''Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis'' is a documentary film that premiered in the 2006
Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by TriBeCa Productions, Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive progra ...
. It is a collection of interviews and clips by and about the revolutionary artist
Jack Smith. It was directed by
Mary Jordan and produced by Tongue Press Productions.
The film was given a limited release in
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
movie theaters
A movie theater (American English), cinema (British English), or cinema hall ( Indian English), also known as a movie house, picture house, the movies, the pictures, picture theater, the silver screen, the big screen, or simply theater is a ...
beginning on April 11, 2007.
Jordan is a Canadian-born filmmaker known for her documentary shorts resulting from extended visits to
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
and
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
. David Ebony, whose review of the film appeared in ''Art in America'', had met Smith in the late 70s soon after moving to New York and at that time "attempted to assist him with a number of 'slide-show performances.'" Ebony's review, following the documentary, covers some of the difficult exhibition history of ''
Flaming Creatures
''Flaming Creatures'' is a 1963 American experimental film directed by Jack Smith. The film shows performers dressed in elaborate drag for several disconnected scenes, including a lipstick commercial, an orgy, and an earthquake. It premiered Apr ...
'' (1963), Smith's best known film, and difficult collaborations with
Jonas Mekas
Jonas Mekas (; December 24, 1922 – January 23, 2019) was a Lithuanian-American filmmaker, poet, and artist who has been called "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema". Mekas' work has been exhibited in museums and at festivals worldwi ...
and
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...
and others. Voiceovers from Smith, culled from some 14 hours of interviews with various critics and friends, supplemented the archival visual materials, footage and extensive interviews with filmmaker
John Waters
John Samuel Waters Jr. (born April 22, 1946) is an American filmmaker, writer, actor, and artist. He rose to fame in the early 1970s for his Cinema of Transgression, transgressive cult films, including ''Multiple Maniacs'' (1970), ''Pink Flamin ...
, Smith's sister Mary Sue Slater, playwright
Richard Foreman
Richard Foreman (born June 10, 1937 in New York City) is an American avant-garde playwright and the founder of the Ontological-Hysteric Theater.
Achievements and awards
Foreman has written, directed and designed over fifty of his own plays, b ...
, Smith and Warhol star
Mario Montez
René Rivera, (July 20, 1935 – September 26, 2013), known professionally as Mario Montez, was one of the Warhol superstars, appearing in thirteen of Andy Warhol's underground films from 1964 to 1966. He took his name as a male homage to the act ...
, writer
Gary Indiana, and musician
John Zorn
John Zorn (born September 2, 1953) is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". Zorn's avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jaz ...
, among others. Ebony concludes that the film "manages to evoke the quirky and often cantankerous personality of its subject without ever making him seem merely a disgruntled artist and social misfit, as some may think him. ... I feel that Jordan's multifaceted and impassioned portrait rings true. Smith, in fact, comes off in the film as an ingenious art-world
Cassandra
Cassandra or Kassandra (; Ancient Greek: Κασσάνδρα, , also , and sometimes referred to as Alexandra) in Greek mythology was a Trojan priestess dedicated to the god Apollo and fated by him to utter true prophecies but never to be believe ...
, more relevant today than ever."
["Film Examines Art-World Provocateur"](_blank)
By David Ebony, ''Art in America'', May '07, p.47. Retrieved 2-3-09.
Wesley Morris
Wesley Morris (born 1975) is an American film critic and podcast host. He is currently critic-at-large for ''The New York Times'', as well as co-host, with Jenna Wortham, of the ''New York Times'' podcast '' Still Processing.'' Previously, Mor ...
, whose review appeared in the ''Boston Globe'', was impressed that Jordan "manages to conjure Smith's story while also telling a story about art in America", concluding that Smith was "a pioneer of the sort of event that just doesn't seem possible in an age when counterculture feels like mass culture and very little art is shocking".
"Rethinking the edgy filmmaker who made Warhol look tame"
by Wesley Morris, ''Boston Globe'', 11-29-07. Retrieved 2-3-09.
References
External links
*
* ''New York Magazine'
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jack Smith And The Destruction Of Atlantis
2006 films
Documentary films about visual artists
2000s English-language films