Jack Smith, Flaming Creatures, 1962–63, film still, copyright Jack Smith Archive, courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels
In conjunction withTongues Untied, Los Angeles Filmforum at MOCA presents Jack Smith’s 16mm masterpieceFlaming Creatures(1962–63). Despite its humble production values—derided in the
Congressional Record as “five unrelated, badly filmed sequences”—this
excessive celluloid celebration of polymorphous perversity was instantly
recognized as a major achievement of the New American Cinema. Famously,
it was just as quickly condemned by right-wing politicians; banned,
seized, and censored in a number of countries, Smith’s little stab at
“moldiness” was eventually considered by the Supreme Court. Smith
himself always insisted the film was a comedy.
Flaming Creatureswas previously presented at MOCA in coordination withRoy Cohn/Jack Smith, a solo theater piece performed by Ron Vawter in 1992. The screening will also feature Smith’s earlierScotch Tape(1959–62), shot on location in a rubble-strewn landscape that would later become Lincoln Center, andI Was a Male Yvonne DeCarlo(1967–70s), an unruly assemblage which has been rarely screened.