Post by StevePulaski on May 17, 2017 15:44:04 GMT -5
Multiple Maniacs (1970)
Directed by: John Waters
Directed by: John Waters
Rating: ★★★½
In 2016, Janus Films - the popular affiliate with The Criterion Collection - struck a deal with director John Waters to restore his highly elusive sophomore film Multiple Maniacs for theatrical and home video release through Criterion. On March 21, 2017, Waters' feature was finally made available to the general public on DVD and Blu-Ray, following years of only being accessible on an extremely rare and expensive VHS tape. The restoration - as viewed on DVD - is gorgeous, turning a scuzzy 16mm work only a couple of notches above a snuff film into an attractive and worthy relic accentuating the transgressive showcase of human atrocities.
Waters calls on individuals who would later become recognizable "Dreamlanders," or staples of his trashy, treasured filmography, in addition to constants in his most cherished projects. Divine, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, and, my personal favorite, Mink Stole all carry weighty roles in the film. Waters' right-hand accomplice Divine, however, takes centerstage as Lady Divine, the owner and operator of a traveling circus of sorts called "The Cavalcade of Perversion." Performing in Baltimore primarily, the exhibit offers free showcases of various perverted acts and unspeakable fetishes such as scatological acts and the consumption of vomit to those who are dragged to see the show by most of the performers, such as "The Religious Whore" (Stole) and the "Virgin Mary" barmaid (Edith Massey).
The co-operator of the Cavalcade is Mr. David (Lochary), Lady Divine's husband, whom she catches cheating with a skank named Bonnie (Pearce). It's at that moment that Lady Divine - who has no problem hosting a graphic and blasphemous interpretation of signature biblical events such as the resurrection - snaps and becomes mentally unstable. She starts murdering those attending her exhibit, she violently rebels against her husband and his mistress, and takes an interest in a lesbian relationship with the aforementioned Whore.
Waters' other "Dreamlanders" such as Paul Swift and Edith Massey play such amiable souls like a member of Weather Underground that dates Divine's prostitute daughter and a barmaid that listens to the woes and devious plans of her recent descent into madness. These eccentrics are only part of what makes most of Waters' filmography so compelling. The real treat is in not quite knowing what to expect the first time around. At any moment in Multiple Maniacs, Divine could have intercourse with a giant lobster or put on a religious reenactment that should have had the Catholic Church seizing all home video copies of this newly released and reformatted film.
Just as well, Waters is a master of countering counterculture, as Multiple Maniacs is so far removed from even the rock and roll and pro-peace protests that were outwardly deemed deviant from the collective at the time. His film exists as something so deviant that I'd imagine few could've conceptualized it. In a modern world where the hardest of hardcore pornography is made available to your toddler with a smartphone with just a few taps of the finger, Multiple Maniacs holds a distinction of being, I'd argue, somewhat unimaginable at the time, and perhaps even still in some sense, to this day.
Janus Films' meticulous restoration erases some of the cruder visual quality, and makes the film look as good as it ever did (aside from a VHS release, the film was mostly seen on the midnight circuit at unsavory theaters that likely projected it using retrograde equipment or on an unwashed white wall). Waters has said the visual cleanup gives the film the look of "a bad John Cassavetes film," which is an unbelievably accurate summation. Thankfully, a lot of the features of Multiple Maniacs that make it so grimy and have it bear the look of being infested with germs is in the actual camerawork, which shows that Waters has never been a great choreographer of movement and actor-placement. The concept of blocking is foreign, actors seem to disappear and reappear at their own volition, and Waters' editing is up to his own impulsive volition.
Yet all of this is pertinent and vital to the trash cinema that Waters has pioneered, and exist largely as style points in a film that is an act of anarchy and transgression on film, conservatism, and the complacent middle-class of the time period. Multiple Maniacs may not match the level of lawlessness and truly grotesque boundary-pushing I'd say Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble do, and do more coherently, but it's an early work from a maestro that has never sold out nor ever failed to captivate in one way or another with his deliciously insane films.
Starring: Divine, David Lochary, Mink Stole, Mary Vivian Pearce, Edith Massey, and Paul Swift. Directed by: John Waters.