Cutting Edge: Art-Horror and the Horrific Avant-Garde
Joan Hawkins
University of Minnesota, 2000
Both of my faithful readers may have noticed elsewhere on this site, that in reviews I tend to mention Grade B movie titles in the same breath as independent, avant-garde or art house pictures. In all honesty, I’m not sure films of one camp are any more or less sincere or pretentious than the other. Thus, in referencing Robert Bresson during a review of Ed Wood’s The Violent Years, and comparing Daughter of Horror to Maya Deren’s films, I’m suggesting that these polar opposites of cinema do share similar properties. This school of thought is not new by any means, but it is still ground which proves for continued exploration.
Joan Hawkins’ impressive study, Cutting Edge, pushes this theory forward in correlating the lowbrow Grade Z genre films (from horror to sexploitation) with supposed highbrow art cinema. It takes a highly enjoyable approach in marrying the avant-garde movement to the horror film (the least-respected genre in all of film criticism, after porn of course).
The lowbrow horror film and the highbrow art house film each have audiences who cannot find what they want in the bland Hollywood mainstream. Thus, each facet of “paracinema” as it is called, is looked upon as a specialty by connoisseurs of either field. In an amusing introduction, Ms. Hawkins marries the two forms by suggesting the indiscriminate way in which low-grade horror and Euro-art titles are packaged together in lists of video companies that are run in movie fanzines. Then, the correlation continues in chapters that marry, respectively, the “body horror” of the art house film Franju’s Les yeux sans visage with Jess Franco’s The Awful Dr. Orloff and Faceless; Yoko Ono’s infamous avant-garde film Rape is compared to Michael and Roberta Findlay’s S&M films, especially Satan’s Bed, in which Ono stars; the campy patterns of Warhol’s one-shot film exercises (Poor Little Rich Girl) are found in more “commercial” works of Paul Morrissey (Andy Warhol’s Dracula); and finally, how Tod Browning’s Freaks satisfies the needs of both camps: those who like low-grade exploitation and/or avant-garde art.
In fact, Franju’s Les yeux sans visage becomes the pinnacle example of her book-length thesis, as this film had enough elegance to satisfy the art house crowd, and enough blood and gore to attract rowdy teenagers to midnight screenings (in its English version, The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus).
As you read this thoughtful book, it is obvious that she is favouring the art house part of each example, and one doesn’t suggest that she should prefer otherwise, but even so, it is commendable enough that any author is investing serious study into films made for the seeming lowest common denominator. In fact, her academic study itself becomes a study of academia. I’ve never been crazy about texts being heavily annotated: the first page alone has five endnotes! It’s okay: I believe you researched this stuff. Just a bibliography at the end would suit me fine. That said, Cutting Edge is a stimulating read which confirms the belief that the line between art and trash is quite thin, if apparent at all.
Originally published in Vol.#1, Issue #15.
Greg Woods
Greg Woods has been a film enthusiast since his teens, and began his writing "career" at the same time- prolific in capsule reviews of everything he had watched, first on index cards, then those hardcover dollar store black journals, then an old Mac IIsi. He founded The Eclectic Screening Room in 2001, as a portal to share his film love with the world, and find some like-minded enthusiasts along the way. In addition to having worked in the film industry for over two decades, he has been a co-programmer of films at Trash Palace, and a programmer/co-founder of the Toronto Film Noir Syndicate. He has also written for Broken Pencil, CU-Confidential, Micro-Film, and is currently working on his first novel. His secret desire is for someone to interview him for a podcast or a DVD extra.