a collection of great films from Canyon Cinema.
When
came on, at first there was a total hush, no coughing, no movement, nothing at all happening. Then I could hear voices making jokes, though, of course, I couldn't understand them because they were in Dutch. Every once in a while you'd hear a deep male voice say something obviously obscene, and a ripple of laughter would move through the crowd. I didn't know where the voices were coming from. It turned out that the professional projectionists weren't used to projecting silent films, and they hadn't realized that when they made loud comments up in the projection booth, their comments would trickle down on everybody. I really loved that because the audience could sense the difference between their experience of the film and the experience of these guys up in the projection booth watching it and respondingthey thoughtprivately. I was disappointed when the minister of art went up and made them stop.
At the end of that screening, I went up on stage to answer questions, and, of course, a lot of the questions were about
. When I talked about
as usual, I used the word 'cunt.' Afterward, the minister and I were photographed, smiling and shaking handsthe classic newspaper photograph. It appeared in the paper the next day, quoting the minister as saying, 'I, too, am very interested in cunt.' [laughter] I wish I still had that clipping.
How was
received in this country? Were there memorable screenings?
Oh yes! After I'd been traveling in Europe for a year, I came back to the States briefly and was invited to be a judge at Ann Arbor, which at that time was
big independent film festival.
had won first prize there in 1970. In fact, that's when I started
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taking myself seriously as a filmmaker. When I had finished
I sent it to Ann Arbor, and I hadn't heard anything about it. I assumed they didn't like it. The next year when I came to be a judge, I heard incredible stories about
being screened there the year before. Apparently I had been invited to be a judge because the board of the festival wanted to see the person who made
movie.
I learned that at the previous festival the judges couldn't agree to give
a prize, but they had decided to show it in the festival as the last film on the last nighta position traditionally reserved for exciting new movies. Everyone was curious about the fact that the exciting new film being shown last, made by someone who had won first prize before, had not won a prize and was not included on the Ann Arbor tour. There was a huge crowd. When the film came on the event turned into a riot. The theater had a projection booth above the audience that you got to by ladder. Someone in the audience was so outraged by the film that he had climbed up and tackled the projectionist, Peter Wilde. They wrestled on the floor, the guy determined to pull the film out of the projector. People were booing and yelling and leaving. A woman stood at the door and, as people tried to walk out, she would swing her long shoulder bag by the handle and hit them over the head. When I met her the next year, she said, ''You know, I would kill for that film.' I thought, 'My god, how could this have created so much furor?' I loved hearing about it, but I'm also glad I missed that screening.
Did you show the film outside the standard avant-garde screening spaces?
Sometimes. One summer I showed
in my hometown, Eugene, Oregon. I had wrongly assumed that this would be a straitlaced, middle-class crowd. What I had not anticipated was that Eugene (at that time) was the lesbian separatist capital of the world! I went through an elaborate presentation, trying to make people comfortable, making all the wrong assumptions about whom I was speaking to. After the program, I was answering questions, and someone asked about my intentions and whether I thought the film was erotic. I answered, 'To my knowledge, no one has ever gotten a hard-on watching it.' A woman in striped overalls stood up and said, 'I did!' I loved thatbut it was a tough screening; I completely miscalculated my audience.
I was also invited to show
along with my other films, to medical students at the University of Southern California Medical School. I'd had some warning that the young doctors might be abusive, so I went with a friend who had a three-month-old baby, and I insisted on holding the baby all through the screening and during the question-and-answer period after. I recommend that if you expect to find yourself in a similar situation.
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Looking back, the only regret I have about
is that the titles are so sloppy. I was teaching at the Art Institute when I made most of my movies. It was a macho kind of place. In general, it wasn't considered appropriate to be too concerned about the niceties of your production or your performance. Things being a little rough around the edges was not only acceptable, it was admired. Now I look back at those films and I like the ones where I did a really clean job on the titles. I should redo the titles on
and make them clean and very cool, almost clinical.
