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A film festival would be incomplete without studies of filmmakers. The TFF had at least three: of Roberto Rossellini and his part-time muse Ingrid Bergman, and of two auteurs who were so "indie" they were nearly isolated: Robert Frank and Jack Smith. I skipped the Rossellini movie, though it was made by the wonderful Canadian zany Guy Maddin, because I heard that some members of the Rossellini family were outraged by it, and I was not in a mood to take sides between two groups I respect. In Robert Frank: Leaving Home Coming Home: A Portrait of Robert Frank, director Gerald Fox manages to pry open the can of steely reserve the director-photographer normally encases himself in, and in the process opens up not only Frank (who will be 82 in November) but his work. It deserves to be explored by a wider audience, whether for the landmark book of pictures The Americans or Franks beyond-warts film of the Rolling Stones, the 1972 Cocksucker Blues.
Back when Frank made that documentary, one word in its title (not Blues) was verboten in the American media. But at least it was allowed to be shown, sporadically. Jack Smith had worse luck. In 1964, the year Lenny Bruce was convicted of obscenity after a New York stage appearance, Smiths pansexual phantasmagoria Flaming Creatures was busted by the NYPD. It was eventually banned in 22 states and four countries; as late as 1968, Lyndon Johnsons Attorney General was impounding prints of the movie.
Documentaries need self-dramatizers, and being a diva was Jack Smiths art and life. At the start of Mary Jordans irresistible doc Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis, the artists reedy voice is heard intoning, "Doctor, doctor, tell me, please, / Is my brain a germ or a disease?" Late in life, he says of his work: "I was knocking myself out to make this stuff. And I always assumed that people would see this and have pity and give me a little support. [Now he shouts:] They didnt!"
Smith was inspired as a kid by the Scheherezade schlock of B-movie queen Maria Montez. As a director, he renamed one of his drag stars Mario Montez and starred him in no-budget avant-garde movies of delirious (and now endearing) Caligulan excess. Both Mario and Jack went to work for Andy Warhol, who called Smith "the only person I would ever copy. Hes just so terrific, and I think he makes the best movies." Warhols Factory and the films that emerged from it — Chelsea Girls and the rest — might not have existed without Smiths influence. Consider that a curse or a blessing.
With Mephistophelean good looks swathed in leopard-skin couture, Smith was a ready-made icon of the Underground, and an easy magnet for police and politicians. "Moral decay is spreading through our country and our society," declaimed one bluenose, brandishing a poster for Flaming Creatures — thus giving priceless free publicity to the film he meant to denounce.