New York Underground Collection




1984-1993
Richard Kern

Richard Kern (born 1954) is a New York underground filmmaker, writer and photographer. He first came to underground prominence as part of the underground cultural explosion in the East Village of New York City in the 1980s, with erotic films featuring underground rock personalities of the time such as Lydia Lunch, Kembra Pfahler, and Henry Rollins in movies like "The Right Side of My Brain" and "Fingered." Like many of the musicians around Kern, he had a deep interest in the aesthetics of extreme sex, violence, and perversion and was one of the leading lights of Nick Zedd's coined Cinema of Transgression.

Thirteen shorts directed by master of the Cinema of Transgression himself, shot in Super 8, over a ten-year period (1984-1993). From The Right Side of My Brain to Fingered, from The Bitches to My Nightmare, from Submit to Me Now to The Evil Cameraman, galleries of disturbing excursions into sado-masochism. 

Also included is The Manhattan Love Suicides (1985), a series of suicides committed out of love by an array of freak characters. It includes the story of a fan who pursues the great artist and as the young man writhes on the floor, inspires the idea for a new film (Stray Dogs); and a woman who disfigures her face to resemble her deformed lover (I Hate You Now). 


This DVD contains the following:

1. The Right Side Of My Brain (1984)
About the Sexual Misadventures of a Sexually Insane Girl...


2. The Manhattan Love Suicides (4 episodes/1985)
- Stray Dogs, about artist and persistent fan. 
- Woman at the Wheel, about woman fighting with men in order to drive her own car. 
- Thrust in Me, about necrophilia, suicide, and bathtubs. 
- I Hate You Now, about deformed guy and his girlfriend.

3. Submit to Me (1985)
Oddballs dancing, leering at camera, guy shaving a nontraditional part of his body and man ripping his own throat out, woman stabbing herself to death.

4. You Killed Me First (1985)
Typical story of anarchist kid, Elizabeth, rebelling against family's consumerist and religious values. Ends when the disturbed kid guns her family down.

5. The Evil Cameraman (1986)
Another misogynistic piece involving women of all races caught up in rather violent situations.

6. Fingered (1986)
A phone sex operator/prostitute gets together with a guy she's been on the phone with. After a semi-hardcore sex scene, the violence begins. The man cuts someone's throat for looking at Lydia's character, then they go for a drive. The two abduct a hitch hiker and rape her in a junkyard.


7. Submit to Me Now (1987)
Rehash of Submit to Me. Oddballs dancing, leering at camera, guy shaving a nontraditional part of his body and man ripping his own throat out, woman stabbing herself to death.

8. X is Y (1990)
People playing with firearms with telephone sound effects in the background.

9. Horoscope (1991)
Woman dreams of dancing with men after reading horoscope and watching "Studs."

10. The Bitches (1992)

11. Death Valley 69 (1986)
Gory Sonic Youth music video with murdered family and cruise missile imagery.

12. The Sewing Circle (1992

13. My Nightmare (1993)


Extra:

Everyday Life Cannibalizing Art: Docu-fucktion, performance by Helena Velena
Photo Gallery
Biography
Filmography

Cast:Lydia Lunch, Clint Ruin, Henry Rollins, David Wojnarowicz, Bill Rice, Nick Zedd, Karen Finley, Lung Leg, Jap Anne, Ice Queen, Richard Kern, Little Linda, Jackie O, Marty Nations, Cassandra Stark, Audrey Rose, Marta Hoskins, Pete Shore, Jack Natz, Cruella De Villa, Tomoya, Linda Serby, Cristina.


No comments:

Post a Comment