Week 4 (July 12 – 18) – Roots of the Underground: Film-makers’ Coop

The Film-Makers’ Cooperative is a non-profit dedicated to experimental and avant-garde cinema; almost all of the most well-known American experimental filmmakers have had works in their catalogue at some point. 

Curtis Harrington had a career trajectory that oscillated from occult underground circles to the glitzy halls of Dynasty and Charlie’s Angels. He famously described Fragment of Seeking as “a climactic fragment from the existence of an adolescent Narcissus” and an “examination of youthful narcissism.”

A young man catches a glimpse of a woman and is instantly struck by a consuming obsession. He pursues her, but the closer he gets, the more the image fractures. The initial allure twists into something grotesque; what began as a romantic chase turns into a visceral horror show as the woman’s visage transforms into something truly frightening upon closer inspection.

But under the surface, this film looks like Lynch before Lynch. Influenced by Maya Deren and somehow brave enough to confront being queer on film in 1946, Harrington explores the links between sex and fear and death and worry and angst and alienation.

As you can tell by this week of his movies I’m fascinated by Harrington, a man whose career goes from occult leanings to an appearance in Kenneth Anger’s Invocation of the Pleasure Dome, rescuing James Whales’ The Old Dark House, making psychobiddy films and finally finding something of a home directing made-for-TV movies and episodes of mass population pleasing TV shows.