|
Land of a Thousand Balconies: |
 As author Jack Stevenson
rightly points out in the introduction to Land of a Thousand Balconies,
the majority of books about cult films and cult film culture tend to be
passive affairs—collections of observations, obscure facts, and the
occasional crackpot theory or overheated acclamation of a long-forgotten grindhouse filmmaker. Stevenson, on the other hand, has spent the better
part of the past two decades actively—some might say doggedly—screening
cult and offbeat films for audiences of all sizes, from several hundred at
a corporate function in Copenhagen to a mere handful of people in a murky
hallway outside Boston. Stevenson’s love for and need to share cult movies
with audiences gives his love for them an impetuous and infectious
excitement, which puts this book, which compiles a series of essays on his
movie obsessions and adventures, a notch above other publications on this
subject.Land of a Thousand Balconies is divided into three sections which give a broad coverage of his enjoyment of cult film—as fan, moviegoer and curator/projectionist. “Tours Through Genre and History” peruses some of Stevenson’s best-loved filmmakers and subgenres, from Sidney Pink, the eager but hapless American producer/director who unleashed the atrocious Reptilicus and Journey to the Seventh Planet on a horrified Scandinavia, to histories of anachronistic technologies and gimmicks like Technicolor and the Scopitone, which offered early music videos through a massive proto-video jukebox. These two three essays are the most fascinating in the section—Stevenson is treading on relatively virgin territory in cult film research, and his essays are rich in detail and observation. Other essays cover more familiar territory, including Christmas cult movies, William Castle, and 3-D, but Stevenson keeps them interesting through the energy of his writing. The second section, “Haunted Houses and Illuminated Cellars,” explores the nuts-and-bolts side of cult movie obsession as seen through the experiences of several friends and individuals who attempted to operate their own independent moviehouses on shoestring budgets. Stevenson’s essays—which focus on the Pike Street Cinema in Seattle, the Market Street theaters in San Francisco, New York’s Lighthouse and a group of doggedly independent houses in Europe (including one situated on a freighter in Denmark’s harbor) abound with hard luck stories—shady landlords, squatters and unreceptive audiences—but they also showcase an unflagging spirit and fondness for movies and the experience of sharing them with an audience. After a trio of short essays on camp and trash culture and a career overview of punk-influenced arthouse director Jon Moritsugu, Stevenson settles into the book’s most engrossing section—his own personal experiences as a traveling film projectionist. Stevenson got his start in Boston (where this author met him during a screening of Nekromantik), where he screened regularly at a bar without liquor license and published the seminal cult culture review Pandemonium. Stevenson relocated to San Francisco and later to Copenhagen, where he found a receptive (and paying) audience hungry to see American cult films and educational/ephemeral detritus. His amazement at the extraordinary lengths that European festival organizers and fans went to in order to experience these films (in sharp contrast to the who-cares attitude of most American theater owners) is palpable and a joy to read; in his words, cult film fans will likely find that same spark of off-kilter glee they experienced the first time they saw films by John Waters, Russ Meyer and Herschell Gordon Lewis. Cult film today is a minor industry, with DVD labels devoted to unearthing and releasing obscure titles in deluxe edition discs on an almost monthly basis. While this wholesale effort has been a boon to collectors, what’s missing from the DVD wave is the down-and-dirty fun of discovering and experiencing these films in their natural environment—a dank, crummy theater in the middle of a tenderloin district, surrounded by other like-minded freaks. Land of a Thousand Balconies does a fine job of not only resurrecting a whiff of that time, but the reasons why we sought out these films in the first place. ________________________________________________________________________ |
|
_________________________________________________________________________
-Paul Gaita |