George Kuchar
George Kuchar started making films as a pre-teen in the
early 1950s in New York City with his twin brother Mike.
Their first films were low-budget send-ups of the
melodramas and Grade Z Hollywood films of their time. In
the 60s, the Kuchar brothers stopped making films
together in order to develop their own unique styles. By
the early 80s George had made the switch from film to
video. I met George in 1990 while attending his infamous
production class, AC/DC Psychotronic Teleplays. Scott
Trotter: You and your twin brother Mike started making
films in the late fifties and I was wondering what got
you started.
George Kuchar: Well, we went to the movies and either
enjoyed or got scared by what we saw. From that point on
we wanted to make pictures. At that time 8mm movies were
being made by normal people; it was a home movie medium.
My mom realized that we wanted to make pictures and we
were borrowing our aunt’s camera. And she
didn’t want me to see my aunt much--they had ill
feelings towards one another--and so she bought us the
camera so we could be more independent.
ST: You started before the price of silver went up, so
film must have been cheap.
GK: It was really cheap...a dollar eighty nine? Was it
even that much? I keep remembering in my head a dollar
eighty nine. And you could send it through the drug store
for processing. But eventually what would happen is that
the film would turn green and crack like a fresco. Kodak
processing was much better, it had cleaner chemicals.
ST: In the beginning, did you have any dreams of
grandeur like making films for Hollywood?
GK: Yes, but in our version, in 8mm. And of course
watching Hollywood pictures was an inspiration that also
provided technical knowledge, and insight on how scenes
were put together. We watched the movies and would notice
the different shots, when the music came in, and the
different lighting effects. Then we would try to
duplicate them with the stuff we had.
ST: I know you were influenced by Douglas Sirk. Were
there any other movie makers who grabbed your attention
back then?
GK: A ton of them! A lot who made garbage pictures
that we had seen, low-budget stuff. Mike and I would go
to the movie theater and see a lot of pictures one after
the other. The very early Roger Corman pictures, horror
pictures, foreign pictures, anything I’d see would
influence me. I’d absorb everything.
ST: Corruption of The Damned was the first 16mm film
you made. It also marks your split from Mike as a
partner, doesn’t it?
GK: He started that picture and then he gave it to me.
He didn’t want to work on it anymore. He moved on to
his sci-fi Sins of The Fleshapoids. So in a way
Corruption of The Damned was like a carrying-on of the
8mm’s, cause it even had title card in it. There was
no sync-sound, no dialog or dubbing. All our 8mm’s
were like chunks of me and chunks of him. He would direct
a chunk and then give the thing to me. Then his chunks
got kind of long until it was eventually 50/50 instead of
it all being interspersed. And then we just made our own
picture.
ST: Although there are a lot of similarities, how do
you feel your work differs from his?
GK: It differs a lot. There’s a whole different
style and approach. Even though we were born fifteen
minutes apart, that fifteen minutes changes people.
ST: Who’s older?
GK: I read it once and I forgot. I was not able to
retain that information for some reason, but it was
different from what I thought. I used to think he was
older. Maybe I’m older...I don’t know. They got
it all wrong anyway cause they even misspelled my name on
the birth certificate. They spelled it with an er instead
of an ar.
ST: Maybe you’re not even brothers.
GK: Could be true! (laughs)
ST: Hold Me While I’m Naked was one of your first
big hits, but I’ve always heard you say that
you’ve been all washed up since that film.
GK: I used to say that as a joke. That’s actually
a freeing mechanism when you say that you’re all
washed up after a certain picture, because you can make
your new pictures any way you want. You don’t have
to feel like you’re under pressure to top something
if you’re washed up already. I recommend that. I
think it’s a great thing to happen if you’re
considered washed up and not doing anything of value any
more. The spotlight is off you and you don’t have
that kind of tension. And then you work with the idea
that nobody is going to pay attention to this anyway. You
know what I mean? So there’s this certain sense of
freedom. Otherwise, it’s like making a Broadway hit
one after another; you just get eaten up by ulcers.
ST: How early on did you meet Jonas Mekas (Co-Founder
and Artistic Director of Anthology Film Archives, New
York)?
GK: That was in the early part of the 1960s. He was a
nice man, quiet. I think he wore a corduroy suit. I met
him in filmmaker Ken Jacobs’ loft.
ST: Did he have an instrumental role in shining a
light on your work?
GK: Yeah, cause he was one of the few people, maybe
the only one who was reviewing those movies in New York
City. Therefore, his reviews were read and considered
interesting, though some people thought he was some sort
of a strange crank or something. He was very passionate.
His columns were always looked forward to and read. The
favorable reviews brought people to look at the movies
that he wrote about. So he had a powerful influence in
those days to get people out of the house.
ST: To jump ahead to the present time...when did you
start working in video?
GK: It was 84 or 85.
ST: Why did you make the move, other than the
inexpensiveness of the medium?
GK: Well, I always liked being independent and working
at home and not having to rely on too many things or
places. So, working on video came out of the fact that
you buy the material to shoot on, you put it in the
camera, and you do everything right there in the camera.
ST: Some of your first videos were shot and edited
entirely in camera and are quite brilliant, considering
there was no post-production.
GK: Well, I enjoy working with it that way, and that
made it totally independent. You don’t have to go to
the lab all the time and deal with all the people.
Although they are nice people and it does get you out of
the house. You can do the whole thing right there for not
only so cheap, but done right in the
machine...that’s what turned me on! Also the idea
that you don’t get hooked onto a single instrument
to make a picture because your career seems to be based
on one tool and if that tool breaks down or goes
obsolete, you can’t continue any more. So when I
bought another camera, it had other features and I
decided after so many years, you don’t want to do
the same things...it gets to be too repetitious and the
material looks dead. I’ve gotten other decks over
the years to edit and a machine where you can actually
have fun making a collage, or fixing images and moving
them around, so that’s another thing to keep you
going. I enjoy that process, and staying home enabled me
to do stuff and not have these strange anxieties about
having to be out of the house for 12 hours or to stay out
for 24 hours to edit!
ST: With film, your time is limited because the
editing space is rented and the next group will be coming
in.
GK: Now the only reason you want to get out is because
all the wires are all over the floor and you want to turn
it back into a living room! You also want to finish the
thing so the same kind of pressure is on, but at least
you can go easily to the refrigerator, or if you have a
pet you can keep the pet company. You don’t have to
feel guilty.
ST: Was there any pressure from the old guard when you
switched to video, since it was so despised?
GK: It still is! (laughs) It was considered pretty
much a shame or something, and that the thing was a toy
made out of plastic. I enjoy it being plastic...it’s
lightweight!
ST: I find it humorous that video was and sometimes
still is regarded as a joke, yet you’re getting more
shows than any experimental film maker I know of.
GK: It is strange, because video isn’t isolated
to a box anymore. They made these projectors and the
thing is getting on the big screen. It’s no longer
confined to postage stamp size. I made one of my pictures
and had it shown at the Art Institute. At that time they
only had one television and they put it in the lecture
hall. I realized that people were looking at something
that was postage stamp size, yet the audience was
responding to all the emotions the thing was generating,
as if they were looking at something on the big screen.
And I said, This is kind of shocking, because it’s
so small!
ST: As projection has improved you’ve been
getting more video shows, and for the past few months
we’ve been crossing paths because of the traveling
show I’ve been taking around for X-Film Chicago.
Driving around the country has been a blast for me! Have
you been having a great time as well?
GK: Well, I never really have a great time (laughs).
You know what I mean? My mind is so cluttered and as you
get older maybe the chemicals change and you have great
senses of dread and stuff like that. And then you realize
that you go through these inner worlds and the actual
outer world sometimes is not that bad. So then you try to
clear the window, get rid of all the soot and see sort of
clearly. It’s the sort of a strange combination of
the interior and exterior, and you do meet a lot of
people.
ST: And see a lot of different places.
GK: Yeah, and if you do have an interest in certain
things like architecture or weather then you get another
pleasure from being where you are.
ST: Weather comes up a lot in your work, as do UFOs
and sex.
GK: Well, the sex thing you can’t help; it’s
the driving force to make movies. You can’t dampen
that or you lose the desire to make pictures. It’s a
fueling thing that helps give you the energy to make
pictures and do everything else. It is a motivation. (My
telephone gets a call-waiting beep.) Uh oh; a call from
Hollywood! (laughs)
ST: OK, I’m back...
GK: And anyway, the weather is just an interest of
mine, aesthetically and scientifically. You make pictures
of what you’re interested in and then that becomes
your world. And then things with flying saucers... maybe
extraterrestrial, maybe not...but just the idea of a
strange mystery or enigma happening is something that
captured my imagination. You develop certain subjects
that interest or fascinate and do a series and follow it
through. That leads to research and that spurs you to go
out to different events, and then things that happen get
placed into pictures.
ST: Your videos are sort of like time capsules, or
diaries, filled with what is interesting you at the time.
GK: Yeah, or an obsession, or some kind of problem,
and then you work on it because that also gives you the
building blocks to make the plot or the way the thing
looks. If you get out there and things happen it’s
sometimes fun to recreate them in that medium to get it
off your chest. If you don’t write a diary in some
manner, you put it into the work you have and then it
seems to be out there. You get rid of it for a bit in a
creative way.
ST: Aside from your personal work, you’ve been
churning out a class production each semester at the San
Francisco Art Institute. You’ve molded this into a
studio similar to the studios of the golden age of
Hollywood.
GK: You use the equipment and get to know the people
because they have to interact between one another. And if
you look at it as a studio it’s like a dream come
true. Some of the students go out and make pictures that
are spin-offs and you look at it as everybody being under
contract with that studio because they signed up so
you’ve got your contract players. And it also
removes it from being too heavy. You know what I mean? It
also sounds fun, not only a dream, but a dream factory.
It’s also educational, because you have to learn how
to tackle problems, hopefully. And of course, they put
their seed back in because they’re not just sitting
there, they have to act and do certain things and
you’re seeing what’s in their minds via their
pictures and how they look at things from all the strange
angles and that’s always kind of interesting.
ST: Well, when you come to Chicago you should bring
some tapes to sell.
GK: I hate to cary a lot of stuff. I like to travel
light. I don’t even like the bags on the carousel
because you wait longer. Then I usually bring a VHS copy
because it’s less heavy than a 3/4-inch. And
nowadays I think they look just as good with the machines
that can project. Anyway, I like the people to retain the
videos in the memory, you know what I mean, and then they
leave and keep it in the brain and don’t have to go
home with the baggage.
ST: Thanks, George! See you in August.
Chicago filmmaker Scott Trotter is the co-founder and
a curator of X-Film Chicago. He recently finished a
successful tour of the United States with various
experimental works from the X-Film Collective. X-Film
will be starting its third season of weekly independent
film programs at The Lunar Cabaret (2827 N. Lincoln,
312-327-6666) on Sunday, September 22. X-Film can be
reached directly at 312-2235-4055.
Interview by Scott Trotter