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Flaming Creatures
Theatrical release poster
Directed byJack Smith
Produced byJack Smith
Starring
Distributed byThe Film-Makers' Cooperative
Release date
  • April 29, 1963 (1963-04-29)
Running time
42 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$300

Flaming Creatures is a 1963 American experimental film directed by Jack Smith. The film follows an ensemble of drag performers through several disconnected vignettes, including a lipstick commercial, an orgy, and an earthquake. It was shot on a rooftop on the Lower East Side on a very low budget of only $300, with a soundtrack from Smith's roommate Tony Conrad. It premiered April 29, 1963, at the Bleecker Street Cinema in Greenwich Village.

Because of the film's sexual content, some venues refused to show Flaming Creatures, and in March 1964, police interrupted a screening and seized a print of the film. The screening's organizers (Jonas Mekas, Ken Jacobs, and Florence Karpf) were prosecuted, and the film was ruled to be in violation of New York's obscenity laws. Mekas and critic Susan Sontag mounted a critical defense of Flaming Creatures, and it became a cause célèbre for the New American Cinema movement. Judge Abe Fortas, who had spoken in favor of reversing the convictions, faced scrutiny for his position years later when he was nominated to become Chief Justice of the United States. Flaming Creatures eventually fell out of circulation. After Smith's death, a restoration was undertaken to preserve the film.

Plot

[edit]

Most of the film's characters are sexually ambiguous, including transvestite, intersex, and drag performers. Flaming Creatures is largely non-narrative, and its action is often interrupted by cutaways to close-ups of body parts.[1]

The film opens with a credits sequence set to the soundtrack of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and the announcement that "Ali Baba comes today!". Two creatures laze in a garden and dance. In what Smith called the "smirching sequence", characters apply lipstick while a mock advertisement poses the question, "Is there lipstick that doesn't come off when you suck cocks?" Two creatures chase each other, and one throws the other to the ground.[2] Several creatures gather around her in a rape scene, which grows into a large orgy. The earth begins to quake, and the creatures collapse.[3]

A vampire resembling Marilyn Monroe climbs out of a coffin and drains some of the lifeless creatures. This reignites the action, and the creatures rise again to dance with one another.[1]

Cast

[edit]
Mario Montez in drag
Flaming Creatures marked the first film role for Mario Montez (pictured in 2012).[4]
  • Francis Francine as herself
  • Sheila Bick as Delicious Dolores
  • Joel Markman as Our Lady of the Docks
  • Mario Montez as the Spanish girl (credited as Dolores Flores)
  • Arnold Rockwood as Arnold
  • Judith Malina as the Fascinating Woman
  • Marian Zazeela as Maria Zazeela[5]

Production

[edit]

Pre-production

[edit]

Smith shared an apartment with artist Marian Zazeela for a period during the early 1960s.[6] He began taking seminude black-and-white photographs with her as a model, along with Francis Francine, Joel Markman, Mario Montez, Arnold Rockwood, and Irving Rosenthal. This grew into The Beautiful Book, a small volume of photographs published with the help of Piero Heliczer. The book began to develop the aesthetic of Flaming Creatures.[7]

Smith conceived the idea of making a film to serve as a vehicle for Zazeela. However, she began working with composer La Monte Young and was unable to participate in Smith's project.[6][8] After she moved out, he became roommates with Tony Conrad and replaced Zazeela with Sheila Bick.[9]

Filming

[edit]

Filming of Flaming Creatures took place over eight weekend afternoons in mid to late 1962. Many of the models from The Beautiful Book made appearances in the film.[10] Smith held shoots on the roof of the Windsor Theatre, at 412 Grand Street on the Lower East Side.[11] Dick Preston offered his loft above the theatre for use as a prop department and dressing room. Unable able to review rush prints between shoots, Smith made extensive preparations before each session. He filmed the scenes out of order, beginning with the closing dance sequence. The earthquake sequence was shot in intense summer heat, with Smith and Ronald Tavel throwing dust from ceiling plaster onto the actors. Francis Francine was injured after being hit by a large piece of plaster.[12]

Smith had observed the effects of using out-of-date film while working on Ken Jacobs' Star Spangled to Death and decided to use the technique after seeing Ron Rice's The Flower Thief.[13] He mixed multiple black-and-white reversal film stocks, mostly specialty or Army surplus stock stolen from the discard bins at a Camera Barn store.[14][15] These included Kodak Plus-X, Perutz Tropical, Agfa-Ferrania, and DuPont.[14][16] The rolls were out-of-date, giving parts of the film a foggy or high-contrast texture.[17]

Maria Montez in Cobra Woman (1944)

The film's working title was Pasty Thighs and Moldy Midriffs; Smith also considered using Flaking Moldy Almond Petals, Moldy Rapture, or Horora Femina.[18] He was highly influenced by director Josef von Sternberg and actress Maria Montez, both of whom he discussed in essays published in Film Culture before the film's release.[19] Smith admired von Sternberg's films for their extravagant, exoticist settings; their preferential treatment of visual texture over plot; and the androgynous sexuality of actress Marlene Dietrich.[20] Smith was interested in Maria Montez, a Dominican actress who starred in exotic adventure films during the 1940s, because of her intense, passionate acting style. He incorporated allusions to earthquake scenes from White Savage and Cobra Woman; the wedding procession in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves; a slave, portrayed by Jeni Le Gon, who attends to Montez's character in Arabian Nights; and promotional imagery of Montez reclining languidly.[21] He made Flaming Creatures as a way to depict "different ideas of glamour" and film "all the funniest stuff he could think of".[22] The film was produced for a very low budget of $300.[23]

Post-production

[edit]
Smith's roommate Tony Conrad (pictured in 2009) produced the soundtrack.

After filming had completed, Smith sent the footage to filmmaker Stan Brakhage in Denver so it could be processed. Brakhage had developed a close relationship with a laboratory there through his own experiences dealing with contentious footage. With the processed footage in hand, Smith edited the film and used most of the production footage in the final cut; Flaming Creatures had a low shooting ratio and only 15 minutes of outtakes. A credit sequence was painted by Zazeela.[24]

Tony Conrad, with whom Smith shared an apartment, produced the film's soundtrack. The two lived in a building on the Lower East Side, where musician Angus MacLise lived and into which Mario Montez ended up moving. They held informal group sessions during the evening, which Conrad recorded.[25] The soundtrack, a tape collage,[26] incorporates "Siboney" by Ernesto Lecuona, "Amapola" by Joseph Lacalle, and various pasodobles.[27]

Flyer advertising a March 1963 benefit for Flaming Creatures

As Flaming Creatures was being completed, Smith began screening unfinished versions of it to friends. Heliczer held a benefit for the film at painter Jerry Joffen's loft. Mekas discussed a private screening of the film through his column in The Village Voice, and Conrad produced a second version of the soundtrack for the film's theatrical premiere.[28]

Release

[edit]

Early screenings

[edit]
Membership card for the Love and Kisses to Censors Film Society

Flaming Creatures premiered on April 29, 1963 as part of a double feature with Blonde Cobra at the Bleecker Street Cinema in Manhattan, New York. Later screenings were held at the Gramercy Theatre. Because the film had not been submitted for licensing, the shows were free and audiences were asked to donate to the "Love and Kisses to Censors" Film Society.[28] Jonas Mekas and Ken Jacobs presented the film as a midnight screening at the Flaherty Film Seminar in August 1963, a trip depicted in Mekas's film Lost, Lost, Lost.[29]

Film Culture voted in December 1963 to award Smith its Independent Film Award for the film.[30] It rented the Tivoli Theatre, known for showing sexploitation films, and planned a screening of Flaming Creatures, excerpts from Smith's Normal Love, and Andy Warhol's Newsreel.[30][28] However, the theatre canceled the event due to the obscene content in Flaming Creatures. Several hundred people gathered at the theatre, and Smith was given his award in an impromptu ceremony.[30] A crowd of several hundred people, led by Barbara Rubin, occupied the Tivoli until police could clear the building.[31]

At the third Knokke-Le-Zoute Experimental Film Festival [fr], the selection committee rejected Flaming Creatures out of concern that it fell afoul of Belgium's obscenity laws. In protest, Mekas resigned from the festival jury, and several American filmmakers threatened to withdraw their films.[32] Mekas smuggled in the film in a canister for Stan Brakhage's Dog Star Man and held continuous private screenings out of his hotel.[32][33] On New Year's Eve, Mekas, Rubin, and P. Adams Sitney forced their way into a projection booth to screen Flaming Creatures and pretended to tie up the projectionist, filmmaker Jean-Marie Buchet. They managed to show a portion of the film, but festival staff turned off power for the projector. As chaos broke out in the theatre, Minister of Justice Piet Vermeylen came to calm the crowd. The incident made news across Europe, and Vermeylen promised reforms in censorship laws.[34][35]

Obscenity trial and censorship

[edit]
Jonas Mekas (pictured in 1971) was among those arrested and prosecuted for screening the film.

In February 1964, the Film-Makers' Cinematheque successfully showed the films from the Tivoli program at the New Bowery Theater, as a program titled "Our Infamous Surprise Program". During the program's third showing on March 3, police stopped the event while Flaming Creatures was being screened.[30] They arrested Mekas, Jacobs, Florence Karpf, and Jerry Sims and seized the film reels and projection equipment.[30][36] The police department did not return the only print of Warhol's film, about the making of Normal Love, and it is now considered lost.[30] Mekas held a benefit screening of Un chant d'amour to raise money for a legal defense fund, but was arrested again for violating obscenity laws.[37] The charges were dismissed under an agreement that Flaming Creatures not be shown until the legal status of Un chant d'amour was decided.[34]

Civil rights lawyer Emile Zola Berman accepted the case, believing it would potentially reach the U.S. Supreme Court.[38] Sims, who had been taking tickets, managed to avoid prosecution by claiming he had not seen what was on the screen.[39] People of the State of New York v. Kenneth Jacobs, Florence Karpf and Jonas Mekas was heard on June 12, 1964.[40] As part of the defense, expert testimony came from filmmaker Shirley Clarke, poet Allen Ginsberg, writer Susan Sontag, filmmaker Willard Van Dyke and film historian Herman G. Weinberger.[41][42] The defendants were convicted but given suspended sentences.[40] They unsuccessfully appealed in the state court on the grounds that the trial had excluded the expert testimony provided, and "whatever view this Court might hold as to the obscenity of 'Flaming Creatures,' it is manifest that the appellants herein believe in good faith that the film is not obscene."[43] The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed an appeal.[44] Fifty years later, the prosecutor for the case issued an apology to Mekas, writing, "Although my appreciation of free expression and aversion to censorship developed more fully as I matured, I should have sooner acted more courageously."[42]

In April 1965, an off-campus screening by students of the University of New Mexico was raided by police, who seized the print. In November 1966, a screening by the UT Austin chapter of Students for a Democratic Society was broken up.[45] A January 1967 screening at the University of Michigan resulted in the confiscation of the film and the arrest of four students, triggering protests and a sit-in by students.[46][47] A screening at the University of Notre Dame at its Pornography and Censorship Conference in 1969 was canceled. When students attempted to screen prohibited films, police interrupted the event, leading to the school's first known violent conflict between police and students.[48][49]

Later history

[edit]

Smith was opposed to giving his works a fixed form, preferring to continue re-editing his films.[50] He continued to show Flaming Creatures, but by the late 1960s his print had degraded to the point that it was difficult to project.[51] Anthology Film Archives held the original camera negative of the film, and when Smith requested access to it so he could re-edit it, Mekas refused, out of fear that the print would be damaged.[52] This led to a long-running dispute between the two, with Smith accusing Mekas of stealing the print on behalf of Anthology.[53][50] The negative was lost until 1978, when Jerry Tartaglia found it in a discarded pile of scrap and returned it to Smith.[54]

It was not until after Smith's death in 1989 that larger institutions started to screen Flaming Creatures.[50] Critic J. Hoberman and performer Penny Arcade saved Smith's belongings and had a restoration of the film made, a project which took five years.[15] The New York Film Festival showed the film in 1991, and the Museum of the Moving Image included it in a 1997 retrospective of Smith's work.[50]

Critical reception

[edit]

When Flaming Creatures was released in 1963, Film Culture reviewer Ken Kelman described it as a Miltonian "ancient ritual chant…not for the Paradise Lost, but for the Hell Satan gained."[55] In the Saturday Review, Arthur Knight called the film a "faggoty stag-reel ... defiling at once both sex and cinema."[56] Pete Hamill, writing for The Saturday Evening Post, described it as "a sophomoric exercise in the kind of sex that Henry Miller dealt with 30 years ago."[57]

Following the seizure of the film, the director of the Homosexual League of New York called Flaming Creatures "long, disturbing and psychologically unpleasant".[58] Curator Amos Vogel likened it to a film noir that "despite flashes of brilliance and moments of perverse, tortured beauty" was full of "limp genitalia and limp art."[59] Sontag praised the film in a 1966 essay as a "rare modern work of art: it is about joy and innocence."[60] P. Adams Sitney described Flaming Creatures as "a mythic vision of redeemed innocence" in which Smith "utterly transforms his sources and uncovers a mythic center from which they had been closed off."[61] Jonathan Rosenbaum called the film "one of the greatest and most pleasurable avant-garde movies ever made".[62] According to The Village Voice Film Guide, Gregory Markopoulos "was only slightly exaggerating when he commented that ... early audiences were astounded when their secret Hollywood fantasies burst upon the screen".[63]

Legacy

[edit]

Flaming Creatures became Smith's best-known work and his last finished film. Although he continued filmmaking, his subsequent projects were never given fixed form.[64] Smith was often resentful of the publicity that surrounded the film. His feud with Mekas over the distribution of Flaming Creatures became a recurring subject of his performance pieces, with Mekas represented by a character named "Uncle Fishhook".[65]

Abe Fortas speaking
A screening of Flaming Creatures was held during the Chief Justice nomination of Abe Fortas (pictured in 1968).

In 1968, Associate Justice Abe Fortas was nominated to be Chief Justice of the United States. Fortas had previously spoken in favor of reversing the original convictions for screening Flaming Creatures, so Senator James Eastland, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, requested that the print seized at the University of Michigan be sent to Washington.[66] James Clancy, representing Citizens for Decent Literature, showed the film among other material, inviting senators to view what Fortas had held in several decisions did not constitute obscenity.[67] Nixon adviser Pat Buchanan, who dubbed it the "Fortas Film Festival", identified it as one of the most effective tactics in undercutting the nomination.[68]

Anthology Film Archives has placed Flaming Creatures in its Essential Cinema Repertory collection.[69] The Austrian Film Museum has included the film in its cyclical Was ist Film program, preceding Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda film Triumph of the Will.[70] The film is listed in the reference book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, which says "The film's distinctive beauty is due largely to Smith's nimble use of the handheld camera. His unexpected framings yield dense images of fabrics, body parts, and heavily made-up faces."[71]

Video artist Bec Stupak, having never seen the original film, created a "remake" of Flaming Creatures in 2006 based only on descriptions of it.[72] Todd Haynes alluded to the film with a fictional band named the Flaming Creatures in his 1998 feature Velvet Goldmine.[73] Guy Maddin's 2009 film The Little White Cloud That Cried was conceived as a tribute to Flaming Creatures.[74]

See also

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References

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Sources

[edit]
[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Flaming Creatures

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Flaming Creatures is a 43-minute black-and-white experimental film directed, produced, written, photographed, and edited by Jack Smith, released in 1963 and featuring non-professional performers in drag enacting loosely connected vignettes of humor, eroticism, simulated sexual acts, and violence in a low-tech, rooftop studio setting evoking a haunted movie palace.[1][2] Shot on outdated film stock on the roof of the Windsor Theatre in New York City, the film eschews conventional narrative in favor of tableaux inspired by B-movies and burlesque, with performers applying makeup, dancing wildly, and simulating orgiastic scenes amid makeshift effects like an earthquake sequence.[1][2] Smith described it as a "comedy set in a haunted movie studio," emphasizing its playful disruption of gender norms through ambiguously sexed "creatures" rather than fixed identities.[2] Premiering on April 29, 1963, at the Bleecker Street Cinema in New York, Flaming Creatures quickly drew police seizure and obscenity charges against distributor Jonas Mekas, who was arrested in March 1964 for screening it, leading to bans in 22 U.S. states and several countries due to its depictions of nudity and pseudo-sexual activity.[1][3] The controversy escalated into a landmark censorship battle, involving congressional hearings and Supreme Court considerations, while defenders like Mekas and Susan Sontag hailed it as a liberating assault on repressive norms, though Smith himself resented how the obscenity focus overshadowed its comedic intent, noting that early audiences laughed throughout until critical framing imposed a solemn "sex thing" interpretation.[2][3] Despite—or because of—such suppression, the film became a cornerstone of underground cinema, influencing avant-garde explorations of bodily freedom and cinematic anarchy, with its raw, collage-like style using scratchy soundtracks and odd-angle shots challenging Hollywood's polished aesthetics.[1][2]

Production

Pre-production and Conceptual Origins

Jack Smith developed the concept for Flaming Creatures during 1961 and 1962, building on his earlier work in performance art and photography within New York's underground scene.[4] His vision stemmed from a deep fascination with camp aesthetics, kitsch, and B-movie exotica, particularly the films of actress Maria Montez, whom he idolized as a muse for artificial glamour and theatrical excess.[5] [6] Smith rejected mainstream cinematic norms, favoring chaotic, improvisational creativity that he associated with a "theater of the ridiculous," emphasizing absurdity and rejection of scripted realism.[7] The project originated as part of Smith's larger, unfinished epic Normal Love, intended as a sprawling fantasy rather than a conventional film, with Flaming Creatures emerging as its initial, self-contained segment.[8] Lacking a formal script, preparations centered on loose scenarios derived from Smith's personal obsessions and ad-hoc gatherings, prioritizing spontaneous performer interactions over plotted narrative.[2] Financing was rudimentary and informal, sourced from contributions by friends in the avant-garde community and scavenged resources, including outdated 16mm film stock obtained illicitly from discount suppliers to minimize costs.[9] Smith assembled a cast of non-professional performers recruited from New York's bohemian and queer underground circles, including figures like Mario Montez, who embodied Smith's ideal of drag-infused, gender-fluid personas inspired by Hollywood archetypes.[10] This approach underscored the film's low-budget, anti-commercial ethos, driven by Smith's singular artistic imperative rather than institutional support or profit motives.[4]

Filming and Technical Execution

Flaming Creatures was filmed primarily on the roof of the Windsor Theater at 48th Street in New York City, with additional scenes possibly in the adjacent loft rented by performer Dick Preston, during the summer and autumn of 1962 over approximately eight weekend afternoons.[11][12][13] The production operated on an extremely low budget, relying on scavenged props, costumes assembled from thrift stores and personal wardrobes, and no formal permits or professional crew, which allowed for unscripted improvisation amid the performers' nudity, drag attire, and simulated sexual activities.[14][15] Technical execution emphasized minimalism due to resource constraints: Jack Smith employed a borrowed 16mm camera, often in static or fixed positions from elevated or close-range angles, capturing footage on out-of-date black-and-white stock that produced a characteristic hazy, overexposed quality from inconsistent exposure and natural rooftop lighting without artificial supplements.[1][16] No synchronized sound was recorded on set; audio elements, including music and effects, were added in post-production by collaborators such as Tony Conrad.[11] Smith's directive approach prioritized spontaneity, instructing performers to enact loosely conceived vignettes—such as orgiastic gatherings and hallucinatory tableaux—without rehearsals, yielding a low shooting ratio with only about 15 minutes of outtakes from the final 43-minute runtime.[17] These limitations, including the absence of editing during principal photography and reliance on ambient conditions, underscored the film's raw, documentary-like immediacy while exposing it to practical challenges like variable weather and urban interruptions.[1]

Post-production and Editing

Jack Smith personally edited Flaming Creatures in 1963, employing basic hand-splicing techniques on scavenged, outdated film stocks that contributed to the film's characteristic murky, low-contrast visuals.[9] This process yielded a non-linear, episodic structure comprising loosely connected vignettes, prioritizing experimental montage over conventional narrative progression to evoke a dreamlike quality.[18] The final assembly resulted in a 43-minute runtime with sound integrated directly onto the film, incorporating elements such as performative audio and appropriated snippets, including a reference to an earthquake sequence from the 1944 film Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.[19] [20] Editing faced challenges from incomplete and degraded footage, stemming from Smith's use of pilfered expired stocks, which limited options for refinement.[9] Smith's aversion to finalizing the work led to ongoing modifications, with the filmmaker reportedly re-splicing reels during projections to adjust sequences on the spot, producing variant versions screened in live settings.[9] [21] This iterative approach reflected a commitment to fluid, performance-like cinema rather than a fixed product, diverging from standard post-production practices.[22]

Content and Form

Narrative Structure and Lack Thereof

Flaming Creatures eschews conventional narrative progression, instead comprising a series of loosely connected vignettes devoid of plot causality, character arcs, or resolution.[1] The 43-minute film unfolds through visual accumulation of improvised gestures, dances, and simulated sexual acts performed by an ensemble of ambiguous "creatures," without reliance on dialogue or synchronized audio to advance any storyline.[23] This structure resists linear summarization, emphasizing discontinuous episodes over coherent storytelling.[24] The film opens with performers gazing directly into the camera, establishing a confrontational gaze that initiates the action without contextual setup.[25] This leads into an early sequence depicting a simulated assault on female figures by multiple participants, framed as a mock-rape that lacks punitive or dramatic consequence.[11] [26] Subsequent vignettes escalate into collective disorder, including a drug-fueled orgy where bodies entwine in ecstatic abandon, culminating in an earthquake simulation marked by shaking camera movements and performers collapsing amid feigned seismic chaos.[27] [28] Later segments feature isolated showcases, such as lip-sync performances and mimicry of commercial tropes like a heart-shaped lipstick advertisement, further underscoring the film's fragmentary, non-sequential nature.[29] These events occur without interconnecting logic, affirming the work's experimental rejection of narrative conventions.[1]

Themes, Imagery, and Aesthetic Approach

Flaming Creatures employs a camp aesthetic heavily influenced by 1940s B-movies, particularly the exotic melodramas starring Maria Montez, manifesting in flamboyant drag excess and gender ambiguity through performers adorned in layered fabrics, heavy makeup, and ambiguous bodily presentations arranged in static tableaux.[5][1] This approach privileges sensory indulgence over coherent storytelling, drawing from burlesque and Hollywood glamour to evoke a dreamlike fusion of eroticism and theatrical artifice.[1] Recurrent imagery centers on decadence and hedonistic chaos, featuring draped white fabrics, feathery floral arrangements, close-ups of fluttering eyes, lips, tangled limbs, and exposed genitalia amid vignettes of revelry that blend humor, violence, and polymorphous sensuality without moral or narrative closure.[1] Settings evoke exotic opulence akin to Arabian Nights fantasies, transitioning into sequences of erotic disarray and simulated riots or earthquakes that underscore raw, unrestrained expression.[6] These motifs reject realism in favor of a delirious celebration of fluidity in identity and desire, prioritizing visual rhythm and symbolic excess.[20] Technically, the film utilizes grainy black-and-white 16mm stock, captured with odd angles and close-range shots to heighten intimacy and distortion, while slow-motion effects—derived from overcranked filming—lend a mannered, sensual languor to movements.[1][6] Editing adopts a collage-like structure, assembling disjointed vignettes and spontaneous cuts to foster a state of aesthetic delirium rather than linear progression, reinforced by a vintage music soundtrack that amplifies the anarchic, low-tech immediacy.[6][20] This DIY methodology, with homemade effects and crumbling sets, underscores the film's commitment to unpolished, hedonistic vitality over polished convention.[1]

Cast and Performers

Flaming Creatures featured an ensemble of non-professional performers drawn from New York's underground bohemian and experimental art circles, selected for their ability to embody Smith's concept of amorphous, gender-blending "creatures" in a setting of collective improvisation rather than scripted roles.[1] These individuals, often weekend participants avoiding daytime job conflicts, contributed to the film's raw authenticity through drag, posing, and spontaneous interactions, without formal casting calls or credited stardom.[10] Mario Montez, a Puerto Rican performer active in the city's nascent drag and nightlife scenes, stood out as a central figure, adopting exaggerated personas reminiscent of 1940s Hollywood actresses like Maria Montez to accentuate the film's emphasis on performative artifice and interchangeability.[2][11] Francis Francine, emerging from similar East Village and performance milieus that presaged Warhol's Factory associates, participated as a fluid ensemble member, his background in underground theater informing the non-hierarchical group dynamics.[11][2] Additional performers included Sheila Bick, who engaged in the improvisational drag elements; Joel Markman, contributing to the collective's unpolished energy; and Arnold Rockwood, part of the broader pool of bohemian acquaintances Smith enlisted for their uninhibited presence.[2] The absence of fixed character assignments underscored the performers' roles as extensions of Smith's aesthetic, prioritizing anonymity and communal expression over individual billing.[1]

Release and Immediate Aftermath

Premiere Screenings

Flaming Creatures received its initial screenings through underground venues organized by Jonas Mekas at the Filmmakers' Cinematheque in New York, beginning in early 1963. These private showings, including sessions in Mekas' hotel room attended by European filmmakers such as Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Roman Polanski, and others, catered to small groups of artists and cinephiles.[30] The film's theatrical premiere occurred on April 29, 1963, at the Bleecker Street Cinema in Greenwich Village, featured on a double bill with Ken Jacobs' Blonde Cobra as part of a program curated by Mekas. Audiences at these early public presentations remained limited to avant-garde enthusiasts, fostering an intimate, exploratory atmosphere for the film's nonlinear, performative style.[31][32] Susan Sontag, among other intellectuals, experienced the film during its nascent public showings and later characterized it in 1964 as "a great film that is also a great event," highlighting its visceral, event-like potency beyond conventional cinema.[33] By early 1964, screenings expanded to theaters like the Gramercy Arts on February 3 and the New Bowery, where a March 3 presentation drew police intervention, abruptly elevating the film's profile from insular circulation to public controversy.[34][35]

Initial Public and Media Reactions

Flaming Creatures premiered at a midnight screening on April 29, 1963, at New York's Bleecker Street Cinema, where it drew an audience from the city's avant-garde film community.[1] Jonas Mekas, through his Village Voice columns and advertisements for the Film-Makers' Cinematheque, promoted the film as a vital expression of underground cinema, emphasizing its rejection of conventional narrative and embrace of spontaneous, erotic imagery.[34] Susan Sontag, in early endorsements around 1964, lauded the film for its "erotic ontology," arguing it liberated cinema by prioritizing sensory experience over plot development or moral judgment, even defending its depictions of nudity and sexual simulation as insufficiently abundant.[36] These views circulated via word-of-mouth and limited press in New York art scenes, positioning Flaming Creatures as a touchstone for experimental freedom amid its provocative content, including group orgies and drag performances that shocked some attendees unaccustomed to such explicitness.[2] Initial media mentions in underground outlets like the Village Voice highlighted the film's chaotic energy and defiance of norms, fostering acclaim among filmmakers and critics who saw it as a comedic haunt in a derelict studio, though its raw depictions of transgender and homosexual themes generated unease in broader circles prior to organized opposition.[37] This buzz, driven by repeat screenings at venues like the Tivoli Theater, amplified its reputation as both liberating and transgressive within the pre-censorship experimental milieu.[38]

Legal Controversies

Obscenity Arrests and Seizures

On March 3, 1964, New York City police raided a screening of Flaming Creatures at the New Bowery Theater in Manhattan, interrupting the showing midway through its third presentation that evening and confiscating the print as obscene contraband.[34][39] The intervention followed complaints from audience members and officials about the film's explicit depictions of nudity, cross-dressing, and simulated sexual activities, including group orgies and masturbation.[40][41] Jonas Mekas, the film's distributor through the Film-Makers' Cooperative, the theater manager, and two projectionists were arrested at the scene on charges of violating Section 1141 of the New York Penal Law, which criminalized the promotion or possession of obscene materials defined as those appealing to prurient interest, patently offensive, and utterly without redeeming social importance.[39][42] The four individuals were detained overnight in jail before being released on bail, with the seized print held as evidence by authorities.[40][41] The New York seizure marked the first major enforcement action against Flaming Creatures, prompting theater closures and restricting its underground circulation, as venues feared similar raids under prevailing obscenity standards.[34] Subsequent confiscations occurred elsewhere in the United States, including in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where police seized and destroyed a copy in 1967, further affirming the film's status as prohibited material amid ongoing distribution attempts.[43] These incidents effectively limited public access, with only limited prints surviving through private networks despite the legal pressures.[44]

Trials and Judicial Rulings

In March 1964, Jonas Mekas was tried in New York City Criminal Court for violating state obscenity laws by exhibiting Flaming Creatures. Magistrate Gerald Harris presided over the non-jury trial, where prosecutors argued the film met the criteria established in Roth v. United States (1957), namely appealing to prurient interest, depicting sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and lacking serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.[13][45] Harris convicted Mekas on March 26, 1964, fining him $100, effectively limiting public screenings in New York by affirming the film's obscenity status under prevailing standards that prioritized community norms over artistic intent.[46][47] Mekas appealed the conviction to the New York Supreme Court, which reversed the lower court's ruling in a summary decision, questioning the rigid application of obscenity tests to experimental works and emphasizing potential First Amendment protections for artistic expression.[35] Further appeals reached the U.S. Supreme Court in Jacobs v. New York, where Justice Abe Fortas dissented alone in favor of reversing the obscenity convictions, arguing the film's experimental nature warranted scrutiny beyond mere prurient appeal.[13][46] The Supreme Court ultimately dismissed the appeal as moot in 1968, with five justices concurring, leaving the film's legal status unresolved at the federal level but enabling de facto bans in multiple jurisdictions through upheld local seizures until evolving standards in the 1970s, such as Miller v. California (1973), shifted emphasis toward community standards with provisions for artistic value.[11][45] The Flaming Creatures case gained renewed attention during Fortas's 1968 nomination to replace Earl Warren as Chief Justice. Opponents, including Senator Strom Thurmond, highlighted Fortas's vote to reverse the conviction, screening excerpts of the film for the Senate Judiciary Committee to underscore perceived leniency on obscenity, contributing to the filibuster that derailed the nomination on October 1, 1968.[45][48] This scrutiny exemplified how judicial rulings on avant-garde cinema intersected with broader political battles over censorship, though lower courts in places like Michigan upheld obscenity findings into the late 1960s, affirming seizures without conclusively debating the film's merit.[46][13]

Broader Censorship Implications

The obscenity prosecutions stemming from screenings of Flaming Creatures in 1964 exemplified broader tensions in American jurisprudence between First Amendment safeguards for avant-garde expression and prevailing community standards of decency, positioning the film as a flashpoint for legal challenges to censorship practices in underground cinema.[45][13] These cases underscored debates over whether explicit sexual content in experimental works warranted protection as art or suppression as prurient material devoid of serious value, influencing subsequent doctrinal shifts like the pandering emphasis in Ginzburg v. United States (1966).[45] Conservative critics during contemporaneous political skirmishes, such as the 1968 "Fortas Film Festival" orchestrated by senators including Strom Thurmond, portrayed Flaming Creatures as emblematic of moral degeneracy, citing its depictions of transvestite orgies, masturbation, and other sexual perversions as lacking any redeeming social or artistic merit and thus justifying obscenity restrictions to preserve public morals.[45][13] Opponents argued that tolerating such films eroded societal standards, with screenings for approximately 20 senators amplifying calls for stricter enforcement against materials perceived to promote deviance without countervailing justification.[45] The film's legal entanglements engendered verifiable self-censorship among theaters and institutions, as fears of police raids prompted venues to decline experimental works with potentially controversial content, thereby constricting distribution channels for underground cinema in the mid-1960s.[45][13] Incidents including busts at the New Bowery Theater in New York and subsequent seizures at universities in New Mexico (1965), Texas (1966), and Michigan (1967) illustrated this chilling effect, driving exhibitors toward private or alternative screenings to evade prosecution under state obscenity statutes.[45]

Reception and Critiques

Contemporary Positive Assessments

Susan Sontag, in her March 1964 review published in The Nation, praised Flaming Creatures as "that rare modern work of art" focused on joy and innocence, derived from motifs of sexual anarchy and erotic fluidity, rather than structured narrative or moral judgment.[49] She highlighted the film's rejection of conventional storytelling, arguing its strength lay in the "directness... of the seeing" and sensory immediacy, which invited viewers into a state of total eroticism unbound by intellectual analysis or representational norms.[49] Sontag contrasted this immersive quality with mainstream cinema's didacticism, positioning Smith's work as an exemplar of camp sensibility that celebrated excess and artifice without apology.[50] Jonas Mekas, writing in his "Movie Journal" column for The Village Voice throughout 1963 and 1964, defended Flaming Creatures as visionary experimental cinema that exposed the repressive constraints of bourgeois morality and commercial film standards.[51] He described the film as an ecstatic, non-narrative tableau of human poses and improvisations, akin to a loft-based mise-en-scène captured in raw, unpolished footage, which challenged viewers to embrace uninhibited expression over polished production values.[35] Mekas' advocacy, including public screenings despite legal risks, framed the work as essential to the New American Cinema movement, emphasizing its role in liberating film from institutional censorship and narrative tyranny.[41] In avant-garde publications like Film Culture, contemporaries acclaimed Flaming Creatures for its amateur aesthetics and deliberate excess, which democratized filmmaking by prioritizing spontaneous performance and low-budget improvisation over technical proficiency or scripted plots.[2] This approach was seen as a radical assertion of artistic freedom, transforming drag, camp excess, and communal revelry into a sensory assault that bypassed elite gatekeeping in cinema.[6] Such endorsements positioned the film as a pivotal artifact of 1960s underground vitality, fostering a legacy of experiential cinema that valued erotic anarchy and visual delirium as antidotes to sanitized cultural norms.[52]

Objections on Moral and Artistic Grounds

Critics on moral grounds contended that Flaming Creatures prioritized visceral shock through its unvarnished portrayals of simulated rape, fellatio, and a chaotic orgy involving ambiguously gendered performers, without discernible ethical or redemptive framework to justify the content as anything beyond prurient indulgence.[53] Such scenes, they argued, exemplified a descent into cultural moral laxity, where indiscriminate sexuality supplanted disciplined expression, potentially contributing to broader societal erosion of standards by normalizing deviance under the guise of art.[54] These objections echoed in early characterizations of the film as "horrifying and abrasive," reflecting a view that its raw eroticism fostered revulsion rather than enlightenment.[55] Artistically, formalist detractors dismissed the film's structural disarray—marked by meandering non-narrative sequences, erratic pacing, and absence of thematic resolution—as emblematic of undisciplined amateurism rather than bold experimentation.[56] Technical deficiencies, including frequent out-of-focus imagery, mismatched audio, and rudimentary editing achieved with scavenged expired film stock, were cited as evidence of sloppiness that failed to elevate the work beyond crude improvisation, undermining assertions of genius-level innovation.[13] Reviewers described the result as "tedious" and "incoherent," arguing that the cavorting performers and random acts amounted to an ugly spectacle lacking the craft or intentionality required for enduring artistic merit.[57] This perspective held that true artistry demands rigor, not mere rejection of convention, positioning Flaming Creatures as a cautionary example of formlessness masquerading as profundity.[58]

Feminist and Ideological Criticisms

Some feminist critics have objected to Flaming Creatures for its depictions of female performers in scenes simulating sexual violence and orgiastic chaos, interpreting these as objectifying women through a persistent male gaze that prioritizes erotic spectacle over meaningful subversion. For example, sequences involving the mock gang rape of a female character, intended as camp parody, have been read by certain observers as exploitative and potentially misogynistic, failing to empower participants and instead perpetuating tropes of female submission amid undifferentiated gender play.[59] These objections extend to the film's drag elements and indeterminate gender performances, which some ideological commentators argue reinforce rather than dismantle binary stereotypes by aestheticizing submission and voyeurism without narratives of agency or critique. Critics in this vein contend that the boundaryless sexuality on display normalizes chaotic, non-consensual dynamics observed in performer interactions—such as improvised physical entanglements lacking clear directorial boundaries—potentially contributing to exploitative environments under the guise of artistic freedom, though empirical evidence of performer harm remains anecdotal and contested.[59]

Legacy

Influence on Underground and Experimental Cinema

Flaming Creatures exerted a direct influence on Andy Warhol's early filmmaking, with Warhol naming it his favorite film during 1964 and 1965.[9] This admiration manifested in Warhol's adoption of techniques pioneered by Jack Smith, such as employing non-professional performers "who happened to be around" rather than trained actors, a method Smith used extensively in Flaming Creatures with its ensemble of drag artists and friends.[11] Performer Mario Montez, who debuted as Dolores Flores in Flaming Creatures, transitioned to Warhol's Factory scene, appearing in thirteen of his films including Chelsea Girls (1966), drawing Warhol's interest through Smith's work.[60] The film's camp excess and sexually ambiguous tableaux shaped subsequent queer experimental cinema, particularly in the aesthetics of excess and drag performance. John Waters, who hailed Smith as "the only true underground filmmaker," incorporated similar frenzied depictions of transvestites and low-budget provocation in films like Pink Flamingos (1972), echoing Flaming Creatures' chaotic eroticism.[61] [62] This influence extended to broader underground aesthetics, prioritizing raw, improvisational queer expression over narrative coherence. Post-ban distribution challenges solidified Flaming Creatures' role in pioneering independent circuits, as it was handled by the Film-Makers' Cooperative from 1963 to 1968 despite seizures and legal hurdles.[63] These obstacles, including police raids on screenings, compelled filmmakers to rely on private venues, co-operatives, and non-commercial networks, establishing models for evading censorship and sustaining experimental work outside mainstream channels.[64]

Preservation Efforts and Restorations

Following Jack Smith's death on September 25, 1989, preservation initiatives targeted the recovery and repair of Flaming Creatures' surviving 16mm prints, which had been fragmented by obscenity-related seizures in 1964 and subsequent dispersal among private collections and institutions. Jerry Tartaglia, an experimental filmmaker, located the film's camera-original negative—previously presumed lost—in a New York laboratory around the early 1990s and initiated restoration with estate approval, salvaging degraded footage through cleaning, splicing, and duplication to mitigate vinegar syndrome and emulsion breakdown common in unrestored analog stock.[65][66] Anthology Film Archives incorporated a restored print into its Essential Cinema Repertory in the 1990s, prioritizing physical integrity over interpretive fidelity by archiving multiple variants to preserve the film's structural variability, as Smith habitually re-edited sequences live during projections, complicating consensus on a "master" cut.[67] These analog efforts addressed chemical instability, with restorers duplicating irreplaceable elements onto stable polyester-based stock to prevent further loss from hydrolysis and fading.[10] Smith's estate, which inherited his reclusive control over distribution—rooted in his aversion to commodification—delayed systematic access until legal and administrative resolutions in the mid-1990s permitted collaborative work, including Tartaglia's contributions, thereby enabling institutional deposits and preventing total disintegration of the scattered corpus. Digital remastering attempts in the 2000s encountered hurdles from the source materials' inconsistencies, such as mismatched takes and sound sync issues, yielding hybrid versions that standardized runtime to approximately 43 minutes for archival scanning while retaining analog imperfections to honor the original's handmade aesthetic.[68][69]

Contemporary Screenings and Reappraisals

In the 2010s, Flaming Creatures received renewed attention through institutional retrospectives, including screenings at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, an affiliate of the Museum of Modern Art, as part of the exhibition "Jack Smith: Flaming Creatures," which opened on October 29, 2009, and featured the film alongside Smith's photographs, performances, and ephemera.[70] These events underscored the film's enduring appeal within experimental cinema circles, with additional public screenings documented in 2011 amid homages to Smith's oeuvre.[10] A 2018 retrospective at a New York venue also programmed Flaming Creatures alongside Smith's other works, such as Normal Love, further evidencing periodic revivals in art-house settings.[71] More recent screenings include a September 11, 2023, presentation at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago, programmed as a standalone 43-minute showing of the 16mm print.[72] In Europe, the Cinemateca Portuguesa-Museu do Cinema in Lisbon hosted screenings on January 19 and 23, 2024, within the "50 Anos de Abril" cycle exploring revolutionary cinema themes, attracting audiences to the 45-minute program in Sala M. Félix Ribeiro.[73] Such events, often tied to thematic series or artist surveys, confirm persistent niche interest among curators and scholars of underground film, though they remain infrequent and venue-specific. Contemporary distribution through cooperatives like the Film-Makers' Cooperative and Light Cone limits accessibility to 16mm prints for specialized bookings, with no widespread commercial streaming or home video releases, reinforcing the film's marginal position outside avant-garde networks.[20][74] Reappraisals in recent scholarship and festival notes reaffirm its status as a queer experimental landmark, emphasizing its hallucinatory aesthetics and defiance of norms, yet highlight how its explicit, unscripted depictions—once central to obscenity debates—now prompt reflections on historical contexts amid stricter modern standards for performer agency and explicit content.[36][33] This balanced view positions Flaming Creatures as a preserved artifact of 1960s provocation rather than a universally accessible classic.

References

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  2. Flaming Creatures - Senses of Cinema
  3. https://cup.columbia.edu/book/flaming-creatures/9780231191470
  4. Smith, Jack: Travails of an Underground Artist - Senses of Cinema
  5. Jack Smith's Technicolor muse: Maria Montez | Movies - The Guardian
  6. Aesthetic Delirium in Jack Smith's 'Flaming Creatures' | A R T L R K
  7. Ronald Tavel, John Vaccaro and Charles Ludlam - Warholstars.org
  8. Jack Smith: Normal Love - MoMA
  9. [PDF] J. Hoberman. On Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures (and Other Secret ...
  10. MOMA Pays Homage to Experimental Filmmaker Jack Smith - PBS
  11. Jack Smith - Flaming Creatures - Warholstars.org
  12. Tony Tuesday 4: New York City Underground - 4/24/18 - Hallwalls
  13. [PDF] The Fortas Film Festival - Scholarship Archive
  14. Jack Smith - The Downtown Pop Underground
  15. [PDF] Jack Smith and His Secret Flix - Moving Image Source
  16. [PDF] Jack Smith - Uzi Parnes
  17. https://movingimagesource.us/articles/up-on-the-roof-20120105
  18. Jack SMITH - Light Cone
  19. https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.7312/vere19147-005/html
  20. Jack Smith - Flaming Creatures 1962 - The Film-Makers' Cooperative
  21. Jack Smith Papers - Archival Collections - NYU
  22. https://www.unseenfilms.net/2018/08/a-retrospective-of-jack-smith-including.html
  23. Program 5: Blonde Cobra + Flaming Creatures - Film at Lincoln Center
  24. [PDF] Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures 227 - Smart Night Reading Room
  25. Jack Smith's theory of visual expression by Adam Charles Hart, p. 1
  26. Flaming Creatures + Blonde Cobra | Eye Filmmuseum
  27. The absurdity of fixation: Jack Smith and Flaming Creatures
  28. Flaming Creatures (1963) - Greatest Films
  29. Flaming Creatures / Couch - Mark Webber
  30. Film-Makers' Cinematheque 2 - Warholstars.org
  31. Flaming Creatures: Jack Smith, Barbara Rubin and the Cinematic ...
  32. Flaming Creatures: Jack Smith, Barbara Rubin and the Cinematic ...
  33. Sweet Outrage [SCOTCH TAPE & FLAMING CREATURES]
  34. Film-Makers Cinematheque 3 - Warholstars.org
  35. Remembering Jack Smith and Flaming Creatures
  36. Queer & Now & Then: 1964 - Film Comment
  37. “A Comedy Set in a Haunted Movie Studio:” Flaming Creatures (1963)
  38. Flaming Creatures: Jack Smith, Barbara Rubin and the Cinematic ...
  39. Statement - Film Comment
  40. The “Flaming” Freedom of Jonas Mekas - Kentucky Scholarship Online
  41. When Jonas Mekas Went to Jail - The Village Voice
  42. Freedom to Offend: How New York Remade Movie Culture on JSTOR
  43. Police Burn “Flaming Creatures” - Fifth Estate Archive
  44. Flaming Creatures with Blonde Cobra - Berkeley - BAMPFA
  45. [PDF] The Dialectic of Obscenity - UKnowledge
  46. The Prosecution Resets in a 1964 Obscenity Case - The New York ...
  47. Censoring Flaming Creatures - The Downtown Pop Underground
  48. Yale Law School Holds 'Fortas Film Festival' - The New York Times
  49. [PDF] Susan Sontag - AWS
  50. [PDF] Flaming Creatures
  51. Jonas Mekas's Movie Journal - Artforum
  52. Flaming Creatures on JSTOR
  53. Facebook Objects to 'Flaming Creatures' 55 Years After ... - IndieWire
  54. TEMPLE OF SCHLOCK: 2013
  55. super8porter / Toronto 49-69 /
  56. How New York Remade Movie Culture by Raymond J. Haberski, Jr
  57. Review of Flaming Creatures (1963) by Scott R - Cinafilm
  58. Flaming Creatures | Martin Teller's Movie Reviews
  59. Jack Smith and the Aesthetics of Camp in an Era of Political ...
  60. The Brightest Of The Flaming Creatures: A Tribute To Mario Montez
  61. The Notorious Jack Smith: Flaming Creatures and Selected Shorts
  62. [PDF] John Waters: A Panache for Sleaze - Media Bistro
  63. Up on the Roof by J. Hoberman - Moving Image Source
  64. https://www.movingimagesource.us/files/jack_smith_and_his_secret_flix.pdf
  65. Jack Smith's Hamlet in the Rented World - Artforum
  66. A Series Pays Tribute to Jack Smith's Favorite Films - Hyperallergic
  67. About - Essential Cinema - Anthology Film Archives
  68. A Prophet Against Empire: Jerry Tartaglia's Escape from Rented Island
  69. Jack Smith's posthumous career - Artforum
  70. Jack Smith: Flaming Creature - MoMA
  71. A Retrospective of Jack Smith, Including FLAMING CREATURES ...
  72. Chicago's Home for Great Cinema | FLAMING CREATURES
  73. 2024 - Cinemateca - Programação
  74. FLAMING CREATURES - Light Cone
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