Beverley Hills John

/ John Waters. Beverly Hills John, 2012. C-Print. 76,2 x 50,8 cm /

[Note: this article originally appeared on the Beige website beginning of July 2015]

Cinema’s trash maestro John Waters may not have directed a film since 2004, but if anything “the peoples’ pervert” is more venerated than ever. When A Dirty Shame (his last film to date) tanked, the durable Waters simply diversified, successfully re-inventing himself as an author, comedian, all-round pop culture “filth elder” (think gleefully corrupting sleazy uncle) – and visual artist.

Waters wrote about his passion for collecting modern art in his 2010 book Role Models. He’s also branched out into producing conceptual art himself. And in the kinky outsider art event of summer 2015, The Sprüth Magers gallery in Mayfair is presenting “Beverly Hills John” Waters’ first-ever exhibition in London (1 July – 15 August 2015).

The opening reception (or vernissage, if you prefer) was 30 June. As a lifelong Waters fanatic, needless to say my ass was there. To paraphrase a line from Serial Mom – I was so excited I could shit!

According to the press release, the exhibit promised “a fresh set of affectionate barbs about the movie biz. While he hasn’t lost his mordant wit or sense of mischief, “Beverly Hills John” finds Waters in a more reflective mood, asking the question: ‘Since celebrity is the only obscenity left in the art world, where do I fit in?’ He also hopes to resolve issues about childhood fame, false glamour, the horrors of nouveau-riche excess, his ongoing sexual attractions and the possible risk of ‘careericide’ with dignity.”

Inside Sprüth Magers, it was the hottest night of the summer thus far in more ways than one. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a sneak preview of an art exhibit by cult cinema’s Pope of Trash lured every sexually ambivalent freak, punk and club kid in London. The gallery was packed and steamy. Adding to the buzz, Waters himself was holding court in person. Impeccably soigné in a Comme des Garcons jacket (or was it Dries van Noten?), Waters confidently circulated through the crowd, frequently stopping to graciously pose for photos with fans.

“Beverley Hills John” is saturated in macabre, sensational and perverse Hollywood Bablyon-style tabloid culture. The main gallery incorporates a section called “She Shoulda Said NO!” with cautionary portraits of glamour jungle casualties like Whitney Houston, Anna Nicole Smith, Amy Winehouse and Princess Diana. Waters includes among them doomed Country & Western chanteuse Patsy Cline, which felt odd since – unlike Houston, Smith and Winehouse – she died in a plane crash rather than of drug and alcohol abuse. (Perhaps Cline “shoulda said NO!” instead of boarding that plane?).

Waters offers two self-portraits: one of himself as a grotesque toupeed and Botoxed plastic surgery victim and one as an evil, grimacing dog catcher. (Sticking with the canine theme, perhaps the most disturbing and lingering image from the exhibit is what a “surgically-enhanced” Lassie would look like after a face lift).

In perhaps a sideways look at the concept of “gay respectability”, “Bill’s Stroller” is a toddler’s stroller fashioned out of studded black leather bondage straps, the fabric silkscreened with the names of hardcore gay sex clubs (Mineshaft, The Toilet, Blow Buddies) and spurting dicks. Know any expectant parents? It would make a great baby shower gift.

/ John Waters. Bill’s Stroller, 2014. Umbrella lightweight stroller with silkscreened linen and spiked, leather belt. 99,1 x 35,6 x 66 cm /

Elsewhere, Waters’ twisted vision integrates the covers of pornographic vintage gay pulp novels (if any straight attendees were unfamiliar with the old-school gay expression “chicken”, they will be now), novelty chest wigs, crabs (as in: pubic lice) and anal fissures.

The exhibit concludes with the video installation Kiddie Flamingos, in which Waters directs a cast of children as they re-enact the script of Pink Flamingos. It’s disarmingly sweet to see the “filthiest people alive” re-interpreted by kids – especially the little girl channelling Edith Massey as the egg-obsessed “Mama Edie” with blacked-out teeth and a beehive wig. It must be said, the girl portraying Connie Marble in a flame-orange wig and cat’s eye glasses really nails the venom of Mink Stole’s performance.

The rancid preoccupations and sensibilities that aficionados treasure in Waters’ films like Female Trouble and Cry-baby are present in abundance in the exhibit. “Beverley Hills John” is a life-affirming jolt of vivid kitsch.

/ John Waters. Justin’s Had Work, 2014. C-Print. 76,2 x 50,8 cm /

Further reading: I've blogged about John Waters - one of my key and most treasured inspirations - many times over the years. Read 'em all! My epic 2010 interview with Waters for Nude magazine. When John Waters Met Nico. A Reunion with the Prince of Puke Part 1 (2011). John Waters' Christmas Show at The Royal Festival Hall in 2011. The Amy Grimehouse John Waters Filth Festival in 2014. Reunion with the Prince of Puke Part 2 (2014). Reflections on John Waters' book Role Models. The Complete Films of John Waters (Every Goddamn One of Them) at The BFI. 

Reflections on ... Something Wild (1961)

This is what I wrote for Beige magazine in October: 

Upcoming British Film Institute season Birth of the Method [25 October – 30 November 2014] explores the intense, influential and revolutionary school of acting espoused by New York’s legendary Actors Studio in the 1950s. 

Sure, much of the then-radically naturalistic Method approach looks pretty twitchy and mannered today (the scratch-your-crotch and mumble clichés started for a reason), but the season features some genuinely interesting titles starring the Method’s most notable exemplars: Montgomery Clift, Marilyn Monroe and of course the Method made flesh, Marlon Brando (at the height of his virile beefcake beauty in On The Waterfront).
 
Particularly intriguing is the arty and obscure sexploitation vehicle Something Wild (1961). Starring pouty and perverse Carroll Baker (of Baby Doll notoriety, which is also screening) it’s virtually never revived so seize this rare opportunity to see this curiosity. Cinema’s kitsch king John Waters has raved about Something Wild as camp-meets-“failed art movie” hybrid and likens Baker in it to Ann-Margret in Kitten with a Whip as “When a Sexpot Emotes.” What more incentive do you need?

Obviously I made a point of seeing Something Wild (1961) at The British Film Institute on 27 November and it was indeed wild and a real experience! I’d never seen this rarely-revived and obscure psychological drama before but had always been curious about it.

I was expecting something a bit more sexploitation-y, kitsch and Kitten with a Whip. Having now seen Something Wild, I eat the words I wrote above! In fact it was relentlessly bleak, dark and very much an uncompromising somber European art film that just happened to be in English and filmed in New York. It stars luscious blonde Carroll Baker in what must surely be her career-best performance. The film both looks and sounds incredible. The dissonant jazz soundtrack is by Aaron Copeland. The film’s stark noir-ish black and white look is via cinematographer Eugen Schüfftan. Something Wild was apparently his last film. He’d begun his career working in German silent cinema under Fritz Lang in the 1920s and he invests that knowledge of German Expressionism to Something Wild, which frequently unfolds like a dream (or a nightmare). In 1960 Schüfftan had worked on the eerie French horror film Les yeux sans visage – he brings a similar sense of menace and dread to Something Wild.

Amazingly, the director Jack Garfein (now 85) was in attendance to introduce the film onstage. He said it took him fifty years to make sense of why he made Something Wild. As a child he was imprisoned in Auschwitz. The film was his cri de coeur and attempt to come to terms with those memories. Something Wild was a mega-flop when it came out, baffled critics and public alike (as Don L Stradley put it, “critics reacted to it as if they’d sat in something slimy”) and was swiftly buried by the studio. As a result, Garfein (who was married to Baker at the time – it was an intensely personal project for them both) was never entrusted to make another film again! I'm careful not to give too much away: the film concerns a girl who gets raped and psychologically unravels – very much anticipating Roman Polanski’s Repulsion (1965). The ending is genuinely strange and divisive. It may be over fifty years old, but Something Wild hasn't lost its ability to disturb.

Further reading:  Read Kim Morgan's analysis of Something Wild here

Reunion with the Prince of Puke: John Waters at Southbank Centre 11 November 2014

[John Waters - the "filth elder" of us all  - made a triumphant return visit to London on Tuesday 11 November 2014 when he brought his This Filthy World: Filthier and Dirtier show to The Royal Festival Hall. I've been regularly contributing to Beige magazine lately and they asked me to do a scene report. You can also read this on their website]

Trust John Waters to lure the freakiest, queerest crowd assembled at The Royal Festival Hall since punk diva Siouxsie’s 2013 Meltdown comeback gig. Or the last time Diamanda Galas performed there. Or in fact since the last time Waters brought his acclaimed one man stand-up comedy show This Filthy World to town.

In his tight, rapid-fire ninety minute set, the veteran cult filmmaker turned raconteur regaled us with dirty stories like a joyous bad influence toilet-mouthed uncle (albeit an exceptionally elegant uncle clad in Comme des Garcons). [Note: I've since been corrected that Waters' ultra soigné suit was by Belgian designer Dries Van Noten!]

Outing himself as a Lana Del Rey fan, the trash auteur admitted contemplating coming onstage and serenading us with her entire Ultraviolence album while maintaining direct eye contact in an act of creepy performance art - but chickened out. Waters suggested David Lynch should produce the dysfunctional ice maiden’s next album and argued Lynch would be missing a trick if he doesn’t invite her to appear on the 2016 Twin Peaks reboot.

Perversely, Waters loves tarnished pop idol Justin Bieber even more now that he’s on the descent, admitting he’d love to cut an album of duets with him like Tony Bennett’s and Lady Ga Ga’s.

Recalling his childhood, Waters described how in kindergarten he’d tell his mother stories about the peculiar little boy in his class who never spoke to his classmates and only coloured with black crayons. When Mrs Waters enquired about this kid to his teacher at a PTA meeting, the teacher exclaimed, “But that’s your son!”

Anecdotes about the making of his notorious midnight movies were inevitable. Waters called outrageous late maverick actress Susan Tyrrell - who loved freaking out the squares by loudly announcing she possessed “the pussy of a 12-year old girl”- one of the most terrifying women he ever met.

[Tyrrell, of course, played Ramona Rickettes in Waters' 1990 film Cry-baby. He mentioned the cast also included the notorious, troubled and frequently violent sex kitten Joey Heatherton. He talked about Heatherton being arrested in 1985 for physically assaulting a clerk at the passport agency office – and then just recently attacking a neighbour whose noisy juicer machine was disturbing her. “Don’t fuck with Joey Heatherton!”]

When his elderly mother asked about the subject matter of 2004’s A Dirty Shame (Water’s last film to date) and he replied, “Sex addiction”, she wearily sighed, “Maybe we’ll be dead before it comes out.” His father shrugged “It was funny but I hope I never see it again.”

Waters cited viewing putrid 1945 “sexual hygiene film” Mom and Dad at an impressionable age as a key influence on his own sensibility. An embryonic example of sexploitation cinema, it played in Baltimore’s grindhouse theatres for eight years. Starved for a glimpse of female nudity, the men in the audience actually masturbated to close-ups of childbirth. Waters said seeing this set him on his path as a filmmaker.  

The tone sweetened when he fondly reminisced about his two much-missed leading ladies, Divine and Edith Massey. Explaining Divine’s persona as hybrid of Jayne Mansfield and Godzilla conceived to scare hippies, Waters described filming his 300-pound drag starlet crawling through mud on a pig farm in 1969’s Mondo Trasho. Once the cameras started rolling two of the pigs spontaneously started fucking. It wasn’t in the script, but it added to the magic. “Divine turned the pigs on!” he marvelled.

Admitting he still wakes up surprised that Divine is dead, he revealed that actress Mink Stole, his casting director Pat Moran and himself have bought burial plots together adjoining Divine’s and dubbed the area Disgraceland. Waters urged everyone to come and fuck on their graves when they’re dead: “We’d love it!” His is actually a double burial plot and Waters suggested if any rabid fan wanted to dig-up the remains of either Pier Paolo Pasolini or Jean Genet and re-bury them next to him, he’d appreciate the tribute.

But let’s face it, we come to John Waters for filth and he didn't disappoint. Most middle-aged straight men “are bears without even knowing it,” he argued. Waters is an unrepentant connoisseur of poppers. When he throws “popper parties” uncomprehending straight guests unsure about the mechanics of taking amyl nitrate have drunk it or stuck it in their asses. “We need popper education!” He skewered what he sees as the dysfunctional S&M relationship between humans and their pets: dogs are “doomed to suffer human caresses ...your cat hates you!” And he taught us kinky new sexual slang. A “blouse” is an effeminate top. [Note: he also lamented no one uses the expression "basket" anymore!]. As for “blossoms” (also known as “rosebuds”), do a Google image search if you’re feeling brave but perhaps not from your office PC.

/ The photos below were taken by Mia of Amy Grimehouse /






Further reading:

My 2010 interview with John Waters for Nude magazine

My 2011 reunion with the Prince of Puke

When John Waters brought his Christmas Show to Royal Festival Hall in 2011

Full scene report from the Amy Grimehouse 12-hour John Waters Filth Fest on 29 March 2014