This three-part mini-series explores the mysterious and the mundane in a splash of digital dioramas that wipe across the screen in a cascade of electronic barfs. Zeroing in on the paranormal theories of UFO author John A. Keel, this leisurely exposition, which was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, sweeps the viewer into a candy-colored world of scintillating mysteries made all the more intriguing by culinary digressions. Sit back and let the aromas of kitchen coziness clash with the stench of marauding monstrosities as the shadow world engulfs the many who probe its delectable appetizers. Here, in this kalaeidoscopic videotape, you will meet and marvel at the talking heads and chewing mouths that fill the soundtrack with the jingles of juju-land—jingles that sing of songs we, as a people of earth, have forgotten in our mad rush to fill the void with various vapors of vacuous virtue. Taste the treats of our ancestors and the hearty heritage of our heretics as we probe the black holes that litter the plane of cosmic luminescence above our heads. Feast upon the food of the Gods and regurgitate with scriptural elegance, the message that takes shape in the shimmering sludge.
Secrets of the Shadow World
George Kuchar
1999 02:20:00 United StatesEnglishColorMono4:3VideoDescription
About George Kuchar
George Kuchar ranks as one of the most exciting and prolific American independent film and videomakers. With his homemade Super 8 and 16mm potboilers and melodramas of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, he became legendary as a distinctive and outrageous underground filmmaker whose work influenced many other artists, including Andy Warhol, John Waters, and David Lynch. After his 1980s transition to video, he remained a master of genre manipulation and subversion, creating hundreds of brilliantly edited, hilarious, observant, often diaristic videos with an 8mm camcorder, dime-store props, not-so-special effects, using friends as actors, and the “pageant that is life” as his studio.
In 1984 Kuchar received the Los Angeles Film Critics Award in the Experimental/Independent category. In 1992, he received the prestigious Maya Deren Award for Independent Film and Video Artists from the American Film Institute. In 1996 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Chicago Underground Film Festival. He taught at the San Francisco Art Institute for forty years, where he made many videos in collaboration with his students.
"...The best for last, though: the filmmaker George Kuchar... When the day arrives — and it will — to appoint an official United States cultural ambassador to Outer Space, Mr. Kuchar is the obvious choice. I will say no more. See his films. He is beyond enigmatic. He is it. I salute him."
— Holland Cotter, Review of the Good Morning Midnight exhibition at Casey Kaplan Gallery, The New York Times, July 27th, 2007
All title descriptions by George Kuchar unless otherwise noted.
Also see:
The World of George Kuchar, DVD Box Set available for Institutional and Individual Purchase