Mike Kuchar

Mike Kuchar

Nacimiento : 1942-08-31, New York, New York

Historia

Mike Kuchar, cinematographer, painter and writer and brother of George Kuchar, was born in New York City. He began making 8mm movies in the 1950's, switching over to 16mm film production in 1960, and continues now, producing short motion pictures in the video and digital formats. Mike and George Kuchar were the co-recipients of the "Vanguard Director Award" at the 11th CineVegas Film Festival, 2009, and the 2009 "Frameline Award" at the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival. "Film purists," says Mike, "tend to snub the digital medium — but as far as I'm concerned, if it allows the image to move and make noise, I'll gladly use it... and the format fits perfectly into my budgets too!" Mike Kuchar is a 2017 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow for his work in film and video.

Perfil

Mike Kuchar

Películas

Pathways
Director
A sensitive soul with skin receptive to the World's natural elements and who has a mind open for expansive contemplation, embarks on an "inner journey" toward the New Age of awareness.
Him in the Night
Director
A young man yearns for a mysterious lover.
Inward Bound
Director
“I shall walk softly on the Earth but make the footprints deep”. A young man contemplates the inevitable passing of time, and the different versions of himself that come along with it.
Sunkissed
Director
This outdoor meditation is drenched with sunlight, carressed by breezes and blessed with a young man who discovers his special "role" in Time's dimention.
Celestial Horizons
Director
In the serene zone between twilight and dawn, a lullaby of thoughts floats beneath a blanket of stars.
Street Meat
Director
When the body's "primal" urges feel deprived in a "modern" age, a debate about "sex" and "love" ensues to resolve the question — perhaps even find some solution that will suffice!
Flesh and the Stars
Director
High above the far horizon, a beacon burns cold, bright and calm.
The Season of Shadows and Flame
Director
In the depths of night lurks a beautiful fever that heats a man's blood.
Keeper of Secrets
Director
He peels away layers of secrets to you for what you are, and he likes scars because they tell stories.
Broken Gods
Director
A broken god on the stone slab in a desert, waiting for "he" that will dig for him; wipe the sand from his handsome face.
Moon Lit Vows
Director
A rose scented breeze enters a young man's, winding its cool arms around him... Together they will roam the darkness of his life.
NightScape
Director
They walk through "life", sometimes with no "compass" in hand and become "lost".
Meat with Bones
Director
He is Earth, Sky, and the Universe. He is Creation's creator.
Soul Catcher
Director
Earth's "garden" is fragrant with temptations but has far too many "thorns". He got "stung" and fell...got up...and fell, again and again!
SoulSurfers
Director
Two earthbound bodies soul-surf into a new age of enlightenment.
Dark Night of the Soul
Director
His written letters will fade at the first light; if indeed he is dreaming the world!
Abstracted
Director
A "painter" casts out the demons that haunt his canvases and who creep into his bed at night.
Five O'Clock Shadows
Director
Many a man has tried to leave the prison of his hide; it's no "paradise" living in skin!
The Breeze and Him
Director
"...will somebody lend him their sins, because his old worn out ones have become tiresome."
Boy in the Mirror
Director
"...Talking to Oneself in the mirror when down in the 'mental dumps.'"
Angels We
Director
"No man can stay in bed forever...He must rise up; up the steep steps of perfection."
Age of Anxiety
Director
"...Roy has set in and spread across the fabric of their lives."
A Rented Space
Director
He felt both dead and alive... having 'died' and having come back to the space of his 'living.'
Wrestling with Angels
Director
Like all Men, he struggles against his nature.
Museum of Damaged Art
Director
His love of Heaven's virtues could not prevent a hunger for God's enticing creatures.
Blue Vibrations
Director
He made some 'love'....where has it all gone? --Mike Kuchar
Summer Sins
Director
There is a garden in the dark hunger of his psyche where forbidden fruit grows.
Dreamsville
Director
Something lies yet unwritten within a poet who lost that 'spark' of having been born brand new onto a sacred stage.
Coffee, Tea and Wizardry
Director
"...Deep in the garden of the Artist's heart, ghosts of bygone worlds arise on gothic wings, calling forth delicious languors."
Chromatic Effusion
Director
A kiss can be devine or demonic. A kiss can change your life...alter it.
Adam’s Apple
Director
A 'poet' and a 'painter' discover a malign muse, but their fear and anger keep them young.
Lost Blues
Director
"Devils"..."Angels," when they sleep they dream not of Heaven, but of us. —Mike Kuchar
Soul Searchers
Director
...What once was for him "real," is now but a "dream," --for the day comes when we find ourselves stranded with memories.
Chasing Shadows
Director
...It was time to chase One's shadow back into sunlight. -Mike Kuchar
Rat Nest
Director
With lashings of humour and affection, this much-loved filmmaker and his students create a wonderful journey from the chaos of hell to the paradise of poetry, each of them playing a mystical character who helps lead the way. —London Film Festival
Fallen Angels
Director
...They'd rather climb to the stars, than give their souls to a soulless world
The Dragon’s Son
Director
...Somewhere inside him something slumbers; the myths, the beliefs that flow, fuse and burn through him.
Devil’s Den
Director
A club for misfits who descend into a psychedelic underworld. Made at the San Francisco Art Institute.
Ascension
Director
Amid the silence of a pastel hued room, a soul, fully-fleshed, gathers secrets whispered by the moon over his cool bedsheets.
SoulMates
Director
...They had their source in tangled vegetable matter, countless rapes and invasions and enjoy good wine with the girls.
Disordered
Director
A cavalcade of characters in conflict with consciousness is conjured up within the confines of Studio 8 at the San Francisco Art Institute and digitized for analysis.
Tickled Pink
Director
He is mute flesh that the stroking of fingers can bring to sing.
Meltdown
Director
Waiting to die and waiting to live is the same thing to him that chants: "Let me not be mad... let me not be MAD... LET ME NOT BE MAD!"
Litany of the Seven Kisses
Director
OverRiped words from the lips of an OverExposed boy decorates this litany in pink with purple bruises.
The Stone Boy
Director
He hears the whispers of gargoyles in a hall of heavy stone.
Free Form Frolic
Director
A topsy-turvy romp.
Splatter Movie
Director
Sex, sleaze, drugs, blood, and much, much more!
Opal Essence
Director
He sighs for strange and hidden cities whose walls are pink stone, inlaid with opals, ebony and silver, and for altars where the body is worshiped under the shrine of night.
Medusa’s Gaze
Director
Ripe fruit in sweaty socks; soft eyes, stained and suffering in the origin of consciousness, and a soul needing refrigeration, for it has nearly gone bad!
Echo’s Garden
Director
"Great woods, you frighten me like some cathedral's gloom, and awaken pastoral pipes on pagan heights."
The Dreamer’s Tale
Director
Videomaker and spoken word performer David Finkelstein sleepwalks down into subconscious corridors.
Debbie and the Demons
Director
Dan Carbone sings Debbie and the Demons
Snow Beard
A moving tribute to New York icon Mike Kuchar, filmed on his last day before leaving Manhattan to relocate to San Francisco
It Came from Kuchar
Self
It Came from Kuchar is the definitive, feature documentary about the legendary, underground filmmaking twins, the Kuchar brothers. George and Mike Kuchar have inspired two generations of filmmakers, actors, musicians, and artists with their zany, "no budget" films and with their uniquely enchanting spirits.
Stolen Sweets and Tattle Tales
Director
Two men and two women attempt to re-assemble the scattered pieces of life's puzzle.
Idyll
Director
Offer a pagan god only simple flowers of spring and the sparkling diamonds and opals of morning dew strung on the threads of the spider... and fear the judgement of holy angels.
Ephemeral Seizure
Director
Playwright and performance artist Marc Arthur paves a color-saturated path from 'awake consciousness' to sleeping 'dreamscape'.
Bedeviled
Director
Once upon a time in the shelled carcass of a man, the Phoenix will rise and fall... and RISE and FALL!
Animal
Director
Masked men prowling in the bushes and not touching anything but satin, dandelions and flesh.
The Tiger
Director
One's "softest parts" are "scooped out and eaten alive".
Swan Song
Writer
Short gay melodrama.
Swan Song
Director
Short gay melodrama.
Dumped!
Writer
A woman discovers her husband cheating.
Dumped!
Director
A woman discovers her husband cheating.
Witchery
Director
Secret number... secret shape... knower of the secret name... God of the realm of night - I summon you, 'Son of Sin'... arise!
Song of the Seven Senses
Director
The Vagabond...what does he seek? - ask the River, ask the Wind - but don't ask Him!
The Faery Garden
Director
A lady alone amid the flowers of a garden becomes the target of mischievous elements therein.
A Dream of Roses
Director
A House Wife's hum-drum world dissolves away into a thorny Passion Play of miraculous visions.
A Brief Summer’s Tale
Director
There is more than one way to get 'lost' in the woods.
A Midsummer's Nightmare
Director
Things "go bump in broad daylight" as archetypical characters romp about in a sunny forest...doll like things and beast men.
The Vernal Zone
Director
In this summerland a path opens for Poets, Artists, ...and the 'Dreamer'.
Peek-A-Boo
Director
A hell of a lot more of you through a keyhole!!
State of Mind
Director
Two city dwellers in a relationship grown "tired," are near a deep forest where one hears the lure of Pan's Pipe calling.
Scarlet Petals
Director
Obsessive desire can leave an indelible stain on its victim.
Paradise Gone
Director
There was plenty of fruit growing in Eden; mangos, pears, oranges...why did Eve have to pick that Apple!
Fruit of the Serpent
Director
Dialogue taken from the Bible is put in the mouths of three souls in a modern apartment, who must deal with a "fall from grace."
Zoology
Director
It is believed that Life originated in the Sea, and like the Ocean itself, human existance is thus subject to tides and surging currents of emotions stirred up by memory.
A Poem for Summer
Director
Dark, domestic tensions need the cleansing rays of a bright summer afternoon.
Haunted
Director
Relationships don't end... they linger like ghosts.
Celestial Murmurs
Director
Two souls, one aged, the other young, contemplate flowers, fairies and earthbound angels sent to tempt and tease.
Midnight Mass
Director
An angry trollop and a self-doubting college kid collide in his cramped apartment for an episode of claustrophobia and self-analysis.
Meet The Kuchar Brothers
Provides a rare glimpse into the world of George and Mike Kuchar, underground filmmaking brothers from the Bronx. Get to know the Kuchars, casually hanging out with John Waters at a party, looking at old yearbook photos with their high school classmate Gerard Malanga. Sit in on an extensive interview with the brothers at Anthology Film Archives.
Sweet Dreams
Director
Childhood dolls and adult toys populate this moody yet picturesque lullaby.
The Prayers of Cupie LaRue
Director
A girl with two male companions in a room is a space where the mind's eye wanders!
NightRise
Director
A ripe lad embarks on a raw correspondence with his mirrored image, and thus: the dialogue is "fleshed out" to its full potential.
In the Garden of Eros
Director
The dialogue for this production, featuring Cupid, is taken from the pages of a personal diary found under a chair.
Atonement
Director
Looney thespians run amok in a classroom.
BIRD IN THE SKY
Grandfather
BIRD IN THE SKY is a gritty, poetic tale of a young man’s spiritual struggle on the streets of New York City. Rob has been given a second chance to right the wrongs of his street-wise past; he must perform a miracle to be saved. His fate lies in his love for a young woman, Kay, who is coping with the loss of her child.
Actors Descending and Ascending a Staircase
Director
In this thespian workout, a troop of stage actors improvises within a kaleidoscopic zone of warped spaces.
Heaven Cannot Hold Them
Director
A kaleidoscopic concoction done with improvising actors.
Romance
Director
Nymphs and Satyrs are conjured back into activity when poetry is recited and fluffy clouds sail above the contemporary, domestic landscape.
Day Dreaming
Director
Blue skies, babbling brooks, and a big book in a field full of flowers is the departure point for this video.
Miss Philly’s Valentine
Director
A "grand dame's" delirious daydream blooms like a voluptous blossom in spring.
Inspiration
Director
The stimulus for this dissertation on the reason behind the creative impulse is taken verbatim from an author's preface to his book.
Bird, Bath and Beyond
Self
In this dream-portrait, Mike Kuchar floats through his memories as the sea, space and sky drift past. Wrapped in odd costumes, he frolics with the imaginary creatures surrounding him, and recalls the creatures of his own imagination.
Shepherd’s Poem
Director
A "birthday boy's" poetic yearnings on paper translate into a quest for perfection."
Wind in My Sails
Director
Like ships in a harbor, men come and go in relationships. But, as one character says to another character who is heartbroken: "You sucked enough juice out of him... don't be greedy!"
Boy Toys
Director
A naughty romp that is bare, brazen, and "black and blue" too, featuring a playpen of playthings that go on an erotic rampage."
Tryst
Director
This breezy and flamboyant essay about an afternoon rendezvous is pure candy for the eyes.
The Stranger in Apartment 9F
Director
Looking for "Mr. Right" in all the wrong places makes for a tragic comedy.
Divine Trash
Himself
The life and times of Baltimore film maker and midnight movie pioneer, John Waters.
Domain of the Pixel Pixies
Himself
Sort of a portrait of the videomaker Anne McQuire, who surfaces midway from this waterlogged landscape of El Nino disasters to dispense charm and chocolate within the confines of her concrete office. There is also a flood of imagery that flows in and out of art museums, viewing facilities, and eateries that are perpetually haunted by yours truly along with the spirit of hoboism that feeds on apple pie America.
On a Shore Beneath the Sky
Director
Be careful when you go out into the surf in a skimpy thong... the current can be treacherous and turbulent as is the human heart!
Candy Coated Evil
Director
A bunch of Punk Rockers puke up all sorts of stuff.
A Widow's Web
Director
A mother and daughter, both dressed in "shocking pink", clash over men and money.
Purgatory Junction
Director
A vain, self centered mother competes with her daughter in the world of carnivorous men and sleazy movies.
The Bristled Dagger
Director
Artists with brushes need light to paint a picture, but human feelings function just as well in the dark.
Statue in the Park
Director
Two strippers decide a walk in the park might lift their spirits, which do get a big boost when they contemplate a park monument dedicated to sailors in this audacious, “beefy” romp.
The Second Coming
Cinematography
Futuristic story of Carlos and Ben who fall in love in high school despite the racism and and homophobia.
Cupid’s Infirmary
Director
Armed with an overripe script and ample supply of false eyelashes and lip gloss.
The Pictures of Dorian Gray
Director
Paint drips and body fluids ooze in this "tell all" and "hide nothing" documentary about two San Francisco males.
An Evil Town
Based on a short story by Charles Bukowski from the collection "Tales of Ordinary Madness."
Blue Banshee
Director
Commissioned to be a "promo" for a loud punk rock band, Mr. Kuchar feared that the noise the band made would spoil the mood of his visuals, so he used the sound of a lush orchestra to score the picture and the antics.
Urchins of Ungawa
In a garden of roses and memorabilia from darkest Africa, a man and woman ponder the joy of cooking and the companionship of cats. Goodies for the guts abound in this visual essay on feline friendship and far away places. An electronic voyage beyond the stench of house and garden that transports the viewer- and cat- to the promised land.
Award
Himself
A behind-the-scenes look at the man behind the trophy and the poisons that taint an otherwise jubilant jamboree.
Life Is Like a Cucumber
Cinematography
Although too long by half, this documentary is subtitled "A Trip Through Lotti's Life" and that is essentially what it is. Although done in a style that keeps you guessing what is true and what isn't about her life -- everything from her Aryan lover and her stay in a concentration camp while he is killed for their forbidden love -- it is a fascinating look at this remarkable woman through the eyes and viewfinder of Rosa Von Prauheim.
Silence = Death
Cinematography
AIDS victims and activists cope with hardship and society’s ignorance.
Positive
Cinematography
This film powerfully documents New York City's gay community's response to the AIDS crisis as they are forced to organize themselves after the government's failure to stem the epidemic. Activists who are interviewed include playwrite Larry Kramer, People With AIDS Coalition co-founder Michael Callen (who died of AIDS in 1994), New York filmmaker and journalist Phil Zwickler, as well as representatives from ACT-UP, Queer Nation and the Gay Men's Health Crisis.
Kiss Napoleon Goodbye
Cinematography
Punk icons Lydia Lunch and Henry Rollins star in this cult drama about a pregnant pianist named Hedda whose marriage to husband Neal (Don Bajema) hits the skids with the sudden appearance of a mysterious stranger.
Fill Thy Crack with Whiteness
A music-filled tour of Christmas good cheer overtakes this gastronomically oriented excursion through the winter season of discontent and yuletime yearnings craving ignition.
Pictures at an Exhibitionist’s
A wide-ranging look at pictures I collect on my walls and in my head. A look at pictures I concoct with my students at the San Francisco Art Institute, and objects d’art collected by those whose picture is taken by my picture-taking machine.
Cinématon n°1085 : Mike Kuchar
The Creeping Crimson
A short film by George Kuchar.
Cult of the Cubicles
Himself
Writes Kuchar: "It's New York in the summer and I set out to track down some high school friends who have burrowed deep into the 'big apple.' The viewer gets to see how far they've eaten their way to the core in this 45-minute study of urban denizens in the grip of Newtonian damnation." Here, Kuchar visits his mother in the Bronx, chats and eats with old friends in their claustrophobic New York apartments, and muses about friendship, growing older, and a time when the "streets of New York were cleaner, and so was I."
Video Album 5: The Thursday People
The comings and goings of the late underground filmmaker, Curt McDowell—and the people and activities that came and went along with him—are the themes that run through this existential diary of daily life. McDowell was dying from AIDS-related illnesses during the production of the diary. “An elegy for McDowell, the videowork captures Kuchar’s mournful remembrances of his long-lasting friendship with the young filmmaker. But it also has the inquisitive charm, perverse humor, and quirky candor that places Kuchar’s visual expressions in a gritty niche all their own.”
He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life
Self
A film collage tracing the story of the lives, loves, and deaths within the artistic community surrounding Jonas Mekas.
Seascape
Director
A rhythmic flow of image with sound, weaving a mood suspended in time.
Fable for a new age
Director
Four women in the throes of frustrated sexual desire. Not making fun of them but rather sending up the absurdities of passion and the ways in which it undermines our dignity. One woman, given to heady, long-winded monologues and carrying on like a silent screen vamp, envisions herself as a kind of Eve in the Garden of Eden about to seduce her Adam--but instead of being overcome by the fabled scents of Araby (or such) she is assaulted by the odor of "old socks, gasoline and aftershave."
George Kuchar: The Comedy of the Underground
Himself
A documentary portrait of filmmaker George Kuchar conducting a tour of his apartment where he displays memorabilia and his toys which were used for props.
Cinématon
N°1085
Cinématon is a 156-hour long experimental film by French director Gérard Courant. It was the longest film ever released until 2011. Composed over 36 years from 1978 until 2006, it consists of a series of over 2,821 silent vignettes (cinématons), each 3 minutes and 25 seconds long, of various celebrities, artists, journalists and friends of the director, each doing whatever they want for the allotted time. Subjects of the film include directors Barbet Schroeder, Nagisa Oshima, Volker Schlöndorff, Ken Loach, Benjamin Cuq, Youssef Chahine, Wim Wenders, Joseph Losey, Jean-Luc Godard, Samuel Fuller and Terry Gilliam, chess grandmaster Joël Lautier, and actors Roberto Benigni, Stéphane Audran, Julie Delpy and Lesley Chatterley. Gilliam is featured eating a 100-franc note, while Fuller smokes a cigar. Courant's favourite subject was a 7-month-old baby. The film was screened in its then-entirety in Avignon in November 2009 and was screened in Redondo Beach, CA on April 9, 2010.
George und Mike Kuchar
Self
Short film by Rosa von Praunheim
The Shadow Glass
The Shadow Glass is roughly based on Ewers' 'Student of Prague'. It concerns a young man who, feeling incapable of surmounting the harsh realities of love and life, sends his reflection cut to procure and win for him the object of his desire. Rather than being his servant and slave, the reflection takes over and controls the life of the man. In frustration and anger the man kills his reflection in order to be set free. The reality of the situation is the reality of suicide. The entire film could be interpreted as taking place in a brief second–for as long as it takes pull the trigger.
Seadrift
Seadrift is based on a story The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft, and was shot partially in Marblehead Mass. Each section represents a synthesis of the various aspects and moods of the story. The sum total of the fragments expresses the atmosphere of the whole.
Death Quest of the Ju-Ju Cults
Director
Enter a shimmering forest and encounter the Pot Boiling turbulence of pre-history tribes in conflict. See sacrificial virgins, volcanoes, knife fights, spaceships. It's all in this black-and-white saga of pure escapement.
The Devil's Cleavage
Cinematography
"One of Kuchar’s few feature-length works is this ribald pastiche to postwar Hollywood melodrama, that period when the studios were trying very hard to be adult. The intricate, overheated plot involves a nurse trapped in an unhappy marriage who escapes the big city in search of greener pastures in Blessed Prairie, Oklahoma. Swerving from earnest homage to dark satire, Kuchar simultaneously imitates and savages the legacy of Sirk, Preminger and Minnelli that inspired him, gleefully intertwining the suggestive and the scatological, while also pointing towards the later postmodern parodies of Cindy Sherman. The Devil’s Cleavage is also a rich time capsule of 1970s San Francisco, replete with cameos from Curt McDowell and Art Spiegelman." —hcl.harvard.edu
Magicman
A ritualistic mood piece with colour-rich images
Fur of the Field
Director
The windy adventures of a dog in a sea of grass beneath blue skies.
Nudes: A Sketchbook
A series of vignettes illustrating sexual fantasies.
Beaver Fever
A short comedy by Curt McDowell.
True Blue and Dreamy
"A surreal meditation on a cigarette billboard using a very strange ballerina as an allegory for something or other Indescribably funny." - Seattle International Film Festival, 1978
Peed Into the Wind
“PEED INTO THE WIND smears across the screen like one of those dirty underground comic books. It’s loaded with a lot of big scenes and unusual looking people that make this epic resemble a clogged toilet. Unfortunately, since several of the performers were not as loyal as Ainslie Pryor and John Thomas, the plot is difficult to follow but in no way hinders the sewer-like sequences. It’s quite enjoyable and possesses the releasing power of an enema.” –George Kuchar
Portrait of Ramona
This movie was made mostly in Brooklyn during some very hot and empty evenings. Since the evenings were so empty, Jane Elford, the star, urged me to get started making another movie (we had completed PAGAN RHAPSODY the year before). I said "okay," and launched her in a photographed series of telephone calls, not really knowing who was going to be on the other end. I was interested at the time in irrational, neurotic responses and so the heroine was put into unstable situations that I dreamt up because I was making a movie with a plot and there should be some action .... Many of the stars appear nude and all I can say is that because of the heat and the general, overall feeling of the film which is one of the usual desperation and explosive emotions, I couldn't see any other way of them playing it. The general tone of everything was ... "Why even bother to get dressed?"
Abode of the Snows
Director
An evocative 16mm short shot during a visit to Nepal.
Chronicles
Mike Kuchar'ss lyrical portrait of everyday life, from making art to making love, all as the Vietnam War rages.
Chronicles
Director
Mike Kuchar'ss lyrical portrait of everyday life, from making art to making love, all as the Vietnam War rages.
Variations
Director
Green spills over purple ridges and into deep cut valleys. Blue surges up from rounds and hollows, blending with incandescent pink plains, revealing what seems to be the outline of the human face. Scribble spins on blue space in abstract, erratic lines, gaining in momentum and mass to form a coherent link to something recognizable. Crude, bold, darting lines. Black and white scribble. A lace work of electric sparks. These are some of the variations encountered in Kuchar's new film VARIATIONS. Live subjects are broken down into their basic outlines and are then reconstructed into startling concepts of spinning patterns and pulsating designs.
Underground New York
Self
A rare behind-the-scenes view of the exploding New York “underground” in the late sixities, a turbulent time and place that was to change American culture forever. A German TV crew, led by journalist Gideon Bachmann, explores the epicenter of the sixties revolution in art, music, poetry and film and interviews the main players in the “New American Cinema,” that was born on the streets of New York. Against a backdrop of cultural upheaval in all of the arts and growing political agitation against the Vietnam War, Bachman interviews the most prominent figures in “underground film,” including Jonas Mekas, Shirley Clarke, the Kuchar Brothers and Bruce Connor, and visits the most notorious location in the New York art world of the era - Andy Warhol’s Factory - to conduct an interview with the genius of Pop Art himself.
The Mammal Palace
The movie takes a rather negative look at things despite the fact that it was shot in reversal film. It depicts the turbulent relationships of disturbed individuals existing on various levels of an apartment house. Donna Kerness and her husband Hopeton Morris are lurid together and they are also pretty lurid when they're alone.
Color Me Shameless
Fragments
Director
The Craven Sluck
Writer
A desperate, married woman meets a mysterious man who she blatantly desires. Through some twists and turns, things do not go over as well as she seems to wish.
The Craven Sluck
Director
A desperate, married woman meets a mysterious man who she blatantly desires. Through some twists and turns, things do not go over as well as she seems to wish.
Galaxie
Himself
In March and April of 1966, Markopoulos created this filmic portrait of writers and artists from his New York circle, including Parker Tyler, W. H. Auden, Jasper Johns, Susan Sontag, Storm De Hirsch, Jonas Mekas, Allen Ginsberg, and George and Mike Kuchar, most observed in their homes or studios. Filmed in vibrant color, Galaxie pulses with life. It is a masterpiece of in-camera composition and editing, and stands as a vibrant response to Andy Warhol's contemporary Screen Tests.
The Secret of Wendel Samson
Wendel Samson (voice)
A young man's struggle with his sexuality overtakes his life, driving him deep into his subconscious where guilt and fears of physicality chase him still further. Cornered by an intangible terror, he realises he must either break out or break down.
The Secret of Wendel Samson
Director
A young man's struggle with his sexuality overtakes his life, driving him deep into his subconscious where guilt and fears of physicality chase him still further. Cornered by an intangible terror, he realises he must either break out or break down.
River Windows
"A film counterpointing the hard reality of the present with the fantastic actuality or imagining of the idyllic past. This is best realized in the halting transition from the journey through time back to the watery one that evoked." –Ken Kelman
Green Desire
Director
Experimental short
Corruption of the Damned
Corruption of the Damned might seethe with violence and sex, the two most attractive things you can put on the screen, but beneath them a twisted outlook pervades.
Sins of the Fleshapoids
Producer
The survivors of a nuclear war are taken care of by robots called "fleshapoids." One day one of the fleshapoids runs wild, kills its "mistress," and hides in the home of a human female, for whom it begins to develop feelings.
Sins of the Fleshapoids
Writer
The survivors of a nuclear war are taken care of by robots called "fleshapoids." One day one of the fleshapoids runs wild, kills its "mistress," and hides in the home of a human female, for whom it begins to develop feelings.
Sins of the Fleshapoids
Editor
The survivors of a nuclear war are taken care of by robots called "fleshapoids." One day one of the fleshapoids runs wild, kills its "mistress," and hides in the home of a human female, for whom it begins to develop feelings.
Sins of the Fleshapoids
Cinematography
The survivors of a nuclear war are taken care of by robots called "fleshapoids." One day one of the fleshapoids runs wild, kills its "mistress," and hides in the home of a human female, for whom it begins to develop feelings.
Sins of the Fleshapoids
Director
The survivors of a nuclear war are taken care of by robots called "fleshapoids." One day one of the fleshapoids runs wild, kills its "mistress," and hides in the home of a human female, for whom it begins to develop feelings.
Lust for Ecstasy
“LUST FOR ECSTASY is my most ambitious attempt since my last film…. I wrote many of the pungent scenes on the D train, and when I arrived on the set I ripped them up and let my emotional whims make chopped meat out of the performances and the story…. Yes, LUST FOR ECSTASY is my subconscious, my own naked lusts that sweep across the screen in 8mm and color with full fidelity sound.” – George Kuchar
Born of the Wind
Director
A tender and realistic story of a scientist who falls in love with a mummy he has restored to life.
Tootsies in Autumn
Director
[A] cautionary tale about past-their-prime thespians caught up in a typically Kucharian vortex of madness. - Anthology Film Archives
Confessions of Babette
Leonard
An early masterpiece by Mike Kuchar, in which Babette tells all, leaving no turgid stone unturned.
Confessions of Babette
Director
An early masterpiece by Mike Kuchar, in which Babette tells all, leaving no turgid stone unturned.
Sylvia’s Promise
(1962) Color, Sound, 9 min.
Night of the Bomb
Director
The film combines teenage lust and deranged delinquency to create a cautionary tale for the ages.
A Reel of Home Movies
Director
An eclectic compilation of home movies and early cinematic experiments. Preserved by Anthology Film Archives with support from the National Film Preservation Foundation. “From the age of 12 onward until 17 (the restless years) the Kuchar brothers lived life to the fullest and tasted the spices of the lower class, the sugar of the bourgeoisie and the kasha of the jet set. At this time their films were seldom longer than four minutes.” –George Kuchar
Pussy on a Hot Tin Roof
Director
“It glows with the embers of desire! It smokes with the revelation of men and women longing for robust temptations that will make them sizzle into maturity with a furnace-blast of unrestrained animalism. A film for young and old to enjoy.” —George Kuchar
I Was a Teenage Rumpot
Director
I Was a Teenage Rumpot was made in 1960, when George and Mike, the twin brothers Kuchar, were all of eighteen years old. Though their films would grow in thematic complexity, Rumpot already shows the visual energy, dynamic music, and anarchic, twisted plot development that so endear the Kuchars to audiences. The outlandish makeup and onscreen behavior would make Jack Smith (of Flaming Creatures) proud. In this context, a sudden moment of feigned modesty (when one woman is discovered undressing) is ironic indeed. --Andy Ditzler
The Thief and the Stripper
Director
(1959) Color, Sound, 25 min.
The Slasher
Director
An insane, deformed killer stalks the grounds of a resort house, bringing sudden violence to those of easy virtue and godlessness.
The Naked and the Nude
Director
Big…Rousing…Memorable! The incredible war saga of our own boys in a Jap-infested jungle in the Botanical Gardens. Hear Lloyd Thorner sing the title song. You’ll come out whistling from both ends.
A Tub Named Desire
Director
"A Tub Named Desire," the first movie with Donna Kerness, does not exist anymore, except for one 8mm print that was in George Kuchar's possession. The footage was taken apart, and some of it is included in "The Naked and the Nude." - Carnegie Museum of Art archive.
Oh Hi Anne
Himself
An epic tale of love and loss featuring legendary underground filmmakers George and Mike Kuchar, as told to an answering machine.