George Kuchar

That Woman uses as source material the original Barbara Walters interview with Monica Lewinsky, which is intercut with a re-staging of the interview. Ms. Lewinsky is played by a women bearing a remarkable physical resemblance to the original, and Barbara Walters is played by George Kuchar. The make-up, costumes, set, lighting, and camera set-ups, are a facsimile of the original, albeit without the stunning high-production values displayed in the network original.

This high octane drama that I made with my students at the San Francisco Art Institute chronicles the moral decline of it's heroine, as the love of a man she obsesses over drives her over something else: a cliff into hell. It's a free fall all the way to the bottom destination, and there's a heck of a lot of nice looking, young people along for the ride. You're not going to want to miss this crazy project, as it's one of our biggest productions despite the measly $600 budget. The picture has a fallen hero too and GAY FESTIVALS take note: his slide into a homo-erotic environment makes for some slippery slopes worth keeping greasy!

This final weather diary travels through some rough inner and outer domains. Social interactions blend more smoothly than the clash of air masses which threaten to clobber a prairie town in a vortex of violence. Flashbacks and flashpoints flare-up along with thunderheads that loom and boom with vibrations of doom, their every move charted with vivid vibrancy on videographic maps which detail developing devastation. Desire and death are in the air along with some aromatic wisps of ethnic edibles, so be sure to sniff it all.

This East Coast travelogue documents my journey from New York City to Boston as several screenings plunge me into a maelstrom of social excess and tummy filling delights. You too can digest this banquet of artists, poets and movie-makers as this foray into fleeting fame runs its course on a highway of film oriented locales. See the Harvard Film Archive in all its spaciousness and visit the citadel of cinema, Anthology Film Archives, before winding up in a Greenwich Village bar full of verbal beauty. A trip for young and old who like to sit in one spot and watch someone else deal with the traffic.

This turbulent and colorful drama about the proud and the profane was made with an international group of students at the school where I've been teaching for many decades: the San Francisco Art Institute. Join this attractive assortment of talented youth as they bring to life a complex tale of alien insemination and CEO conflict in a character congested setting of magic, mystery and mangled literacy! Experience the thrills that only a $600 budget could bring to the screen with such dedicated desperation. Exalt in the excessive excellence of exhausted funds as they funnel into a whirlpool of wonder and weirdness made palpable in a cacophonic cascade of indescribably incoherence. ENJOY!

In Nibbles, George Kuchar crafts a mini-travelette documenting his adventures around Cape Cod. Shot primarily in Provincetown, Massachusetts, Kuchar visits friends and takes every opportunity to sample the local cuisine. After a power outage at Provincetown’s DNA Gallery, Kuchar returns to his friends’ home once more, this time to view their son’s performance film about Minnie Mouse, and no doubt to eat more of their food.

Once again a seaside serenade of sloshing oils and simmering scallops fills the crannies of Cape Cod with dingle-berries of dubious delight! Join a crew of crustacean craving civilians as they shuck their shells of inhibitions to become the truly truculent trespassers of a salty sanctuary. Visit the chefs of chivalry as they skewer the squeamish with talons of titillating tidbits, each one a calorie crunching course in obese obtrusiveness and opulent oddness. Come one, come all, and sample a smorgasbord of simple pleasures in this vacation video of vicarious vacillations.

Linda Martinez stars in this sequel to the horror series, which relishes in colorful detail the misadventures of Sherry Frankenstein. Made with my students at the San Francisco Art Institute, the viewer is plunged into a world of young and old as they tackle the monsters within and without. Chock full of entergetic scenes filled with all the opulence that only $600 could purchase, this epic of good gone bad will stun you with its massive verbosity and visual voracity. The plot deals with Ms. Frankenstein's mission to save the body and souls of strumpets in heat. She leads them to a house for wayward women, which has been erected to the memory of her departed husband (who was a fallen man of the cloth). Unfortunately, the house belongs to Dracula.

A chance encounter with a sober student reveals the mystery of a woodland wonder that has left a mark on his youthful psyche just as it leaves huge footprints on the forest floor. A short meditation on a tall terror in the trees that shade shadowy giants from the glare of sanity.

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.

Made with my production class at the art asylum called the San Francisco Art Institute, this wide-screen drama of run-a-way spectacle and crazed emotion depicts a lurid tale of familial fury and unleashed passions. With a $600 budget, a mob of unbridled youth, and the unabashed performance of its leading lady, this epic of desire and repulsion will definitely grab you by both heart and gut.

"Solstice is a video illustrating the feelings inspired by this holiday song written by a young man I met in Atlanta, Georgia, Andy Ditzler. My students and I, at the San Francisco Art Institute, concocted the visuals to accompany the tune and the result should elevate all those suffering from blues of every shade and intensity." – George Kuchar

This turgid potboiler was made with my class at the San Francisco Art Institute. It steam-rolls a series of overheated episodes to a colorful climax of redemption and moral rectitude. The rest of it wallows in a swamp of spiritual rot and loose codes of clothing and domestic decency. The cast is fresh-faced and eager to be involved in this low budget drama of even lower community standards and production values. The plot involves the corruption of a Christian community by the vapors that emanate from those baptized in Libido Lagoon: a drainage pond for everything vile and vitalizing (below the belt). Join the festivities if you dare, but don't say we didn't seduce you, since the flesh is weak and needs a dip into depravity now and then. Why not try the dark waters of Libido Lagoon for that secret jolt of rejuvenation and revulsion?

A summer sojourn is fleshed out for maximum solar exposure in this video travelogue of sun, sea and epidermal exhibitionism. The states of mind and geographic localities are awash in a flow of imagery that rushes in on a tide of both Pacific and Atlantic origins. The people and places that bathe in this magnificence add both a sacred and profane froth into the salty brew; a witches brew of sculpted creations bubbling up with volatile violations from the depths of unfathomable needs.

Made at the San Francisco Art Institute with my students, this tuneful picture transports the viewer to the planet Mars as three attractive teens seek funding for an expedition into adulthood. Along the way they and we encounter the ups and downs of human relations and otherworldly intercourse. A family picture with timeless values, this foray into fantasy land on a tight budget should please the young at heart or old in body in unexpected ways. Although this trip is short on funding but big in concept it’s really quite a ride and looks like a million bucks for the vision impaired.

A very black mix of comedy about relationships, the media, children's beauty pageants, sex change operations and personal problems.

An ex-student of mine opens up in the privacy of her home and shows me her etchings (watercolors) as we talk of art and things that slip under the fabric of daily attire. - George Kuchar

Waves crash on rocks as tongues flap in the wind about all things cinematic. People chirp and chew in various states of dress and undress as the climate shifts from coast to coast on the tide of a national pleasure/treasure: film festivals, lectures and art happenings.

A trip to the Marin headlands at the Golden Gate of San Francisco Bay headlines this video diary. The viewer gets to eves and eye drop on various verbal and real time activities that are of a wet nature now and then. There’re boats and bodies and some spoken unspeakables amid the splendor of natural and unnatural expressions befitting the rim of a pacific paradise at low tide.

In this entrancing documentary on performance artist, photographer and underground filmmaker Jack Smith, photographs and rare clips of Smith's performances and films punctuate interviews with artists, critics, friends and foes to create an engaging portrait of the artist. Widely known for his banned queer erotica film Flaming Creatures, Smith was an innovator and firebrand who influenced artists such as Andy Warhol and John Waters.

This being an annual, Xmas holiday video, you can be guaranteed good cheer on a platter and maybe a plop in a bowl or two. In this video we visit a landmark hotel in Denver, Colorado, and then proceed to catch up on what’s new with my mom in The Bronx (some BIG changes!). Sprinkled here and there are many happy goodies and a few spicy ones too. It’s a video full of young, old and middle-aged mayhem on a positive spiral of delightful drainage.

A wide screen portrait of people, pets and places, this Frisco based video immerses the viewer in a placid flow of images that hint of darker depths here and there. Let’s face it: it’s fun to float, but the undercurrents can pull off your facade if they get their teeth into it.

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.

A tribute to the work of Alfred Hitchcock, featuring contemporary filmmakers, writers, performers, and cultural critics.

A poem is read and emotions are unleashed. A book is signed and pets pampered as this tour of talented talkers weaves its way through Provincetown and New Jersey (with a turbulent exit in Manhattan). Enjoy the leisurely portraits and view young and old as they chew the fat in cozy habitats. Features John Waters.

This European flavored melodrama depicts a fictional country of refined manners and debased desires that explode into chaos, sending its prodigal son into the pit of 20th Century technology. That technology externalizes his hidden beauty just as he tries to hide the heritage of horror which was the curse of his lineage. That curse now threatens the already damned.

Since the 1980s, Kuchar has been creating brilliantly edited, hilarious, and often diaristic tapes made with dime-store props and not-so-special effects, using friends as actors and the "pageant that is life" for his studio. In this interview, Kuchar, in a generous, gregarious mood despite the Manhattan summer humidity, discusses his life and the full range of his work from the early collaborative films to his most recent tapes. Conversational anecdotes, frank and witty, provide insight into Kuchar's working methods, as well as the work itself and its reception in various quarters.

A California Christmas season ushers in an array of holiday visuals designed to feed the hunger of soiled souls in search of truffle filled delights. A glittering seaport of electric lights helps the viewer to see through the murk of isolation as various species claw their way through the bountiful gifts that a rainy season delivers. Awash in joy and Juju statues, the unclean celebrate a rebirth dipped in chocolate as reptile and mammal unite in a dark hunger for foil wrapped ecstasy

With George Kuchar, Marie Losier, Jason Livingston, Paul Shepard. Five winsome damsels picnic on the roof of a warehouse in charming Long Island City, a forest of skyscrapers gleaming across the river. But when a swarm of flies interrupts their feast of chocolate-covered pretzels and cream-pies, the young ladies run amok.

A series of abrupt vignettes and transitional montages paint a torrid portrait of a tropical isle in the grip of terror. Linda Martinez stars in this latest atrocity from studio 8 in the San Francisco Art Institute and her co-stars don’t find her too hot to handle! She plays a travel agent booking honeymoon holidays to a sex-infested island haunted by lascivious cadavers and voodoo hi-jinks. Lots of color and rubberized hot action!

This melodrama, staged by me and produced with my students at the San Francisco Art Institute, follows the turbulent journey of an aspiring singer as she flees a frigid environment to heat up a tepid career. Hauling along her decrepit mom and an equally cadaverous aunt, our heroine falls prey to a variety of libido-inspired stresses and also has a tragic debut at a disco club populated by repressed, trailer trash and ousted meteorologists. It's a fast moving trip from north to south with many odd detours for the viewer to relish.

In this dream portrait, George Kuchar travels through snow confetti, strobe flashes and artificial wind as he describes his weather diaries. Then, George joins Janet Leigh in the shower. Wearing a red raincoat and a shower cap, reading comic books and blowing bubbles, he laughingly describes his bathing rituals and the making of his film, HOLD ME WHILE I'M NAKED.

Clouds abound in this short meditation on vaporous masses that flow across the borders of our windowpanes, leaving in their wake the wreckage of discarded diets and sugar coated emptiness. Into those holes that surround us with the sweetness of puffy dough we plunge into a landscape of desolation and rebirth, never again to deny the terror that piles up in the sky like a malignant mound of virgin pudding. A mass of revolving turbulence hell-bent on defying gravity in the name of vertical instability and electrical insanity. A supercell for the supersized who flee its windy wrath.

There is so much to absorb: the wetness from the sky. The hooded figure in the box. A big plate of pasta, and that chair on wheels. Messages of moral guidance clash with actions that are on a collision course with dilapidation. And through it all the water runs, the fridge is full and hearts yearn for that which mellows the melody of God’s glockenspiel. For the winds of change rattle the bones of the grim reaper as he swings his scythe in rhythm to a cacophony of corruption intrinsic to this orchestra pit of purgatorial preludes and egg laying swan songs.

Alone in an Oklahoma motel room with a mute companion, the talkative one speaks the language of memory as pussycats feast from a canned cornucopia. Murals plaster the vacancy intrinsic to American angst as horse tails whip from annoyance the nagging gnats of tomorrow’s dung: a heap of uncertainty made impotent by the swashes of chipped paint that depict a netherworld of faded dreams and nostalgic neurosis for the future impaired.

Performed by my graduate students at the San Francisco Art Institute, this one act play that I had written gets the best production values that $500 can afford. Shot in a large can company, we actually pre-recorded the dialogue in the "can" as the only quiet room in the facility was the toilet. The actors then went onstage to mouth the dialogue, which was piped into the P.A. system. Nobody could really memorize all that verbiage for the three hour shooting schedule we were assigned every Thursday afternoon so it worked out pretty well and the thing should be viewed as a sort of puppet show as their jaws do drop now and then to the words. This was also planned as a major, star vehicle for Linda Martinez, an Iowa pie-maker with aspirations toward more dubious delights.

A metropolis awash in electrical overdrive crashes in the heat of summer and sends a Bronxite into the clutches of a waterworld further north. It is there that we witness the cooling fogs and diving mammals of maritime yore and sail free in winds of a nautical nature. A nature that fills the summer sky with twinkling tidbits and the tummy with protein rich denizens of Neptune’s soup. A tour of the towering turrets of tomorrow land and the spatial splendor of yesterday’s yearnings captured on both chemical and electrical media.

"To counteract the talkie I had done with graduate student the day before, this undergrad project has no dialogue but just a steady stream of images we dreamed up on the spot. A psychodrama that’s heavy on the beefcake, our picture deals with the sexual dementia of a sex addict undergoing hypnotherapy. It’s a mixture of fantasy and desire with some animals thrown in and lots of strange angles of the leading actor’s attributes." - George Kuchar

The spirit of poets permeates the space/time occupied by an assortment of dinner engagements that occasionally erupt into physical or verbal assaults on the taste buds. Flowers of evil are absent from this foray into the spoken word, as the message is one of courage in the face of carnivorous tendencies. An archivist shares his dream with us while the dreamers dabble in their own brand of munchies meant to nourish rather than negate. Mortality hovers over the hovels of the hungry as poetry becomes as concrete as the pastry offered we mortals on planet Earth.

A winter chill sets in making the furry residents of various dwelling places a center of affection and reflection. The images conjured up are steeped in a twilight worthy of polar pinpoints in the grip of glaciated gloom. The crushing weight of frigid fragments of time threatens to bury the animated remains of sentient stiffs as they flex their muscles in a vain attempt to ward off encroaching crustiness. Only the lure of mammalian fur promises a few precious moments of centigrade comfort in this zone of zero zoology.

Holed up in a Oklahoma motel room, George Kuchar witnesses the tornado-conjuring power of a talking ceramic figurine.

This science fiction adventure centers on the interaction between a crew of Earthmen and their seduction by the love-hungry Amazons of the red planet, Mars. The tale is brought to life with all the opulence that an $800 budget can produce and the young cast of non-actors live up to their fullest foibles as the plot thickens with a mix of romance and wartime action intertwined with a musical number or two. The ambitions were high and the necklines low in this effects-laden tribute to pulp fiction fantasy and intergalactic intercourse.

A reflection on the deep and the creatures that attempt to fathom its resources (such as baked salmon and rubbery crocodile meat). A visual journey into the far reaches of waterlogged consciousness, where the yearnings of the tummy meet the revulsion of the cranium—a cranium mostly made up of water in the first place, like a head of cabbage. Besides, the video is more of a head-trip to the nether reaches of Neptune's haunts where tourists glide through guts of glass to ooh and aah at the mysteries of the deep-end. Taped in Frisco, Baltimore, and Pacifica, let the salt air of this far-flung journey corrode the land-lubber blubber that beaches you upon the sands of sanity and render your sails impotent to the blows of the tradewind. Cast ahoy that anchor of dead meat between your thighs and let it plunge into the deep wetness from which we all ascended.

The New York City summer is fueled by the sultry emanations of hot air that tumble off the tongues of potential thespians as they attempt to decipher the gastric guesswork embedded in the prose of the pre-production process. The video camera flits across the boroughs of NYC in a splash-dash sojourn of sumptuous banquets and bohemian bombast, while the down-to-earth wisdom of the seeing impaired helps to guide the protagonist into detours of wisdom befitting his putrid project. A theatrical play incubates in the balding head of the videomaker and as its presence makes itself felt among the various victims of his vision, we share with them the horror of advancing age and the descriptive diatribes toward the destiny of the decrepit damned.

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.

Pastures filled with the bounty of a meateater's fantasy fill the screen with bellows of bovine origin as testosterone-driven madness runs rampant on 20,000 acres of Oklahoma soil. A lone female turkey stuffer prepares the goodies that will nourish the sunburned as they rocket skyward on the scales of numerical poundage to come crashing earthward in time for marinated hamburgers. A trip to the garden of Eden and its sanctuary for snakes with an appetite for dog meat.

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.

The life and times of Baltimore film maker and midnight movie pioneer, John Waters.

"The Jersey Devil lives again in this work the students and I mounted (or disrobed) for skeptical scrutiny." - George Kuchar

Kuchar writes: "A hidden resort in Northern California opens its ancient secrets to a bride and groom who consummate their marriage on the peacock strewn terrain that muddies the tootsies of the infidels who munch through the mysteries with jaws of death — and rebirth."

The splendor of a mountain lake is clouded by the musings of a brain in memory mode. The head relives the heartbreak of suburbia and the vacancies that fill every motel on the edge of nowhere. The body moves through a rainbow palette of indelible stains that color the journey with the hues of heaven and hell.

The story of Trelita, a Chicana sex worker with an abusive boss and a dead boyfriend (who she may or may not have murdered). It is the second episode made in the Clit-o-matic: The Adventures Of White Trash Girl! series about female superhero White Trash Girl. It has been referred to as part #3 in an ongoing series.

A sweeping saga of an evil matriarch and her march to infamy as she invades the hearts and souls of those organs and entities that reside in the male physique. A lustful excursion to the far corners of the globe as this vixen of vice weaves an occult web of sticky substances guaranteed to gummy up the gals and grease down the guys.

A struggling screenwriter finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation.

The young and the innocent at the mercy of a palpable presence oozing menace and scarlet-stained goodness as a strawberry sundae melts under the glare of future hell-firestorms in search of kindling.

Ice falls from the sky as tears plip-plop onto wall-to-wall carpeting. No degree of renovation can enliven the dead that we mourn in our hearts as the storm of the centuries assails our heads with memories of the passing parade that got rained on. A weather diary of May-time misery.

Alienation in academia beneath the chandeliered opulence of a political correctional facility that caters to clashing cultures with chicken fajitas and carefully worded alphabet soup. Features George at the Flaherty Seminar and the Chicago Underground Film Festival.

The story of a matron and a midget in the heat of an unbridled passion. The colors run thick and heavy for paint and prurient pleasures as the electronic canvas unscrolls to reveal a bevy of beasties and beauties of nature and the unnatural. A non-stop melodrama of a patron of the arts shot by real art students in a real art school! A collaborative project I worked on with my class at the San Francisco Art Institute.

An electronic variety show featuring poetry, theatrics, dance, songs, and a plot concerning the cultivation of literary innocence and the preservation of Rondo Hatton's memory (a horror actor in 1940s B movies). A dense work made even denser by staged incompetence. Made with my students at the San Francisco Art Institute.

In a motel room, things start to get alive.

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.

Writes Kuchar, "Come join Pepe, the magic puppet, as he transports Blackie, the cat, to a world of magic-marker marvels and Crayola creatures. View Blackie's owner as he wanders around a watery world of aquarium relics and flesh and blood quacking things. A picture for the young at heart."

A descent into the blackness of the projected image and the curators who flick the switches and grease up all moveable parts for hot action when the lights go out.

The summer comes to an end as the viewer tours the loft and art, the lofty art of Mimi Gross, the swinging dummies of Doug Skinner, and the mysterious real estate of famed author, Whitley Streiber. Hear his story of terror and beauty under the trees and roof of his country home. See for yourself the man behind the mystery and the people who love him. Also, as an added attraction: rare shots of UFO author and investigator, John Keel. An informal look at the incredible.

George spends quality time with his friends Karen and Carla in this unconventional, glitchy, collaged holiday video.

A portrait of a French scientist and author who explores the heavens above and beyond the call of duty. A man unafraid to turn over the rocks that litter a terrain of terror and titillation: a terrain of things that go jump in the night and hide by day only, to re-surface in our nightmares.

In Dingleberry Jingles, George discusses all things Christmas with his cat, attends a wedding, and of course indulges in a holiday delicacy or two.

A young painter, and his somewhat slower roommate, talk of paranormal occurrences in a room of charcoal canvasses and ephemeral renderings. Eavesdrop on the improbable and the impossible (BUT TRUE!).

Craggy, ice-encrusted peaks soar skyward as blue lagoons lap incessantly to the drumbeats of big city behemoths hellbent on halibut and hashbrowns! The magic and grandeur of glacier-masked real estate is here for all to see and digest in this bountiful serving of natural delights.

A voyage through a California Christmas that begins in the turd-smeared streets of San Francisco and ends in a botanical wonder of ethnic endurance and faith. A journey that incorporates pelicans, palaces, and platters of plenty. A season of joy bloated with the ephemeral gasses of religious fermentation and the iconography of a movie-land Madonna.

Writes Kuchar, "Yellowstone National Park is the destination on this tape, but side trips are taken to hot spots in Idaho, including a museum to potatoes and solidified lava tunnels near the world's first nuclear reactor. Gargantuan mammals graze in this scenic excursion into ecological excrement."

A behind-the-scenes look at the man behind the trophy and the poisons that taint an otherwise jubilant jamboree.

Writes Kuchar: "It was my 50th birthday this year (1992) and my friend's birthday, so I explored our position in time and dusty place with a prognostication on future inertia." In this chapter of his ongoing Video-8 diary, Kuchar's birthday becomes an occasion to ponder mortality, dust, agoraphobia and relationships. Documenting the hilarious yet ultimately melancholy dramas of the everyday within the claustrophobic confines of his apartment, Kuchar may be going nowhere, but, as he notes, "at least we're going nowhere together."

A drama in six episodes involving psychological breakdowns, marital showdowns, and messy obsessions. The characters include a wayward priest, a promiscuous school-teacher and her proctologist husband, teenage thrill killers, and an obsession-driven psychotherapist with an enema bag. Lots of special effects, as it moves quickly from one major crisis to another.

The colors of fall are muted by the fog of a lingering summer and the memory of that which is dark and naked among the dappled crimson.

Writes Kuchar, "The magnificent Mono Lake becomes the centerpiece for this car trip through Yosemite National Park and the splendors of roadside pastry. Majestic mineral deposits rise from the salt laden waters as the bloated and bulimic revel in nature's nutrients."

A camp send-up of Gothic literature and television soap opera, The Fall of the House of Yasmin glances hilariously at sex, drugs and popular music.

Taped in Normal, Illinois, during the height of autumn, a snapshot of a young girl triggers a meditation on dying innocence and sizzling sausages as a low, winter sun ignites the smoke of greasy longings and meat-eating hunger.

A window or two on the outside world is not enough, especially when you have such a lousy view of things as I had in this Oklahoma residential care home. The majesty of the console-model TV gave new dimension to the concept of time and space, and shrank it all down to a 21-inch lump of nature—a 21-incher that didn’t smell and permeate the atmosphere with discomfiture. A meditation on the elsewhere and wanting to be there.

Scenes from a vacation. Music comes on loud and clear and washes over a series of visual impressions of the land and the sky and the faulty plumbing that submerges porcelain bottoms in a sea of unmentionable froth.

A sort-of music video that focuses on and under young women and men engaged in focusing video and movie cameras on other young men and women.

A trip to a barren landscape of jagged peaks and deep crevasses becomes a playground for an over-dressed hiker and his beefcake buddy as they secrete and imbibe fluids from various containers.

An island. A mountain. A City of Angels who scoop up the pellets dropped by other winged creatures.

Swamp uses the soap opera format to play with the structure and expectations of the family melodrama. Following the melodramatic format that "if it can happen, it will happen," coincidence and unlikely events abound in a gleeful send-up of lurid intrigue, threatened morality, and endless double-crosses. With looped and repeated edits, fast-paced action, and aggressively funky video effects, Child layers on artifice and excess in an overdone remake of the TV serial.

A portrait of Marion Eaton, film and stage actress, etched with a green thumb and a brown nose.

A music-filled tour of Christmas good cheer overtakes this gastronomically oriented excursion through the winter season of discontent and yuletime yearnings craving ignition.

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.

"The whiteness of winter cannot bury the blubbery things that splash and frolic among the frozen memories of Heathen harvests, in a land haunted by lard and ancestral lip-smacking." The collision of an overly dramatic film score/soundtrack with the banal yet enigmatic images of snow covered streets leads to a dissonant effect; the expectation of one is not fulfilled by the other.

In Precious Products we are subtly reminded of this country’s obsession with consumerism and narcissism. George, with his ever-present video-8 camera, attends an opening of Precious Products—an exhibition of artworks satirizing art as commodity. He leaves the art world of San Francisco to spend a Christmas holiday with friends in their opulent home. Ironically, this is the home of a celebrity (another kind of commodity), Russian defector/ballerina Natalia Makanova. Surrounded by all the luxuries of life and Makanova’s image, George muses about death. Panning over a dressing table laden with products, he focuses on a People magazine and comments, 'We are precious products, all of us.'

A lavish home is visited, shutters click, bottoms are exposed, water splashes and a welcome wetness stains an area unquenched for so long. A jacuzzi bubbles to life in a bedroom community that floats to sleep on aqua-filled rubber.

The dark and sloppy side of touring college towns with your work. An internal expose of external secretions that unfortunately make it to the boob tube in full color.

A man and a hotel room. One of the best of the series.

A journey that begins in a Kansas City hotel and ends up in New Mexico. The bumpy ride is fuelled with libidinous juices as it lurches through college dormitories and sun-baked ghost towns. Rocks are lifted and things crawl out for all to see.

A sweet and savory journey in the company of George traveling from Christmas to New Years, stopping for snacks, drinks, and pets.

A deliberately tasteless drama about televangelist scandals.

In his 1988 film Summer of No Return, George had to make the beautiful lead actress disappear, So, thanks to her, the plot advanced considerably.

Return to the House of Pain documents my walking through the turf and sludge of the Big Apple and many worm holes... I chomp my way back west and gnaw on all that sinks stomachward and beyond in vertiginous aching.

Attempting to apologize for the lack of good weather in Weather Diary 3, George arrives in Milwaukee only to find the drought back in full swing. Since there’s not enough good weather, the tape becomes a social diary against the backdrop of the Motivation Of The Carcasoids project.

In Kuchar’s unique video-diary style, we experience the artist negotiating awkwardly with domestic settings, a party and a short trip to the mountains in Boulder, Colorado. Interspersed with these scenes are dated adverts and illustrations that juxtapose and play with his reality.

Set in and around a Reno motel, the tape records George's growing friendship with a young weather expert.

A short film by George Kuchar.

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."

"In a motel in El Reno, Oklahoma, George observes the weather and copes with leaking air conditioning, food shopping, loneliness, television, and eating, among other things." – Video Data Bank.

This piece is sort of a prologue to East by Southwest. I prepare for that trip while visiting local artists here in San Francisco. You get to see unique sculpture by Mike Rudnick and meet the offspring and pets of the culturally inclined. There is also a gallery encounter with the late filmmaker, Curt McDowell, who attends an opening of his photomontages.

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.”

Thanksgiving in California is the setting in which the viewer experiences "the depression inherent to festive occasions. There were many things bothering me at this time, or maybe it was one thing that broke into many pieces.

A film collage tracing the story of the lives, loves, and deaths within the artistic community surrounding Jonas Mekas.

A friend visits from Canada and we relive the past as the future becomes more and more obscured by a cloud of burning vegetation wrapped in cigarette paper and exhaled by a pair of lungs unable to supply a brain with the necessary oxygen (mercifully) to remember the past.

George Kuchar travels to Oklahoma in search of tornadoes, spends most of his time watching TV and eating food.

"In Xmas 1986, George Kuchar’s mother Stella has come to stay with him for the holidays. After a series of dinners with friends, Stella’s repeated discussions about her shingles and Kuchar’s ominous film-noirish narration, Kuchar rescues the morale of a dinner party gone bad thanks to an undercooked ham by presenting his hosts with a very memorable holiday gift." – Kyle Riley

"One of the earlier video diaries where George vacations in Colorado, reflects on scenery and animal life and visits people." – Video Data Bank

Curt McDowell, the director, on his feet and weaving in and out of this televised tapestry with gracious grossness and Hoosier-based hospitality.

A brother and sister who run a bordello worry that their conservative mother will find out what they do for a living. But all of their worlds are rocked when a mysterious magic man unexpectedly arrives at their mother's door.

George Kuchar received his only funding grant for this film ($20,000 from the NEA), and so, freed from the usual financial restraints, he was determined to have a good time and make a “spectacle” with “tons of color” and dazzling superimpositions. A big, colorful tapestry about rumors that are in all of the previous UFO movies. A loose story line that weaves in and out of the UFO phenomenon.

Experimental short film

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.

Against the background of a grisly mystery, four people face a growing sense of panic and uncleanliness. Part documentary, part "cartoon," part B movie, the film asks questions to which there don't seem to be any clear-cut answers.

A film about a housewife obsessed with the idea of a large hairy creature, 12 feet tall, with big feet. Chronicles her eventual breakdown in no uncertain terms.

Two men, two women, one God and many devils. Add a pinch of vengeance and a dash of mental illness, let simmer with high ideals, then take a mouthful and hang over the railing.

Symphony for a Sinner (1979) was a long, lavishly photographed color film generally considered the magnum opus of the class productions.

Experimental short

Experimental short

Experimental short by George Kuchar

Kuchar short.

A man, his dog, and the regions they inhabited, each leaving his own distinctive mark on the landscape. Not even time can wash the residue of what they left behind.

"In the late spring of each year the Great Plains states of the U.S. experience a season characterised by destructive tornadoes of awesome force. This is the time of year when the underground film- and video-maker George Kuchar leaves his San Francisco home to make his annual pilgrimage to the nidus of these frightening storms. As hail and twisters batter the heartland, Kuchar holes up with his video camera in an inexpensive motel room somewhere in the vast prairies of Oklahoma and waits." - Jesse Lerner, Storm Squatting at El Reno (at cabinetmagazine.org)

I remember the first day of class, George brought in that column from the Utah Herald Star, the ode to the truck driver, by Dan Armstrong (?), and read it aloud to us, with feeling, selling the concept. Hilarious! Then we quickly got down to business and watched THE THING by Howard Hawks. He owned as print, of course. Stu and I shine in the roadhouse performance sequence. Rig Rock never sounded better. —Mitch McNeil

An actress and a director run through a melodramatic scene, speaking to a mannequin.

Short film by Rosa von Praunheim

A full production: sync-sound drama with cast, crew, color neg., and 16mm wide screen cut-off (normal projector and lens). My intention was to follow James Agee's idea to present "an imaginary story against a background of reality." The imaginary story is of Paul Rose and his past incarnation as a woman in classical Greek times. I collaborated with George Kuchar, who did special sets for the film.

"This film is about depression, although it's not that depressing. I suppose it has a message of faith and hope in it ... it does for me .... But then again my interest may not match yours. It was shot in San Francisco and in Central Oklahoma with a cast of one man and four women. Crushing emotions are indulged in against a massive meteorological background that brings inspiration and terror to the characters involved."

A man cleanses himself after being unfaithful to his wife.

A clarification of the '60s and its plastic society; taking archetypes of the American landscape to deal with the search for human identity and our alienation.

With a killer gorilla on the loose, a group of strangers find themselves stranded at a remote mansion of a grieving madwoman one dark and stormy night. They indulge in swapping bizarre personal backstories - and bodily fluids.

"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

"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

A short comedy by Curt McDowell.

A vehicle for the talented Mrs. Kathleen Hohalek, as the tenant of the Pyramid Penthouse, with George Kuchar and Bob Hohalek as the burglars, "Slug," and "Boom Boom," John Thomas as "the Cooper" and Ainslie Pryor as "the maid."

Two men hypnotize their roommate and attempt to force him to fall in love.

"THE SUNSHINE SISTERS looks like a 1944 postcard that was shot in black and white, but colored with garish grease pencil reds, yellows and greens. Likewise, the film sounds like the scores of at least two-dozen grade B melodramas mixed together with an egg beater. The results are hilarious, ludicrous and incongruous - a love comic book of doomed women and handsome, nefarious young men caught in a web of dramatic cliches, pushed ad absurdum. Elvira Cartwright, dying of movie star disease, is seen alternatingly clutching her waning heart and being taken unfair advantage of in some of the most bizarre places imaginable. Sarah Cartwright wears a phony leopard skin jacket, pointy plastic sunglasses, and gold-toned sandals .... The sisters are played by Jan Lash and Ainslie Pryor. Musical compilation is by Bob Cowan." – program notes, Film Forum, New York

Curt McDowell has a confession for his parents.

A musical about an unhappy couple and the man that stands between them.

“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

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?"

Edgar, an aristocrat, commissions Camillo to write a play based on an affair he had ten years ago with the Countess del Monaco. But Edgar first has to find a suitable actress to play the Countess – his search will lead to his own death.

Mike Kuchar'ss lyrical portrait of everyday life, from making art to making love, all as the Vietnam War rages.

The rising moon is the main theme in this short movie of three people and an animal going about their nocturnal rituals. This movie is evidently part three of my trilogy that started with HOLD ME WHILE I'M NAKED and ECLIPSE OF THE SUN VIRGIN. It evidently is, since part three never really came out. This seems to look like it could be part three. — GK (anthologyfilmarchives.org)

Having nothing to do with racial tensions, HOUSE OF THE WHITE PEOPLE is actually a chunk of film removed from a bigger chunk called UNSTRAP ME. It is a documentation of George Segal creating the basic elements for one of his statues preceded by rare glimpses into his own private museum. Donna Kerness serves as his live model. Walter Gutman sits on a chair and walks around a bit, being that he produced the film. Helen Segal, personifying the ageless saying, "behind every man there stands a woman," stands behind her man and also stands in front of him occasionally. The film is a unique invitation to view the hidden rituals of a famous artist and his infamous model, half naked, snowbound together on a lonely farm, with a silent wife and a notorious guest.

Exhausted by a sexually frustrating home life in the Bronx, portly, 65-year-old Uncle Bojo tosses aside all responsibilities, leaves his wife, Stella, and sets out in search of adventures.

" ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE BLESSED culminates my involvement with artist Red Grooms and Mimi Gross. It is a diary of our work as we head for the Pacific Ocean in a suicidal plunge for theatrical infamy. The film traces the construction of two craven images made in the likeness of myself by Grooms and Gross. Then it switches to the sandhills of Nebraska where fat cattle walk around. There the film explores Grooms' biggest construction, "The Chicago Installation." The film rolls relentlessly onward to the West Coast showing, for the first time on any screen, a theatrical production we three put in the University of California. It marks my directorial debut on the stage and Red Grooms' comeback after ten years of exile from live theatre." - George Kuchar

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.

"The whole film are non-art portraits of people in which they do what they want with this hat – and therefore, act or stand in front of my camera. It’s only love: therefore it can’t harm you". Joyce Wieland.

This film is a documentary showing artist, Betty Holiday, an attractive blonde who talks alot, in her Long Island studio. Miss Holliday does not talk in this film, but her beautiful work talks for her. –G. K.

Eclipse of the Sun Virgin is a 16mm, film; directed by George Kuchar. The film is based on dealing with a poignant self-identity and the feeling of void between pornography.

A desperate, married women meets a mysterious man whom she blatantly desires. Through some twists and turns, things do not go over as well as she seems to wish.

A special guest appearance by Canadian TV star Bill Ronald along with the massive presence of "Mrs. Bronx" herself, Frances Leibowitz, and her girlfriend Iris, make this film a must-see for travel enthusiasts...

Presented as loosely autobiographical, Hold Me While I’m Naked centres on the tribulations of an independent filmmaker, frustrated at every turn as he tries to make a film that pretends to artistic merit.

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.

A dramatized social commentary with the horrifying impact of a three-hundred ton chunk of margarine.

A sampler of six of the kitschest and coolest short films from the weird mind of George Kuchar. Fans of John Waters' work will be delighted and inspired. Includes 'Hold Me While I'm Naked' and 'A Reason to Live' plus two uncredited gems tacked on the end of the tape!

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 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.

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.

An overheated tale of lust, guilt, and Mom, made as a response to the French New Wave.

A tender and realistic story of a scientist who falls in love with a mummy he has restored to life.

According to the director, the actors did not know what was going on and the images on the screen reflect his own sub-conscious, and naked lusts.

A lonely, bohemian poet befriends the good, the bad and the ugly in this rooftop drama set in New York's lower East side of Eden.

An early masterpiece by Mike Kuchar, in which Babette tells all, leaving no turgid stone unturned.

Rarely has the cinema equaled such a spectacle! Seldom have movies probed so deeply into the rotten core of hypocrisy and weakness!

[A] cautionary tale about past-their-prime thespians caught up in a typically Kucharian vortex of madness. - Anthology Film Archives

(1962) Color, Sound, 9 min.

An 1962 Avant-Garde Comedy by George Kuchar.

The film combines teenage lust and deranged delinquency to create a cautionary tale for the ages.

“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 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

(1959) Color, Sound, 25 min.

An insane, deformed killer stalks the grounds of a resort house, bringing sudden violence to those of easy virtue and godlessness.

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," 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.

Short film.

Shot in low-light style, Kuchar documents his experiences with various underground filmmakers such as James Broughton and Ken Jacobs, then moves on to the other side of Hollywood lifestyle to visit Nicholas Cage. Images of crowds and facial close-ups comprise this haunting tape.

An epic tale of love and loss featuring legendary underground filmmakers George and Mike Kuchar, as told to an answering machine.

George Kuchar's comically grotesque look at the age-old clash of generations.

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