2/1 PMMNLS Lecture: The Films of George Kuchar

George Kuchar is one of the legends of independent filmmaking. Beginning as a teenager in the 1950s with his twin brother Mike, Kuchar directed movies which upended Hollywood melodramas into small-scale epics, noted for their creative low-budget effects, over-the-top plots, eye-popping performances by their cast of friends, and titles like Sins of the Fleshapoids, Color Me Shameless and Lust for Ecstasy.

In the mid-1980s, Kuchar turned to video making, and created what is possibly the largest single collection (160) of video diaries. This ongoing chronicle of the artist’s life is called "unique in film history" by the scholar Gene Youngblood. In Kuchar's video universe, nothing is safe from the camera expanding his oeuvre to exploiting his morbid interests and notorious insecurities with his token razor-sharp sense of humor. With 50 years Kuchar’s ever-expanding (200+ and growing) oeuvre of video work behind him, Kuchar has become a seminal figure in underground cinema.

7:30pm, Portland State University: Shattuck Hall Annex, 1914 SW Park Ave. FREE.