Ghosts of Transgression

Made with varied goals in mind – intimacy, alienation, the desire for a more embodied, anti-rational cinema – these transgressive underground films exert a unique power.

  • Total running time 70min

  • Certificate

    18

Un Chien Andalou

France 1929. Directors Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí. 21min. 8mm. 15

Window Water Baby Moving

USA 1959. Director Stan Brakhage. 12min. 16mm

Arbeit Macht Frei

UK 1973. Director Stuart Brisley. 19min. 16mm

Sodom

USA 1989. Director Luther Price. 13min. 16mm. 18. Courtesy of LUX

The visceral visions of transgressive filmworks exert a unique power, signposting radical new modes of engagement. But what of the afterlives of these works, when contexts shift, and their power changes register? Un Chien Andalou screens from an 8mm distribution copy made to slice-up eyeballs at 1950s Film Societies. Window Water Baby Moving is an extraordinary distillation of Brakhage’s practice, gesticulating at a new and intimate type of cinema as it documents, on 16mm, the birth of Jane and Stan Brakhage’s son. Brisley’s abrasive Arbeit Macht Frei may have seen several projections, but its anti-fascist scream of resistance punches through the decades to find an intensely new, 21st-century presence. Finally, Sodom utilises ecstatic, materialist strategies to radically re-frame hardcore gay pornography as sacred worship.

William Fowler

Contains flashing images and graphic footage of real vomiting, genuine childbirth, and prolonged unsimulated sex.

Access information

The screening on Saturday 14 June 20:45 BFI Blue Room will include a BSL interpreted introduction.