"There is a temptation to praise the film, however grudgingly, just to show you have a strong enough stomach to take it. It is a temptation I can resist."
- Roger Ebert on "Pink Flamingos"
No discussion of exploitation filmmaking would be complete without mentioning John Waters. Born in Baltimore, Waters grew up unlike most other kids, with an obsession for violence and gore. He began his movie career filming amateur movies in 8mm and 16mm and showing them at various rented church halls around town and attended via word-of-mouth and distributing leaflets.
The movies were an avant-garde mix of violence and strangeness, but audiences grew large enough for the Baltimore papers to take notice and voice their outrage regarding their content.
His first feature film was 1969's MONDO TRASHO, but he didn't gain wider recognition until the release of PINK FLAMINGOS in 1972, often called one of the most disgusting films ever made. Her scandalous scene of picking up dog shit off the sidewalk and eating it ranks among the most revolting in cinema history. Two of his more successful "mainstream" films were POLYESTER (1981) and HAIRSPRAY (1988).
Below is an interview with Waters from THE WALL STREET JOURNAL MAGAZINE from April, 2012. It is followed by a promotional fake scandal sheet newspaper, NATIONAL PEEP from 1972 that I picked up at a theater. Copies of this rare publication sell into the hundreds of dollars.
2 comments:
Back in the 80's when I was a somewhat frequent visitor to the cinema which catered to college folks with trendy and often weird movies, I saw Pink Flamingos for the first time. Wow! More recently I got to see the earlier Multiple Maniacs from 1970. It's a hot mess of black and white weirdness. The giant lobster rape scene might the single strangest thing I ever seen in a movie. Foul but challenging stuff.
The L.A.-area theater where I picked this up was known for its showing of art house films, so I'm sure that's why they were selected to have a stack of these. I can't believe the collector's value for it now -- I should have grabbed a handful!
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