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DRY_FLESH

                                             May 21, 2010

  The DVD for Paul Morrisey's Andy Warhol's
  "Flesh" (1968) comes with an additional
  disk of commentary from around 2006.

  Evidentally, in making the series of three
  movies "Flesh", "Trash" and "Heat", Morrisey was
  after two, *apparently* contradictory things.

  One: he believed in glamour, in beauty.  He
  didn't think that in the name of "realism"
  you should use conventional-looking actors.

  Two: he disliked the contrived dramatics
  of conventional stories about things like
  sex and drugs.

     He felt that they'd gone through
     "whatever your thing is, do it"
     to the point where nothing
     really mattered all that much.

     Nothing was shocking,                         Compare to "Chasing
     everything was accepted,                      Amy" where everyone
     and hence any extreme                         has excessively
     behavior is just shrugged                     rigid attitudes to
     off by all the characters                     provide excuses for
     in the story.                                 shrill emotion.

     There's a scene where Candy Darling
     and another transvestite (Jackie
     Curtis, I think), are sitting next
     to each other reading demented                   The moral of
     beauty tips aloud from a crumbling               this story, I
     1940s "Hollywood" pulp-- while                   think:
     standing in front of them, (but
     facing away from the camera) Joe                 Realism vs.
     Dallesandro is getting a blowjob,                romanticism
     from someone we haven't seen yet.                isn't a simple
                                                      continuum.
     They don't think it's particularly
     remarkable or funny that someone is              There isn't one dial
     having sex in front of them, though              you twist to adjust
     they don't ignore it either: they                the quantity of The
     gradually begin making deadpan                   Real.
     ironic jokes ("Don't you know the
     angels are watching you?").                         Rather there are
                                                         multiple different
                                                         decisions you can
                                                         make about what
                                                         will be idealized.
                                                         Different aspects
                                                         of reality can be
                                                         reflected or refracted...
                      METHOD_OF_LIGHT


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