George Kuchar: An Interview

2015

Computer Files, Websites

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Summary

Beloved by filmmakers such as John Waters and Todd Solondz, George Kuchar has been working with the moving image for nearly half a century. In the 1950s, Kuchar and his twin brother Mike began producing ultra-low-budget underground versions of Hollywood genre films, with names like I Was a Teenage Rumpot and The Devil's Cleavage. These 8mm kitchen-sink masterpieces bore the distinctive marks of what Susan Sontag called "camp", and positioned the Kuchar brothers as the Bronx's answer to the downtown underground filmmaking scene, which quickly adopted the Kuchars as their own"”and in the work of Jack Smith, Andy Warhol, and others, showed their influence. Since the 1980s, Kuchar has been creating brilliantly edited, hilarious, and often diaristic tapes made with dime-store props and not-so-special effects, using friends as actors and the "pageant that is life" for his studio. In this interview, Kuchar, in a generous, gregarious mood despite the Manhattan summer humidity, discusses his life and the full range of his work from the early collaborative films to his most recent tapes. Conversational anecdotes, frank and witty, provide insight into Kuchar's working methods, as well as the work itself and its reception in various quarters. Interview by Steve Reinke. A historical interview originally recorded in 2005.