The Cool School

by Glenn O'Brien

  At this moment in movie history there is a feeling of movies being approved of. There is an enveloping cloud of critical happiness—it’s OK to love movies now. General approval (nobody knowing who starts it—but it’s OK for you and everybody else). It’s a pretty diffuse and general thing. Maria Montez flix were particular—you went for your particular reasons, dug them for personal reasons—had specific feelings from them & about them. It was a peculiarly idiosyncratic experience and heartily despised by critics. Critics are writers. They like writing—and written characters. Maria Montez’s appeal was on a purely intuitive level. She was the bane of critics—that person whose effect cannot be known by words, described in words, flaunts words (her image spoke). Film critics are writers and they are hostile and uneasy in the presence of a visual phenomenon. They are most delighted by bare images that through visual barrenness call thought into play to fill the visual gap. Their bare delights are “purity and evocative.” A spectacular, flaming image—since it threatens their critichood need to be able to write—is bad and they attack it throwing in moral extensions and hinting at idiocy in whoever is capable of visually appreciating a visual medium. Montez-land is truly torn down and contemporary sports-car Italians follow diagrams to fortunes, conquests, & murders to universal approbation.

  Maria Montez was a very particular person:

  Off screen she was:

  A large, large boned woman

  5′ 9″

  Oily

  Skin dark,

  & gave impression of being

  dirty

  Wore Shalimar perfume

  It is a reminder of one’s own individuality to value a particular screen personality. It is also a nuttiness (because gratuitous). But you will have nuttiness without Maria Montez—want more—need all you can get—need what ever you don’t have—& need it badly—Need what you don’t need—need what you hate—need what you have stood against all through the years. Having a favorite star has very human ramifications—not star-like entirely. Stars are not stars, they are people, and what they believe is written on their foreheads (a property of the camera). Having a favorite star is considered ludicrous but it is nothing but non verbal communication the darling of the very person who doesn’t believe anything real can exist between a star and a real person. Being a star was an important part of the Montez style. Having Maria Montez as a favorite star has not been gratuitous (tho it was in 1945) since it has left a residue of notions, interesting to me as a film-maker and general film aesthete. No affection can remain gratuitous. Stars who believe nothing are believable in a variety of roles, not to me tho, who have abandoned myself to personal tweakiness.

  Those who still underrate Maria Montez, should see that the truth of Montez flix is only the truth of them as it exists for those who like them and the fact that others get anything out of them is only important because it is something they could miss and important because it is enjoyment missed. No one wants to miss an enjoyment and it is important to enjoy because it is important to think and enjoying is simply thinking—Not hedonism, not voluptuousness—simply thought. I could go on to justify thought but I’m sure that wouldn’t be necessary to readers of magazines. There is a world in Montez movies which reacting against turns to void. I can explain their interest for me but I can’t turn them into good film technique. Good film technique is a classical attribute. Zero de Conduite—perfect film technique, form, length, etc., a classical work—Montez flix are none of these. They are romantic expressions. They came about because (as in the case of Von Sternberg) an inflexible person committed to an obsession was given his way thru some fortuitous circumstance. Results of this sort of thing TRANSCEND FILM TECHNIQUE. Not barely—but resoundingly, meaningfully, with magnificence, with the vigor that one exposed human being always has—and with failure. We cause their downfall (after we have enjoyed them) because they embarrass us grown up as we are and post adolescent/post war/post graduate/post-toasties etc. The movies that were secret (I felt I had to sneak away to see M. M. flix) remain secret somehow and a nation forgets its pleasures, trash,

  Somebody saved the Marx Bros. by finding

  SERIOUS MARXIAN BROTHERS

  ATTRIBUTES.

  Film for these film romanticists (Marx Bros., Von Stroheim, Montez, Judy Canova, Ron Rice, Von Sternberg, etc.) a place. Not the classically inclined conception a strip of stuff (Before a mirror is a place) is a place where it is possible to clown, to pose, to act out fantasies, to not be seen while one gives (Movie sets are sheltered, exclusive places where nobody who doesn’t belong can go) Rather the lens range is the place and the film a mirror image that moves as long as the above benighted company’s beliefs remained unchallenged, and as far as their own beliefs moved them.

  If Maria Montez were still alive she would be defunct. She would be unable to find work (Maybe emasculated mother type parts) She’d be passé, dated, rejected. A highly charged idiosyncratic person (in films) is a rare phenomenon in time as well as quantity. Unfortunately their uniqueness puts a limitation upon itself. Uniqueness of Quantity calling into existence a uniqueness of time to limit itself. We punish such uniqueness, we turn against it—give it only about 5 years (the average life of a star). Once lost these creatures cannot be recovered tho their recovery would be agreeable. Who wouldn’t welcome back Veronica Lake who is by this time a thing in the air, a joke, a tragedy, a suffering symbol ofdownfall, working as a barmaid at Martha Washington Hotels—shorn. We lose them—our creatures. When some rudeness/cutting off of hair out of fear of wartime machinery/makes the believer disbelieve, the believer joins us in our wanting but not being able to believe and is through, first because of the cynicism of movie fans and secondly because of the resultant breakdown of their fantasy.

  Corniness is the other side of marvelousness. What person believing in a fantasy can bear to have its other side discovered. Thru accidents, rudenesses, scandals, human weaknesses have cut short those who made movie worlds (movies as place) that were too full to have room for anything but coincidences, politeness & benightings. But denial is short lived. So will our denial of our personal films. Someday we will value these personal masterpieces. We don’t have to do injustice to the film of cutting, camera movement, rhythm, classical feelings, structured, thought loaded (for there’s the moldiness of the foreign darling, that it disobeys its own most central rule—that technique by itself can evoke as does poetry). Yet plots that demand serious definite attention spell out the evocation for the images.

  ON A very obvious level too much dialogue (still a violation even if it is no longer Hollywood-moronic) on an unsuspected level—much use of story furthering (different than Hollywood) images, rich with story furthering detail (more sophisticated than Hollywood details), rich with (more tour de force than H) cutting—all these exist not to create a film for itself but exactly the same effect as Hollywood Oprobriums—a film for a plot—all these tools of film STILL force an emphasis on the story because they each are used still to force an emphasis on the story and we only have a Hollywood disguised in sandals, Rivieras, pallazzos, ascots, etc. A new set of cliches that we aren’t familiar enough with yet to see as cliches. European films are not necessarily better than the most Hollywood of our flix, they are only different and that superficially—certainly not more filmic because they are every bit as/plot story word/orientated. This we will see clearly when we start to get tired of their particular set of thought & story cliches. And we must, because these are always oppressive in a film—are the oppressive parts of movies as we know them because they dissipate the film challenge—to use our eyes. To apprehend thru our eyes.

  The whole gaudy array of secret-flix, any flic we enjoyed: Judy Canova flix (I don’t even remember the names), I walked with a Zombie, White Zombie, Hollywood Hotel, all Montez flix, most Dorothy Lamour sarong flix, a gem called Night Monster, Cat & the Canary, The Pirate, Maureen O’Hara Spanish Galleon flix (all Spanish Galleon flix anyway), all Busby Berkely flix, Flower Thi
ef, all musicals that had production numbers, especially Rio de Janeiro prod. nos., all Marx Bros. flix. Each reader will add to the list.

  Above kind of film is valid only when done by one who is its master—not valid in copies. Only valid when done with flair, corniness, and enjoyment. These masterpieces will be remembered because of their peculiar haunting quality—the copies will drop away from memory and the secret film will be faced. We still feel the disgust and insult of the copies and react against the whole body including the originals. The secret films were the most defenseless since they afford to ignore what bad copies caused us to come its demand in order to protect ourselves from the bad copies. And they being the pure expressions have had to take all the blame.

  A bad copy film has a way of evoking a feeling of waste that is distressing. Waste of time in months, money in millions—we spent our own best part of a dollar—and hope for more film excitement was made guilty in lying sequels—squandered money. The guilt has come to be applied to the flix that were copied. (Who will ever admit having enjoyed a Judy Canova flic?) The flix of the 30’s and 40’s (even I detest flix of the 50’s) are especially guilty because they haven’t acquired the respectability of antiquareanism. Anyway the secret flic is also a guilty flic.

  These were light films—if we really believed that films are visual it would be possible to believe these rather pure cinema—weak technique, true, but rich imagery. They had a stilted, phony imagery that we choose to object to, but why react against that phoniness. That phoniness could be valued as rich in interest & revealing. Why do we object to not being convinced—why can’t we enjoy phoniness? Why resent the patent “phoniness” of these films—because it holds a mirror to our own, possibly.

  The primitive allure of movies is a thing of light and shadows. A bad film is one which doesn’t flicker and shift and move through lights and shadows, contrasts, textures by way of light. If I have these I don’t mind phoniness (or the sincerity of clever actors), simple minded plots (or novelistic “good” plots), nonsense or seriousness (I don’t feel nonsense in movies as a threat to my mind since I don’t go to movies for the ideas that arise from sensibleness of ideas). Images evoke feelings and ideas that are suggested by feeling. Nonsense on one given night might arouse contemptuous feeling and leave me with ideas of resolution which I might extend to personal problems and thus I might be left with great sense. It’s a very personal process—thoughts via images and therefore very varied. More interesting to me than discovering what is a script writer’s exact meaning. Images always give rise to a complex of feelings, thots, conjectures, speculations, etc. Why then place any value on good or bad scripts—since the best of scripts detracts most from the visual realm than in the literary. Visual truths are blunt, whereas thots can be altered to suit & protect. The eye falls into disuse as a receiver of impressions & films (images) mean nothing without word meanings.

  Our great interest in films is partly the challenge it presents us to step into the visual realm. A personality type star appeals to, informs the eye. Maria Montez was remarkable for the gracefulness of her gestures and movement. This gracefulness was a real process of moviemaking. Was a real delight for the eye—was a genuine thing about that person—the acting was lousy but if something genuine got on film why carp about acting—which HAS to be phoney anyway—I’d RATHER HAVE atrocious acting. Acting to Maria Montez was hoodwinking. Her real concerns (her conviction of beauty/her beauty) were the main concern—her acting had to be secondary. An applying of one’s convictions to one’s activity obtains a higher excellence in that activity than that attained by those in that activity who apply the rules established by previous successes by others.

  The more rules broken the more enriched becomes the activity as it has had to expand to include what a human view of the activity won’t allow it to not include.

  What is it we want from film?

  A vital experience

  an imagination

  an emotional release

  all these & what we want from life

  Contact with something

  we are not, know not,

  think not, feel not, understand not,

  therefore: An expansion.

  Because Maria Montez who embodies all the above cannot be denied—was not denied—that mass of thoughts we have about film must be added to, to include her acting, since anybody’s acting is only the medium of soulful exchange and is not important in itself except at the point that the acting student learns to forget its rules; In Maria Montez’s case a high fulfillment was reached without ever having known the rules and those who adore rules could only feel offence, and expressed it in ridicule.

  M. M. dreamed she was effective, imagined she acted, cared for nothing but her fantasy (she attracted fantasy movies to herself—that needed her—they would have been ridiculous with any other actress—any other human being) Those who credit dreams became her fans. Only actress can have fans and by a dream coming true she became and actually was and is an actress.

  (Go to the T. D. of the NYPL—go to the actress dept., ask for stills of “Maria Montez.” Six Gigantic Volumes of delirious photos will come up on the dumb waiter.)

  But in my movies I know that I prefer non actor stars to “convincing” actor-stars—only a personality that exposes itself—if through moldiness (human slips can convince me—in movies) and I was very convinced by Maria Montez in her particular case of her great beauty and integrity.

  I finish this article—a friend, Davis Gurin, came to tell me “I came to tell you, tonight I saw a young man in the street with a plastic rose in his mouth declaiming—I am Maria Montez, I am M. M.” A nutty manifestation, true—but in some way a true statement. Some way we must come to understand that person. Not worth understanding perhaps—but understanding is a process—not the subject it chooses. But that process has a Maria Montez dept. as well as a film dept. and you bought this magazine for a dollar.

  Film Culture, Winter 1962–63

  William S. Burroughs

  (1914–1997)

  Although he was a close friend and role model for the younger Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs created a revolution in literature almost single-handedly. His early novels Junky and Queer were the last word on the underground cultures of drugs and homosexuality that helped forge the Beat sensibility. Burroughs was indebted to Ginsberg as an editor, his collaborator Brion Gysin for the “cut-up technique,” and to a surprising extent to L. Ron Hubbard, having participated in Scientology until he was declared a “clear.” These influences are visible in this excerpt from Nova Express (from the “cut-up trilogy”: The Soft Machine, The Ticket That Exploded, and Nova Express), but it was Burroughs’s particular genius to explore and understand the state of language in the late twentieth century and to map the means of control used to manipulate the human race by more or less invisible overlords. Here as elsewhere Burroughs set himself up as an enemy of the mythos of progress and a dissenter against the future.

  Last Words

  LISTEN TO my last words anywhere. Listen to my last words any world. Listen all you boards syndicates and governments of the earth. And you powers behind what filth deals consummated in what lavatory to take what is not yours. To sell the ground from unborn feet forever—

  “Don’t let them see us. Don’t tell them what we are doing—”

  Are these the words of the all-powerful boards and syndicates of the earth?

  “For God’s sake don’t let that Coca-Cola thing out—”

  “Not The Cancer Deal with The Venusians—”

  “Not The Green Deal—Don’t show them that—”

  “Not The Orgasm Death—”

  “Not the ovens—”

  Listen: I call you all. Show your cards all players. Pay it all pay it all pay it all back. Play it all pay it all play it all back. For all to see. In Times Square. In Piccadilly.

  “Premature. Premature. Give us a little more time.”

  Time for what?
More lies? Premature? Premature for who? I say to all these words are not premature. These words may be too late. Minutes to go. Minutes to foe goal—

  “Top Secret—Classified—For The Board—The Elite—The Initiates—”

  Are these the words of the all-powerful boards and syndicates of the earth? These are the words of liars cowards collaborators traitors. Liars who want time for more lies. Cowards who can not face your “dogs” your “gooks” your “errand boys” your “human animals” with the truth. Collaborators with Insect People with Vegetable People. With any people anywhere who offer you a body forever. To shit forever. For this you have sold out your sons. Sold the ground from unborn feet forever. Traitors to all souls everywhere. You want the name of Hassan i Sabbah on your filth deeds to sell out the unborn?

  What scared you all into time? Into body? Into shit? I will tell you: “the word.” Alien Word “the.” “The” word of Alien Enemy imprisons “thee” in Time. In Body. In Shit. Prisoner, come out. The great skies are open. I Hassan i Sabbah rub out the word forever. If you I cancel all your words forever. And the words of Hassan i Sabbah as also cancel. Cross all your skies see the silent writing of Brion Gysin Hassan i Sabbah: drew September 17, 1899 over New York.

  Prisoners, Come Out

  “DON’T LISTEN to Hassan i Sabbah,” they will tell you. “He wants to take your body and all pleasures of the body away from you. Listen to us. We are serving The Garden of Delights Immortality Cosmic Consciousness The Best Ever In Drug Kicks. And love love love in slop buckets. How does that sound to you boys? Better than Hassan i Sabbah and his cold windy bodiless rock? Right?”