Book Description
Reviled, rioted over, and banned as pornographic even as it was recognized as an unprecedented visionary masterpiece, Jack Smith's "Flaming Creatures" is the most important and influential underground movie ever released in America. J. Hoberman's monograph details the creative making and legal unmaking of this extraordinary film, a source of inspiration for artists as disparate as Andy Warhol, Federico Fellini, and John Waters, as well as a scandal taken to the United States Supreme Court, described by its maker as "a comedy set in a haunted music studio." The story of "Flaming Creatures" is augmented with a dossier of personal recollections, relevant documents, and remarkable, previously unpublished on-set photographs by Norman Solomon. Expanding on notes originally prepared for the 1997 retrospective on Jack Smith at the American Museum of the Moving Image, the monograph includes further material on his unfinished features "Normal Love" and "No President", as well as shorter film fragments.
"Jack Smith's photography, film, and performance conjure a world of flagrant passion, campy humor, and morbid beauty." Lawrence Rinder
Essay by J. Hoberman. J. Hoberman is Senior Film Critic at "The Village Voice" and author of numerous books of film criticism including "Bridge of Light: Yiddish Films Between Two Worlds, Midnight Movies, Underground Film: A Critical History," and others.
10 color and 36 b&w images
7 x 10 in.
About the author
J. Hoberman is Senior Film Critic at "The Village Voice" and author of numerous books of film criticism including "Bridge of Light: Yiddish Films Between Two Worlds, Midnight Movies, Underground Film: A Critical History," and others.
