Susan Sontag Be Admitted That the Pronouncements of Mekas and His Supporters Are Sh~Lll, Editor’S Note: As Stated in the Edi- Mental Or Lustful

11 and even heroism, hasmade it possible to see Smith‘s film and a number of othernew works. Yet it must Susan Sontag be admitted that the pronouncements of Mekas and his supporters are sh~lll, Editor’s Note: As stated in the edi- mental or lustful. But even if Flaming and oiten positively alienating Meka? toraal “Flhning Censorship” an The Creatures werepornographic, that is, is wrong to arguethat thisnew Nation of Marclz 30, Flaming Crea- if It did (likethe film Jean Genet group of films, of which Flanzzng tures i.s oneof tzvo falmsrecently madein 1950, Chant d’dmour) have Creatures seems to me, byPar the seazed by New Yolk. Czty police on. the the power to excite sexually, I would mostsuccessful, is a totally unprece- grounds of obscenam. The other as argue that this 1s a power of art for denteddep2rture in the history of Gewt’s Chant $Amour. Jonas Melzas, which It 1s shameful to apologize. Art cinema,and makes everything else, edztor of FilmCulture, was arrested IS, always, thesphere of freedom. In in comparison, worthless. Such trucu- at’theshowings, the trials for these those difficult works of art, works lence does Smith a disservice, making two filmshave been scheduled for whibh we nowcall avant-garde, the it unnecessarily hard to grasp what April 6 and 13 respectively. artist consciously exercises hisfree- hehas accomplished in Flanzzng dom. And as the price the avant-garde Creatures. For FlamangCreatures is The only thing to be regretted about artist pays for the freedom to be out- a smallbut very important work in the close-ups of limp penises and rageous 1s thesmall numbers of his a tradition, the great tradition of the bohncing breasts,the shots of mas- audience, theleast of his rewards avant-garde cinema-along with Bu- turbation .and, oral sexuality, in Jack should be freedomfrom meddling nuel’s Le Chien d’dndalou and L’Age Smith’s FlamingCreatures is trhat It censorship by the philistine, the prud- d‘Or, Cocteau’s Le Sangd’un Poete, makesit hard simply to talk about ishand the blind. Apartfrom the Artaud’s Le Coquille et le Clergyman, this remarkableand beautiful film, wrongness of censorshipitself, there parts of Eisenstein’s first film Strike, one has to defend it. But in defend- is no need to worry what ~1.11be the some of the recent Polish and Czech ing as well as talking about bhe film, social consequences if FlamingCrea- shorts,the films of Kenneth Anger I don’t want to makeit seem less tures ever plays at Radio City Music (Fireworks,Les Eaux ZArtifice, Scor- outrageous, less shocking thanit is. Hall because it won’t. Smith’s film,’ pio Riszng), etc., etc. For the reco2d: in Fluming Creatures, involvingas it does certain esoteric The older avant-garde film makers a couple of women and a much larger assumptionsabout experience and in America (Maya Deren, James number of men,mast of them clad beauty, is obscure, precious, intimate. Eroughton,Kenneth Anger, et a1 ) ih flamboyant thrift-shop women’s It would beas lost on today’s mass turnedout short films whichwere clothes, frolic about, pose and posture, audience as a puppet theatre 1s on a technicallyquite studied Given their dancewith one another, enact vari- huge stage. very low budgets, color, camera work, ous scenes of voluphiousness, sexual achng, and synchronization of image frenzy, romantic love and vampirism The police )hostility to Flam- and soundwere as professional as -to the accompaniment of a sound ing Creatures isnot hard to under- possible. The hallmark of one of the track which includes some pop Latin stand.is,Italas, inevitable that two new avant-garde styles in Ameri- favorites (Siboney,Amapola), some Smith’s film will have to fightfor cancinema (Jack Smith, Ron Rice, rock-’n-roll, some scratchy violin play- itslife in thecourts. What 1s dis- et a1 , butnot Gregory Markopolous ing,bullfight music, aChinese song, appointingisthe indifference, the andStan Brakhage) isits willful thetext of a wacky ad for a new squeamishness, the downright hostdity technicalcrudity. The newer films- brand of “heart-shaped lipstick“ be- to thefilm evinced by almost every- both the good ones and the poor, un- ing demonstrated on thescreen by a one in bhe matureintellectual and inspired work-show a maddening in- host of men, some in drag and sorhe artistic community. Almost its only difference to every element of tech- not; and the chorale of flutey shrieks supporters Are a‘ loyal coterie of film- nique, studieda primitiveness This and screams which accompany the makers, poets andyoung “Villagers.” is a very contemporary style, and very group rape of a bosomy young woman, FlamingCreatures hasnot yet AmericanNowhere in the world has rape happily converting itself into an graduated I from being a cult ob- the oldcliche of Europeanroman- orgy. Of course, FlamingCreatures ject,the prize exhibit of theNew ticism-the assassin mind versus the is outrageous, and intends to be. Even American Cinema Group, the Under- spontaneousheart-had such a long the very title tells usthat. groundCinema, whose house organ career as in America Here, more than Ad it happens, FlamingCreatures is the magazine Film Culture. Every- anywhere else, the belief lives on &at isnot pornographic, if pornography one should begrateful to and come neatness and carefulness of technique be defined asthe manifest intention to the aid of Jonas Mekas, who al- interfere with spontaneity, with truth, and capacity tu excitesexually; most single-handedly,with tenacity wibh immediacy Most of the prevail- Smith’s depiction of nakednessand ing techniques (for even to be against varioussexual embraces (with the techniquedemands a technique) of SusanSontag, whose novel The notable omissi& of straightscrew- first avant-garde artexpress this con- ing)is both too full of pathos Benefactor (Farrar, Straus) waspub- lished last fall, writes book, film and viction ‘In music, ‘t,here is aleatoric and too ingenuous to be prurient. theatre critzcism; shealso teaches performancenow as well as compo- Smith’simag’es of sex are alternately philosophyand t,heology at Columbia sition, and new sources of sound and childlike or witty, rather thafisenti- University. new ways of mutilatingthe old in- 374 The NATION

I struments: in painting and sculpture, Creatzlres-a sensibilitybased onin- about which it isn’t necessary to have there is the favormg of lrnpermanent discriminateness, vvlthout ideas, be- a position ) Pop art really transcends or foundmaterials, and tihe trans- yond negation. the old nonsense of chooslng between formation of oblects into perlshablc FZa7ni1zg Creatures is that rare mod- approving or disapproving of what is (use-one-once-and-throv-away) envi- ern work of artIt 1s about JOY and depicted in art-or, by extension, ex-

ronments or “happemnps ” In its own mnocence To be sure,thls joyous- perienced inlife (This IS why all way FkL?J2212g Creatures Jllustrates this ness, this innocence is coillposed out soc~ologicalsneerlng at pop art as a snobbery about the coherence and OS themes whlch are-by ordinary symptom of a new conformism, a cult techi1cal im15h of the work of art standards-perverse, decadent, at the of acceptance of the artifacts of mass There IS, of course, no story 111 Flnm- least, highly theatricaland artlficlal clvlhzatlon, is so obtuse ) Pop art IJZ~Cleatzrres, no development, no But this, I think, is precisely how the lets 111 wonderfuland new mixtures necessary order of the seven (as I film comes by its extraordinarily of athtude, whlch would before have countthem) clearlyseparable se- moving beautyand modernity. Flam- seemed contradictions. Thus Flaming quences of the f~hnOne can easily zng Creatures is a lovely specimen of Creatures IS a brilliant spoof on sex doubt that a certam plece of footage what now, in onegenre, goes by the andat the same time full of the was indeed intended to bz overexposed. fhppantname of “pop art.” Smith’s lyricism of erotic impulse Technically, Of no sequence is one convinced that film has thesloppiness, the arbltrari- too, as I have suggested, it is a won- it had to lastthis long, andnot ness, the looseness of pop art It also derfullyinventive contradiction. Very longer or shorterShots aren’t framed has pop art’s gaiety, Itsingenuous- studied visual materials (lacy effects, in the traditional way; heads are cut ness,its exhdarating freedom from falling flowers, tableaux)are intro- off; ex,tr,+iieous figures sometimes ap- moralism. The great virtue of the pop- duced mto dlsorganlzed,clearly 1m- &ai- on ‘?he makgm ofbhe scene. The art movement 1s theway it blasts provlsed scenes in whlch bodies, some camera is hand-held most of the time, through tiheold imperative about shapely and convincingly fenunme andthe image often quivers (when taking a posit~ontoward one‘s sub- and some scrawny and ha~ry,tumble, , thls 1s wholly effective, and no doubt Ject matter. (Needless to say, I’m not dance, make love. deliberate, isin the orgy sequence). denying that there are certain events But in Flamzng Creatures, amateur- about which it isnecessary to take It iseasy to see Smith’s film as ishness of technique 1s not frustrating, a position An extreme mstance of a having,as its subject, the poetry of as It is in so many other recent“under- work of art dealing mth such events transvestitism Film Culture, in award- ground’films For Smlthis visually is TheDeputy. All I’msaying ing FlamzngCreatures itsFifth In- very generous, at practically every isthat there are some elements of dependent Film Award, said of Smith. moment there is simply a tremendous life-above all, sexual pleasure- “He has struck us with not 8he mere amount to see onthe screen, a den- sity of Images, of different types of I textures. And then,,there 1s an ex- . r traordinary charge and beauty to his images, even whenthe effect of the strong ones are weakened by thein- effectiveones, the ones thatmight A piece of the action from Newsweek: have beenbetter throughplanning Often today indifference to technique is accompanied by bareness,the modern revolt against calculatlon m art often takes theform of aesthetic ascetic~sm (Much of Abstract Ex- pressionist paintinghas th~sascetic quality.) Flanz~ngCreatures, though, representsa different aesthetic. it is crowded with visualmaterial There are no ideas,no symbols, no com- mentaryon or critique of anything in Flnrnwzg Creatures Smith’s film is strictIy a treat for the senses In this “Singer CaterinaValente refers to herself as ‘a musical it is the very opposite of a “hterary” goulash.’ Born in Paris of an Italian mother (who was edu- film (which is what so many French cated in Russia)and an Italianfather (who grew up in avant-garde filmsare). It isnot in theknomng about, or being able to Sweden) she married a German juggler and now lives in interpret,what one sees, thatthe Switzerlandwhen she isn’t wowing audiences on every pleasure of Flamnag Creatures ‘Lies; continent. Right now, she is packing them inat New York’s but in the dlrectness, the power and Persian Room, her first U. S. public appearance in eight the lavish quantity of theimages years.Valente can say ‘I only know six languages’ in themselves. Unlike most serious mod- ernart, this work isnot about the eleven languages.” frustrations of consciousness, the deadends of the self Thus Smith’s From a recent Newsweek Musrc column. crude technique serves, beautifully, A glimpse of how we read these days. the sensibility embodied in Flaming Have you- read Newsweeh lately? \ ek April 13, 1964 375 pity or curiosity of the perverse, but in ,the film whetherone is indoors cliningon flowers and rags, which the glory, thepageantry of ,Transyl- or outdoors), but instead the thorough- recalls the dense, crowded texture of vestlaand the magic of Fairyland ly artificial,invented landscape of the movies in which von Sternberg He has ht up a part of life, although costume, gesture, and musJc. The myth directed Dletrich m the early thlrhes. it is a part which most men scorn.” of intersexuality is played out aganst The vocabulary of imagesand tex- ’ The truth 1s that FlamzngCreatures a background of corny songs, ads, tures on wh~chSmlth draws includes ismuch more about lntersexuallty clothes, dances,and above all, the Pre-Raphaelite languidness, Art Nou- than about homosexuality. Smith’s repertory of fantasy drawn from corny veau;the great eXQtiCa styles of the vision is alun to the vision in mov~es (Anotherbeautiful recent twenties, the,Spanish and the Arab; Eoschs patirigs of a paradise and work, this time forthe theatre,the and the modern “camp” way of relish- a hell of writhmg, shameless, ingen- play Home Movzes-mitten by Rosa- ing mass culture. ious bodies. Unllke those serious and lyn Drexler, music by Al Carmmes- FlanzzngCrgatures is atriumphant stirrmgfilms about the beauties and has thissame dellcious range.)The example of an aesthehc vlslon of the terrors of homoerotic love, Kenneth Fxture of Fla~nzng Creatures 1s made world-and such a vision 1s perhaps Anger’s Fweworks and Genet’s Chant up of a rich collage of “camp” lore: aIways, ‘at its core, epicene Butthis &Amour, the Important fact about a woman in whlte (a transvestite) type of art has stdl to be understood thefigures 111 Smith‘s film isthat w~thdrooping head holding a stalk of in this country. The space mwhich one cannot easily tell whlch are men Wes, a gaunt woman seen emerging FlamingCreatures moves isnot the andwhich are women. These are froma coffin, who turnsout to be space of moral ideas, which 1s where “creatures,” flaming out in intersexual, a vamp~re and, eventually, male,a American critics have traditionally polymorphous joy. Thefilm 1s bullt marvelous Spanishdancer (also a located art. What I am urging is that out of a complex web of ambiguities transvestite)with huge dark eyes, there isnot only moral space, by and ambivalences, whose prlmary black lace mantllla and fan, a tableau whose laws Flamang Creatures would image IS the confusion of maleand from the Slzezlz of A?nby with reclining indeed come off badly; there is also femaleflesh. The shakenbreast and men in burnooses and an Arab temp- aesthetic space, the space of pleasure. theshaken penis are interchangeable tress stolidly exposing one breast, Here Smith’s film moves and has Its with eachother. a scene between two women, re- being. Eosch had a strange, aborted, ideal natureagamst which to situatehis nude figures and androgynous visions of painand pleasure.Smith has 110 , literalbackground (It’s hard to tell The Poetry of Protest

EL SENOR PRESIDENTE: By Miguel: idealize the oppressed and are happily Angel Astur~as.Translated by freefrom prudishand Pollyannaish FrancesPartridge. Atheneu,m Pub- attitudes that crept into left-wing writ- lishers 287 pp. $4 50. ing Both are modern novelists in the THE VILLAGERSBy Jorge Icaza. original,the translations, I’m afraid, Translated byBernaYd M. Dulsey. are another matter. Eut perhaps it is , SouthernIllinols University Press. more useful to rejoice’ that history is 223 pp. $5.95, making us less provincial about the literature of Latm America and allow- Jose Yglesia’s ing us to discover a maaor writer like These two novels havetaken thirty Asturias anda pioneer storyteller of Indian lifelike Icaza, both of whom A NOVEL BY years to reach us since then first pub- licatlon in Spanish A pity. Flrst novels the Europeans have long known. by “committed” wnters, they might In one way Asturias and Icaza are have shown American writers of the luckier than their NorthAmerican Lhirtleshow, amongother things, an contemporaries of thethirties‘ we’ve This gripplng, suspenseful story of a gone fromthe depression to the Au- farnlly blasled by sulcide IS the flnest effective style can give enduring life achlevernent of a wrlter now recog- to works whose prlmary inspiration is gustan age of affluence, but the m;l- nlzed as a novelist of the flrst rank, ind~gnationwith social injustice. They itary dictatorship of El Seiior, Presi- mlght, even, h’ave madethe writers ’ dente and the Indian peonage of Tlze “Second Skin is Hawlies’best hook; a Villagers remainunchanged in Latin ’ magnlficent work of the imagmntion. and critics of the fortiesand fifties The pleasules of the story me plofuse less inclined to turn their backs on lit- America. Thecontent of both novels and excitlng.” ”BKRNARDMALAMUD erature thus inspired. consequently has a relevance and irn- mediacy that can help you understand Wawkes has his own vision of things: Although Asturias - adescendant fantastic,mghtmar~sh, fllckellng with of the French symbolists andsurreal- this week’s news headlines. Each distulbing tluths, the ord~na~ygrown startswith a simple action, Asturias’ ists - writes in sophisticated poetic ominous. Second Skzn 1s at his best Presidente decides to move agamst a level.” -ROBERT PENN WARREN language and Icaza in a’ simple, Idio- matic style, each in his way deals political enemy in hisarmy and as- “An extraordinary writer.” signs to afavorite the job of arrang- -SAULBELLOW boldly w~ththe horrors anddegrada- tion of the life he describes So boldly, Clothbound, $4.00 Paperbook, $1.60 JoseYglesias zs a novelist (his first in fact, that in the United States, at Lmtted, Jzgned first edttron, $15.00 book, A Wake in Ybor C~tywas pub- least, they could have been assured of A NEW DlWECTlONS BOOK lishedlast year by Holt,Rinehart G 333: Slxth Avenue, New York Clty 14 uncensored publication only in the Winston) and a tra7zslator of modern last five years. They feel no need to Spanish fiction. The NATION