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Originally Posted by !@#$%!
really? i was looking forward to much more. the documentary about him made him look quite fascinating--him as a person. and i have a friend who is a huge fan of his movies. i'll have to try anyway because sometimes a small change makes all the difference.
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To be fair there's a massive cult of personality surrounding him. I have a friend who's a massive underground film fan and even he admits that Jack Smith is probably more interesting than any film he made or appeared in. I'm not sure I agree with that completely but there's definitely some truth to it - which is a key difference between him and Anger, who's just as eccentric and fascinating as a person but whose films still manage to stand up in their own right. It's possible to appreciate a film like Scorpio Rising without knowing anything about who made it. I'm not sure the same could be said about Flaming Creatures.
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Originally Posted by !@#$%!
what you say about production values is very true
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Anger was brought up in Hollywood and his family worked in the industry so he had access to equipment and crew that nobody on the east coast had. Same for Deren, whose films were shot by her husband: a well respected and future oscar winnining filmmaker in his own right. The NY underground seemed more like a subculture, with film playing no bigger part than say poetry or music or theatre, whereas the west coast seemed far less like a scene and more dedicated just to making films.