To See Through Soiled Eyes: the work of Richard Kern

Richard Kern, child of the American Midwest filtered through New York's Lower East Side, is a man of vision. A vision that can as easily be condemned as misanthropic, brutal and pornographic as it can be praised for its energy, humour and dynamism. Thirteen years after Kern's debut, Goodbye 42nd Street, alternately caressed and clubbed the viewing world into his personal maelstrom, this extraordinary filmmaker's work has mutated from claustrophobic, violent sleaze into an elusive brand of lurid glamour, gaining the director overdue public and critical acclaim. We are fortunate that this year's experimenta media arts festival gives Australia the opportunity to be exposed to the hard-core underground's favourite secret.

Most notorious for his mid-80s work documenting the gruesome excesses of a host of characters including future celebrities Lydia Lunch, Karen Finley, Henry Rollins, Clint Ruin, Sonic Youth and the inspirational David Wojnarowicz, Kern's films have always been extreme, usually violently so. In the past, their artistic merit has often been missed by knee-jerk critics. The fact that prints of his films have been physically destroyed by critics and that Kern himself has been assaulted at screenings is testament to the power of his movies. Super 8 classics such as You Killed Me First, Fingered (which pre-dates and outdoes Natural Born Killers by ten years) and the luscious, sprawling Right Side of My Brain are only a few examples of the period when Kern took the American ideal of what a movie is (sex and violence with a dash of slapstick) and pared it down to its bare bones. Gradually shedding even the pretence of plot structure, he surrendered himself to the grippingly psychotic Submit To Me Now, a cathartic bloodbath that could either have destroyed or purged him. He would re-emerge from the charnel house four years later.

After drastically changing his lifestyle, Kern began making films of a startling freshness in the 90s. The Evil Cameraman, Kern's first autobiographical film, is a two-act piece. The first, shot in 1986, is a portrait of his nihilistic, frightening sexuality; while the 1990 conclusion shows the filmmaker in self-deprecating mode, being scorned and laughed at by his subjects. The 1990 film is intimate and funny, characteristics that again come to the fore in 1993's My Nightmare. Some of his other pieces reflect the man's distinct filmic ideas, The Bitches, Tumble and Nazi all revelling in joyousness rather than sinking into a state of brutality and depression.

This decade has also seen Kern working extensively in the photographic and video clip fields, documenting bands as diverse as The Breeders, Marilyn Manson, Unsane, Type-O-Negative and King Missile. His first book, New York Girls, also sees the light of day this year, filling out his controversial vision and completing the picture thus far.

It would be a grave error for the observer to try and neatly categorise Kern. As he becomes more prolific, so too does his work evolve and branch into new arenas. As always, he remains in the driver's seat: if we choose to hitch a ride with Richard Kern, it's best to remember that he chooses how that ride will end.

© Lance Sinclair 1996