca. 15 min.
DWARF STAR (1977) b/w/color, sound,ca
In the spring of 1964 a festival of films by the Kuchar brothers — all in 8 mm — took place at the New Bowery Theater in New York. The event attracted considerable attention, and Jonas Mekas interviewed them on that occassion, asking last why they made movies:
Mike Kuchar: I love to make movies because it’s the bread and butter of my life. But
if I was to lose my arms and legs or go blind I’d throw myself on a bread slicer. There's more to life than just movies.... There's still the radio.
Jonas Mekas: Have you anything to say about your fantastic cast?
Mike Kuchar: Some film-makers are afraid to work with a big cast because they think that the group will get out of hand. But we love working with a lot of people. You can round thera up like cattle and make them stampede to moments of cinematic glory. Animal instincts are unleashed and watching a film with a large cast is like going to
the zoo.
Jonas Mekas: How did your film career really start?
George Kuchar: We're twenty-one now, but for many years our films have been scorned.
At the age of twelve I made a transvestite movie on the roof and was brutally beaten by my mother for having disgraced her and also for soiling her night gown. She didn't realize how hard it is for a twelve-year-old director to get real girls for his movie But that unfortunate incident did not end our big costume epics. One month later Mike and I filmed an Egyptian spectacle on the same roof with all of the television antern
resembling a cast of skinny thousands. Our career in films had begun.
Mike Kuchar: At a special showing we prepared in high school for the Newman Club
(a Catholic organization), our work was screened and labeled "Violent — Devilish!” The teacher was very nice, but she couldn’t tolerate all the bludgeoning, stabbings, and climactic hatchet slaying that punctuated the program at frequent internals....
VILLAGE VOICE, 3/5/64
The Kuchar Brothers make Hollywood movies, or, facsimiles therof. Teen-age and unknown, they began producing in the Bronx 8mm parodies of the movies they saw three and four times in a row in their neighborhood movie theatres. Filled with gorgeous home movie color, overacted by a stock company of neighbors and friends, the Kuchar movies are filmed with an innate grasp of Hollywood movie artifice in matters of timin, camera angles, and plotting. Grotesquely violent and naive fantasies that star real people in real Bronx places, their works have been called folk art, pop art, and "pure Americana”.
The Kuchar Brothers are twins. From ages eight to thirteen they spent all their spare time in movie theaters, developing in the process a keen appreciation for the forms and affectations of Hollywood. Mike liked the fantastic colors and pounding Max Steiner sound tracks of the Warner Brothers product, while George preferred the cheap black-and-white drama of Republic Pictures’ detective movies.
When twelve they began to make fifty-foot 8mm slapstick costume pieces, such as THE WET DESTRUCTION OF THE ATLANTIC EMPIRE (1954). They began to make longer movies with SCREWBALL (1957) and THE WAKED AND THE NUDE (1957). These early films were prett much improvised, as was SCREWBALL, which was planned as one long love scene. It got boring, however, so they had the hero go insane and choke the heroine to death.
By age sixteen the Kuchars were turning out works consistent with their Hollywood
in-the-Bronx aesthetic. For these pictures they discovered their owm kind of stars, People who were fat, but they wanted to be Marilyn Monroe. ’ Together they made the THE SLASHER(1958), THE THIEF AND THE STRIPPER (1959), A TUB NAMED DESIRE (1960),
I WAS A TEEN AGE RUMPOT (1960), and PUSSY CN A HOT TIN ROOF (1961). The later the
film the more elaborate the plot. In THE THIEF AND THE STRIPPER, for example, a pain
murders his wife because he wants to go with a stripper, while the stripper falls in love with a burglar, and everybody gets killed as It is revealed that the stripper is the sister of the murdered wife.
Gradually the Kuchar Brothers began to work separately. They worked on each other’s films, but each film was definitely directed by one or the other. As their work has matured, each has developed a definite style. Mike likes color and visual spectacle. George likes steamy drama.
Mike made BORN OF THE WIND (1961) and THE PERVERT (1963) before switching to 16mm. His first film in 16mm was SINS OF THE FLESHAPOIDS (1964), which had a cast of over-ripe women and robots that were on their way to taking over the world. This was followed by GREEN DESIRE (1965), THE SECRET OF WENDEL SAMSON (1966), about a secret homosexual who is forced at gunpoint to make love to a woman, and MADONNA (196
Unlike their tortured characters, the Kuchar Brothers are rather gregarious. Mi has worked in a photo retouching lab and George as a chart maker for NBC weather prog Both now devote full time to making films, and are able to live on the income from their films.
Sheldon Renan, INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN UNDERGROUND FILM (1967)
