Introduction: American Extreme Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Jack Sargeant September 2016 American Extreme This dossier brings together a collection of articles on a number of filmmakers and filmmaking practices a little beyond Senses of Cinema’s typical focus. This serves as an introduction to and consideration of ...
The Pornographic Imagination Manifest: Notes On Usama Alshaibi’s The Amateurs (2003) Jack Sargeant September 2016 American Extreme “I think there was something internally stimulating to go (to) that space, collectively there was a high, a mutual fantasy, we forgot we were making anything – it seemed like the performance was really for one ...
Fear of a Black Phallus: Jamaa Fanaka’s Welcome Home Brother Charles (1975) Dean Brandum September 2016 American Extreme When African-American filmmaker Jamaa Fanaka passed away in 2012, director of the UCLA Film & Television Archive Jan-Christopher Horak stated that Fanaka was dismayed that his films were picked up by a vid...
Divine Dog Shit: John Waters and Disruptive Queer Humour in Film Stuart Richards September 2016 American Extreme John Waters is an icon of queer cinema, known for his use of grossness and bad taste. However, it is not grotesqueness alone that makes queer film akin to Waters’ work; his humour is distinctly politically di...
Deracination, Disembowelling and Scorched Earth Aesthetics: Feminist Cinemas, No Wave and the Punk Avant Garde Maura Edmond September 2016 American Extreme This article discusses cinematic extremes - on-screen sex and violence but also extremes of grain and texture and production cultures - in the work of several women directors closely associated with the undergr...
“A Malignant, Seething Hatework”: An Introduction to US 21st Century Hardcore Horror James Aston September 2016 American Extreme Abstract >> Hardcore horror meets at the intersection between pornography and horror. Films such as Fred Vogel’s August Underground trilogy, Shane Ryan’s Amateur Porn Star Killer series, Lucifer Valent...
Goodbye, McFly: Crispin Glover’s ‘It’ Trilogy and the Cinema of Reaction Keva York September 2016 American Extreme In directing the taboo-themed It trilogy Crispin Hellion Glover broke away from his iconic role as George McFly in blockbuster Back to the Future (1985). In What is it? (2005) Glover’s insistence that he is n...
Making Revolutionary Love: Radical Sex and Cooptation in the Films of Bruce LaBruce Jasmine McGowan September 2016 American Extreme Using the starting point of the MoMA retrospective of the works of Bruce LaBruce, this article confronts the shifting perceptions of LaBruce as a transgressive provocateur of cinema. I argue that his most recen...
What’s Inside a Girl?: Porn, Horror and the Films of Roberta Findlay Alexandra Heller-Nicholas September 2016 American Extreme “You know the money shots in porn films? Well, this was just a different substance: it was red” – Director Roberta Findlay on the relationship between pornography and horror “Roberta is a pioneer, a ground-br...
The Invisible Exploding Woman Alexandra Heller-Nicholas September 2016 American Extreme In July 1974 in the seaside city of Sarasota, Florida, television journalist Christine Chubbuck pulled out a gun while broadcasting the news and shot herself in the head on live television. The whereabouts of t...
