In Mary Jordan’s documentary Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis, we learn that John Waters genuflects before the titular artist, Andy Warhol said he was the only person he’d ever try to copy, and that half of the rock videos we see today look like what Jack Smith was doing 40 years ago.
So how come so few of us know just who the hell this Jack Smith character is?
Jordan’s delirious, half-hypnotic portrait provides the answers.
Smith was an important figure in the New York underground art scene of the 1960s. He was a photographer who specialized in DIY baroque exotica, pictures that looked like stills from a movie that didn’t really exist. He was an experimental filmmaker who embraced color and old Technicolor Hollywood for inspiration. And he cultivated his friends and models into art scene “superstars.”
As one talking head says, Smith was the real Warhol.
But he only ever completed one film, The Flaming Creatures, an experimental film depicting a strange, over-exposed, dream-like orgiastic scene, and thus was often banned, with screenings of it being raided and the film itself being confiscated.
The experience left a bitter taste in Smith’s mouth, and he’d never again complete a film. Instead, his future works would remain in a state of perpetual almost-finished-ness, with Smith accompanying them to screenings, where he’d serve as the projectionist, and also edit them (live) and provide the score (live), so that the films would never be anything separate from himself, and thus couldn’t be confiscated or taken away from him.
Of course, the downside was that now that Smith is dead, outside of rare screening of Flaming Creatures, all that’s left to testify to his skills are the people who knew him and his work, and none of them are getting any younger (as all the wrinkles and receding hairlines on the talking heads Jordan interviews attests to).
Fortunate then that Jordan captured them on film, and makes such copious usage of clips of Smith’s work—at least now there’s an interesting documentary to attest to Smith’s talent.
Jordan apes Smith’s peculiar techniques in the opening sequence before we begin hearing from those who knew Smith, including his sister and dozens of photographers, filmmakers, actors, artists, musicians and scenesters who knew, worked with or were inspired by Smith.
He himself appears from beyond the grave, in the copious amounts of footage of his that Jordan folds into her portrait, performances in others’ films and a haunting archival interview.
The picture that emerges isn’t always a flattering one. Smith often appears to have some rather severe mental problems, and he’s not exactly a nice guy, as we see him feuding with not only Warhol (who, like Federico Fellini, would become much more successful than Smith doing work that was quite similar to Smith’s), but also his own mother, who was clearly supporting and subsidizing his work as an adult.
But it’s a wonderfully constructed picture, as Jordan saturates every frame of her film with the spirit and aesthetic of her subject. As protagonists go, Smith isn’t exactly the most likable one, but he’s certainly a fascinating one.