Hold Me While I'm Naked

A dash of the furious Pop threnody of Kenneth Anger, a lick of the hieroglyphic camp of Jack Smith--and throw it all together with the bridge-and-tunnel amateurism of Kevin Smith. The result is tastier, and more apt to insinuate itself in the memory, than the vast majority of acknowledged sixties "avant" classics.

I first heard of George Kuchar thanks to the WTF interview with Todd Solondz. Maron was trying to get something out of Solondz as far as what he was/is influenced by as far as other filmmakers - Solondz was trying to keep to just saying he's influenced by, uh, life and not much else - but he finally mentioned that he's a fan of George Kuchar's films. So when I looked him up this seemed to be the most prominent (or the one people watched the most - hey, boobs on youtube right?), and I was looking forward something that would likely be transgressive and satirical and... I got that, but it's... as other people have said, out *there*. It may be so out there as a piece of experimental cinema that I had to watch it twice to get something out of it (originally this rating was lower, but giving it another shot I saw a little more there).

What is this? Supposedly a semi-autobiographical collage by Kuchar, who is out to explode the form of cinema while also detailing how a movie he was trying to make fell apart due to an actress being mad about being nude all the time. Hold Me While I'm Taken may be what happened in Kuchar's life... in a sense. But it's so locked inside the filmmaker's head that when it doesn't involve characters talking - there's a one minute or more stretch where it's a walking close-up shot of what I assume is Kuchar's movie double walking around uh... just walking - it is simply all over the place.

Now, this place does happen to be involving a lot of nudity (or suggested at some points), and I think the strongest thing here is how Kuchar frames his shots. There's a real eye here and that was what I especially liked seeing it a second time in a row, how he got his "characters" in shots, with unusual compositions and how his camera moves but also how it takes in framing devices (when we see a couple starting to make love it's through a glass door where things are obfuscated, and the music on soundtrack is "Here Comes the Bride.? The whole tone here is a meta comment on itself, about how filmmakers burning with passion can get sidelined. I... wish I could get at more of what it was trying to do, outside of the imagery of a reel of film lying on the floor, or yet another woman disrobing and getting into the shower and... yeah, it's a steady stream of consciousness that doesn't have much of a foot in reality. It's all about the PLAY of filmmaking and sexing and doing sexing for filmmaking, and that part is fine. I just wish I could've got more into the rhythm of the whole piece; there's a point where the movie almost stops to indulge a magnificent orchestral score that builds and builds over images of... stuff.

File this under 'a lot of people LOVE this, and... it wasn't for me, nice boobs aside.'

I would have to disagree, I don't believe it is like Stan Brakhage what so ever. The Kuchar Brothers had a great impact on cinema in the 1960's, and "HOLD ME WHILE I'M NAKED" was a great success in the avant-garde film department. The film is magnicicent in it's own sense. It has all of the elements which make a perfect movie. Cinematography is terrific, and the dialouge is great. What makes this film extra special is the fact that George Kuchar, went back over and recorded his voice, as everyone's. One of the greatest avant-garde filmmakers of our time, i would have to say, but the line between Brakhage is big enough to jump over. In my opinion, if yuo are an aspiring filmmaker, see this film. Don't just watch it once, but several times. It holds more than what is in the frame.

It's hard to judge and rate this movie really, since it isn't one that features a plot and is not a typical movie in any way. It's an '60's underground, no-budget, artistic movie, like for instance Kenneth Anger and Andy Warhol also used to make.

You can basically interpret this movie any way you want to, since the director George Kuchar also leaves this pretty much open to your own interpretation. It's not a movie with a plot but also not one with any clear themes in it. I think this movie is showcasing all of the struggles Kuchar went through being a film-maker. The difficulties of getting a movie off the ground, waiting for that one right phone call and finding the right actors for the roles, the right directing approach, the right make-up. Perhaps he with this movie tried to vent out some of his frustrations with the whole film-making scene. But that's just my interpretation of it all.

It's a nicely shot film, with some good editing and of course unusual and special camera-work and angles. This isn't anything you are accustomed to seeing, which doesn't make this movie easy to watch but fascinating nevertheless.

Not the best and definitely not the most accessible genre example out there but it's still well worth a watch if you're into these sort of underground artistic movies from the '60's.

7/10

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