Baltimore Or Less

“50 Years of John Waters: How Much Can You Take?”
September 5 – September 14, 2014
The Film Society of Lincoln Center
Lincoln Center Plaza
New York, NY 10023-6595

“It took me 50 years to claw my way up from the cinematic gutters of Baltimore to Lincoln Center. Finally I’m filthy and respectable!”– John Waters

John Waters hauls his film prints into the Lincoln Center this week.

This week local-boy-made-(very)-good director John Waters will be spotlighted  during a 10-day retrospective of his feature and short films, as well as The Pope of Trash’s personal picks of films “I’m jealous I didn’t make,” at New York’s prestigious Film Society of Lincoln Center. Why now, you ask? Well, 2014 marks the 50th anniversary of Waters’s first cinematic effort, 1964’s Hag in a Black leather Jacket, made when the Lutherville native was a mere 18.

Tonight the Society is presenting an encore screening of Female Trouble (1974), with a post-screening discussion between Waters and critic J. Hoberman.

“I’m so f**king beautiful I can’t stand it myself!” Divine’s favorite Waters film was “Female Trouble” (1974).

With Waters’s favorite holiday, Christmas, coming up, it’s only fair that we share the classic “Cha-Cha Heels” scene from “Female Trouble” below:

It makes sense that Waters is honored by the esteemed cinema institution because, although he is best known as an outre underground/cult director and provocateur who pushes the boundaries of taste, Waters is also a legitimate auteur, one who grew up watching just as many arthouse classics by Fellini and Fassbinder as drive-in sleaze and exploitation fodder. Don’t forget, Waters used to pen a “Guilty Pleasures” column profiling arthouse treasures for the Lincoln Society’s “Film Comment” magazine.

Besides screening his 10 most popular feature films,  Waters will present “Celluloid Atrocity Night!” – a special 16mm screening of his first two films, Mondo Trasho (1969) and Multiple Maniacs (1970), and the rarely-seen short The Diane Linkletter Story (1970) – and a free program of the early shorts he shot between 1964-1968 (Eat Your Makeup,  Hag in a Black Leather Jacket, and Roman Candles). (What, no Dorothy the Kansas City Pothead starring Pat Moran as Dorothy and “Orpheum” George Figgs as the Scarecrow? Alas, this 1968 short appears to be a “lost film.”)

We wish we were there, if only to pick up the stylish “flamingo pink” tote bags for sale, as shown below:

Congratulations to John Waters for his well-deserved Big Apple retrospective. As to how much we can take, that’s a no-brainer. We love it all! – Baltimore Or Less

Read more about the John Waters film retrospective at the Film Society of Lincoln Center web site.