A Taste of the Old Underground

George Kuchar, the fabled amateur filmmaker, appeared at the Harvard Film Archive on Friday night. Dressed down and with an old Bronx whine as thick as Bugs Bunny’s, he introduced a series of his early underground classics in 8 and 16mm. These were mostly incoherent, but their sense of humor was wonderfully individual, and they incorporated dark themes, as though Kuchar had sought an outlet for his own feelings in all of that melodrama and silliness.

The funniest part of the program was “I, an Actress.” As Kuchar explained, a young woman in one of his classes at the San Francisco Art Institute once told him of her acting aspirations, and he encouraged her to do a screen test for him. He wrote a scene for her to read and set another student up with a camera. The film is simply the 400 feet from that camera.

The screen test begins with the young actress pacing around and shouting like an early Diane Keaton (but far less assured, and perhaps nervous). Just when she seems to find a bit of focus, Kuchar begins a series of director’s interruptions. In each of these, he enters the frame and demonstrates what he wants. What he wants is so ridiculous that the actress, who makes every effort not to laugh, is transformed from a shaky but determined starlet into a raving lunatic.

The rest of the evening was short narrative subjects, and as inescapably amateur as they were, it became difficult to ignore the many moments of clearly deliberate, Warhol-like subversion of the language of film. During the often-praised Hold Me While I’m Naked, these moments are particularly strong, as is the final line. At some point, it seems not so naïve anymore: self-aware, and maybe even greater than its parts.

Because the program included pieces in widely different formats, there were dead spots for equipment changes. Kuchar, whom the audience was surprised to find was lurking around the gangway of the theater, filled these silences by volunteering more information about the films from wherever he happened to be standing. These stories usually ended with a punchline that set us all roaring just as the next film was beginning. In reference to a scene of a raging inferno we had just seen at the end of one of the films, he recalled how for some reason, he had been denied permission to use his original fire footage. “So I needed another fire, and then one day, the house across the street went up in flames, and so I ran out with my camera and got my fire.”

Kuchar, as became increasing clear, is an unstoppable storytelling machine. His filmography is famously long, and includes not only films but untold hours of video documentary. During the Q and A session, which was the best I have ever been a part of, he explained how a neighbor might ask him to make a documentary film of a dying pet, in commemoration, or any number of other requests he’s had (and has happily granted). There was no question the audience could ask that would make things uncomfortable (which is not usually the case at Q and A sessions). Kuchar was so sweet and generous, and used each question as a springboard for a slew of stories and memories from his wide-ranging life. Someone asked if his film The Naked and the Nude had ever been seen by Norman Mailer, whose work it appears to parody. “No, I don’t think so, but I met him once. He was like a baked apple. Hard of hearing, too.”

Another astonishing thing about him- perhaps astonishing only to my generation- is the way he refers to pornography as just another part of cinema and of daily life (including his own life, and his own cinema). Part of what makes his films like Hold Me While I’m Naked so enigmatic is the way they incorporate sex (is it there to challenge convention, to tittilate, to shock, some combination of these?), and his casualness in discussing it only deepens the mystery. He told numerous stories of amateur porn filmmakers and actors he’s been connected to over the years, and they seem to have been his friends and neighbors. “There wasn’t any shame in it. Porno was the way to break into the movies back then. And back in the 70’s, everybody was good looking.”