I get really bored with the dishonesty of people writing about pornography academically because they always write about questions of feminism or psychoanalysis and the thing is that these questions are so obvious to ask – I get to the point where I don’t need to know that porn is voyeuristic or degrading to women. Or conversely isn’t voyeuristic or doesn’t degrade women. I don’t need to know that. I need to know specific details.

This academic journal in QLD called M/C was doing this issue on Filth so I thought what’s a specific detail that I really, really want to share with the world? That informs this lecture.

As another example previously, I wrote a piece for the book Body Probe on medical fetishism. This was written right in the beginning of when people were going to fetish clubs with bandages on. It just seemed like a good thing to write about – I mean, who’s not turned on by beautiful women with black eyes? (laughs) There’s something about that – there’s that flawed beauty or whatever. You know, that whole JG Ballard Crash thing – not that I’m advocating that people go out and do something about that, but the fantasy does exist. But it’s hard to write about it, you know.

S: Do you think Richard Kern is touching upon this at all – that idea of dangerous, flawed beauty?

J: Oh definitely - when Richard takes photos he touches on all these things. He went through a phase when he was really turned on by watching girls put makeup on. He photographed girls putting makeup on or doing their eyelashes… I don’t think fetishism stays in one place, it moves continually and you continue to get a better picture of what it means. Which is how it should be. 

S: His work seems as if it’s not answering to an audience it’s just exploring whatever turns him on at the time.

J: I think that’s exactly right, I think Richard is totally driven by his own interests. And that sort of works well. If people are driven by the marketplace they’re only going to produce shoddy work. You must be driven by your own desires. I think it’s really important that an artist follows their own desires in their work. You can see when artists aren’t – their work goes downhill.

 S: How would you recommend artists to get out their creative shells?  

J: I don’t know if I can be responsible for answering that.

You can’t tell people how to think for themselves – in the end if they’re not thinking for themselves, they’ve really missed the boat.

It’s such a labour of love to produce a film or write a song or write a book or paint a painting… why would you not do what matters most of all? I think that if you’re working as an ‘independent’ filmmaker you have to be independent. You can’t have an ‘independent’ filmmaker out there making what John Howard wants them to make. You’ve got to follow your own dream, whatever that is.

I think that that’s the role of the artist in any medium, to pursue their vision, to pursue what they set out to do, you know?

S: In it’s nearly impossible to do this, and make money out of it at the same time.

J: Most artists don’t make money – ever. When Richard Kern was making his films in the beginning he was a construction worker. Nick Zedd drove a taxi. Many do jobs where you get paid but you don’t have to worry. You read interviews and you realise that all these people stuck to their visions and did these dumb jobs. I think it’s really important as an artist to stick to your vision – if you have to do a dumb job, that’s better than turning out crap for money. Any musician, any artist, they all did dumb jobs – boring, irritating work. A lot of artists also teach at art schools.

 My advice is – do what ever it takes to make your film – whatever crappy job, whatever. But don’t give up your vision. People really overemphasise “Oh I haven’t got time” – but the truth is that they’ll go spend nine hours at the pub – why don’t you spend one hour at the pub and eight hours working on your art? “Shit or get off the pot” as says.

S: Since you wrote Deathtripping have you found influences of the cinema of transgression in later artists’ work?

J: I have written other books since then though – I did a book called Cinema Contra Cinema which is almost all about younger underground filmmakers. So yeah there’s loads of people out there doing different things. Transgressive stuff was just one scene which I kind of gravitated to because of the sex/ trash aspects. There’s also Underground documentary culture – the whole Plunderphonics  culture around people like Craig Baldwin is fantastic –  he creates amazing ‘documentaries using found footage. There’s all these other film cultures out there – I’ve written things about some of them…but that’s the great thing about film festivals like SUFF because you get this kind of interplay where you see all these different scenes and how they co-exist.

S: Do you know of many underground film collectives at the moment?

 J:There’s always a couple in each town - filmmakers that know each other and work together, but in the end I think the hardest thing people have is getting their work out there. If people aren’t writing about films or aren’t reviewing them, they just don’t get out there. We’ve all seen the yuppification of the inner city. All the natural places to screen have vanished. Sydney used to have the LanFranchis’ Memorial Discotheque but that’s gone now. Getting the work out there is really hard – screening at a bar, screening at a filmmakers’ co-op, just setting up a sheet in the street - it’s all legitimate. People have done that all around the world – I remember Nick Zedd– screening outside the window of a bar onto the building opposite.

S: SUFF wasn’t able to screen at the so-called only independent cinema left in Sydney – they were charging a fortune. 

 J: There’s huge issues around all of that stuff, it’s a big political issue. - if you’re running an independent cinema, you need to keep your head above water… which relates to the yuppification of the inner city – there used to be independent cinemas everywhere.

S: You’ve been excited by underground culture and underground film especially, since you were a teenager – what keeps you excited about it – anything happening now that keeps you fresh minded about it all?

J: I think there’s always that thing that you can just turn up somewhere and see or hear something you’re never heard of before. Experience something new, you know. That quest to always find something new. That’s really important. There’s always new things to experience and see. Older filmmakers have been around for a long time and them doing new stuff is always exciting. Always keeps you energized.

You know how you get those people who get really bored? I find that really sad. There’s ArtVamp: Usama and Kristie Alshaibi from Chicago . They do some good transgressive short films that are really entertaining. That’s really good stuff - they’ve been producing this stuff for 6 or 7 years and it’s slowly getting out there and it’s  good work. They just sent me some new DVDs yesterday they’ve been working on – so there’s always stuff out there.

S: What’s your idea of a great film?

J: My favourite film at the moment, by which I mean today, is Ex-Drummer, a Belgian film which was shown at the Sydney Film Festival recently. It’s totally offensive and extreme. It was very, very funny. Taxidermia too was good. A great sex scene that included an asshole   with haemorrhoids hanging out – it was so good and really over the top – fantastic absurd violence and gore. It was structured in three chapters: one about spit or bile, one about sperm and one about blood. It opens in the next month or so at the Chauvel I think. Conversely I also really enjoyed Shotgun Stories which was this low key, Southern noir movie, very measured and calm.

My idea of a great film changes all the time – the type of films I watch again and again? I love Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures, I love Richard Kern’s film Fingered, I love Kenneth Anger’s films, I love the Vienna Aktionists stuff. In terms of mainstream cinema - Lars Von Trier, I like Lucas Moodysson’s work a lot, I like Larry Clark films. Oddball genre films like mondo movies.  The best artists have these elements of lunacy, excitement, unpredictability. They’re all challenging, and there’s never any complacency in their work – films that go the whole way, really…  people like Werner Herzog or Claire Denis always make interesting, exciting work.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Apart from the new edition of Deathtripping soon to be released, Jack currently has four other books in progress - two being written and two in the idea stage. He is also continually writing articles for various magazines around the world and has several ideas for films which will be made ”one day”.  

Jack will speak at the Lecture Series as part of SUFF – details below:

FRIDAY 14th SEPTEMBER: 1-2PM

SYDNEY COLLEGE OF THE ARTS 

JACK SARGEANT: An academic examination of hardcore pornography. Don’t come if you are easily offended.

 
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