Scattering ashes over divine drag queen3/16/2024 ![]() ![]() ![]() Later I realized that the unexpected horror those scenes provoked was a symptom of the subtle power religion has maintained over me. Though I do not consider myself religious, I both laughed and was appalled when I first saw the scene in Multiple Maniacs in which Waters incarnates the Infant of Prague to lead Divine to the church where she gets a “rosary job” from Mink Stole while contemplating the Stations of the Cross. Waters’ audiences can’t willingly suspend their disbelief or allow themselves to be carried away by reassuring fantasies they have to remain alert, waiting for Waters to surprise them by confronting yet another taboo they may not have known they brought with them to the movies. His plots, which seem like genetic malformations of traditional Hollywood plots, involve attacks on conventions and also on the traditional audience relationship to film. Along with the films of the Kuchar brothers (to whom Waters admits an important debt), Waters’ films are some of the most powerful send-ups of conventional film forms and expectations since Luis Buñuel’s and Salvador Dali’s Un Chien Andalou. Its most important function is to catalyze other, more far-reaching experiences, the most interesting of which may be the undermining of viewers’ willingness and ability to accept wimpy Hollywood fabrications at face value. While Waters correctly predicted that by developing a reputation as the “Master of Sleaze” he could catch the attention of a substantial portion of the movie-going public-especially the big city midnight crowds and college audiences-tastelessness is only part of the appeal of his films. YVES KLEIN, MESSENGER OF THE AGE OF SPACE
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