George Kuchar

I enjoyed George Kuchar's films quite a bit. The two works of his viewed in class, Hold Me While I'm Naked (1966) and The Inmate (1997), were wonderful, entertaining films that I consider to fall in the category of films about the filmmaker himself (or herself, as the case may be).

Both films make use of the intervention technique of "breaking the fourth wall," whereas the narrator addresses the audience directly. In this way, George Kuchar takes on a curious dual role as both the presenter and the presented. Hold Me While I'm Naked seems to me to be an exercise in self deprecation, and it's humor is at once earnest, silly and sad. We see George Kuchar as a film maker struggling to put his vision onto film in spite of the obstacles in his path -- uncooperative actors, an overbearing mother and even the wistful escapism that he engages in vicariously through the film project his character (himself?) struggles to realize.

The Inmate shows an older version of Kuchar -- distant from his younger incarnation in both physical and mental years. Here, Kuchar struggles to make an autobiographical documentary by sharing his stream of consciousness with the audience. As a result, however, the video rambles from topic to topic and even segues completely at one point from his trip to Convict Lake (in the "here and now" of the film) to footage that is a flashback (implicitly at any rate) to the regular trips he takes to Oklahoma to chase storms. This version of Kuchar seems more confident and less afraid to let go and engage his audience in a conversation -- albeit one-sided, perhaps -- to draw them into his world. This attempt to place the audience in the film maker's shoes is a continuation of the same goal in Hold Me While I'm Naked.

Admittedly, I probably have an affinity for Kuchar's work because my videos thus far have had a similar style -- attempts to expose and share aspects of my personal existence with the audience, even when those attempts inspire humor with their awkwardness and pathos.