"Mommy Mommy, Where's My Brain?" directed by Moritsugu (1986 | Cinema of Transgression)

1986 - 09:20
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If its not transgressive, its not underground. It has to be threatening the status quo by doing something surprising, not just imitating whats been done before. - Nick Zedd

New York Citys Lower East Side in the early Eighties saw an explosion of the downtown film scene, as a variety of film-makers, photographers, performers and artists, inspired by the post-punk No Wave music scene, began to explore new, direct, and confrontational cinematic forms.

In 1984 the manifesto for the Cinema of Transgression was announced, a movement looking to transform values by breaking all taboos of cinematic expression, conservative religion, politics and aesthetics. Cinema of Transgression Manifesto by Nick Zedd We who have violated the laws, commands and duties of the avant-garde; i.e. to bore, tranquilize and obfuscate through a fluke process dictated by practical convenience stand guilty as charged. We openly renounce and reject the entrenched academic snobbery which erected a monument to laziness known as structuralism and proceeded to lock out those filmmakers who possesed the vision to see through this charade. We refuse to take their easy approach to cinematic creativity; an approach which ruined the underground of the sixties when the scourge of the film school took over. Legitimising every mindless manifestation of sloppy movie making undertaken by a generation of misled film students, the dreary media arts centres and geriatic cinema critics have totally ignored the exhilarating accomplishments of those in our rank - such underground invisibles as Zedd, Kern, Turner, Klemann, DeLanda, Eros and Mare, and DirectArt Ltd, a new generation of filmmakers daring to rip out of the stifling straight jackets of film theory in a direct attack on every value system known to man. We propose that all film schools be blown up and all boring films never be made again. We propose that a sense of humour is an essential element discarded by the doddering academics and further, that any film which doesnt shock isnt worth looking at. All values must be challenged. Nothing is sacred. Everything must be questioned and reassessed in order to free our minds from the faith of tradition.Intellectual growth demands that risks be taken and changes occur in political, sexual and aesthetic alignments no matter who disapproves. We propose to go beyond all limits set or prescribed by taste, morality or any other traditional value system shackling the minds of men. We pass beyond and go over boundaries of millimeters, screens and projectors to a state of expanded cinema. We violate the command and law that we bore audiences to death in rituals of circumlocution and propose to break all the taboos of our age by sinning as much as possible. There will be blood, shame, pain and ecstasy, the likes of which no one has yet imagined. None shall emerge unscathed. Since there is no afterlife, the only hell is the hell of praying, obeying laws, and debasing yourself before authority figures, the only heaven is the heaven of sin, being rebellious, having fun, fucking, learning new things and breaking as many rules as you can. This act of courage is known as transgression. We propose transformation through transgression - to convert, transfigure and transmute into a higher plane of existence in order to approach freedom in a world full of unknowing slaves.
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Cinema of Transgression
http://www.ubu.com/film/transgression.html

Category:

Film & Animation

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[CraigSmth1]

One of the coolest films ever made!!!

This has always been a favorite of mine ever since seeing way back in the late 80's.

[jconstantine100]

johnny public 1:02

back in black 5:15

[MPFestival]

@blowdry7

it's awesome

[KonchogNorbu]

I'm actually in this film (guy who kicks Jon into the water) and yes, that's (probably Jon) playing the riff from Flipper's 'Sex Bomb'. Also, aside from the obvious (AC/DC, Bad Brains) I caught The Birthday Party and Mark Stewart + The Maffia on the soundtrack. Ah, those were the days...

[SuperColonel]

I wonder why I have never heard of this. **Sarcasm**

[blowdry7]

Does anyone know who did the johnny public song at 1:04?

[kommievision]

sounds like flipper. maybe it is flipper. maybe it is my dog barking in the night. do he bite? kill my landlord. kill my landlord. c. i. l. l. my land lord.

[shaina16]

mori

[aintellengreat]

I don't care what it is. I just love it.

[eventide925]

I lived in La. I LIKED it!