March 06, 2004
All I Know About Filmmaking I Learned From Lloyd Kaufman, AND The Toxic Avenger.
If you're unfamilar with the ouvre of Troma Studios, the longest running independant film production company in the United States, what I am about to say may be a little bit of a shock. Maybe you read an article that resides on this very site, in which I take a few fumbling steps towards attempting to clarify and explicate my taste for only the seamiest, most sordid films that money can buy - and why there are quite rational political, artistic, and yes - emotional reasons behind my obsession. This isn't simply going to be another piece where I reveal far more than I should about my past, and espouse the virtues of entertainment which belongs, for most people, in the bin rather than on their screens. This is going to be far more political than that. Far more pointed. But first, let me take you back to 1990 - when a young, nerdish boy stepped into a video store in Lower Plenty, Melbourne, and managed to convince his long suffering mother to hire 'The Toxic Avenger' for him, reassuring her that the movie's brazen legend on the rear of the case ('This movie contains loads of unnecessary sex and violence - You'll love it!') was meant to be taken ironically. Which was, frankly, total bullshit.
All things have to begin somewhere, and as far as my love affair with Troma goes, it was - as I said - standing in a video shop in Lower Plenty, pushing the case of 'The Toxic Avenger' into my mother's hands, as her brows furrowed with concern. I had a fullproof method of getting her to hire the most sordid drivel that I could find, and after more than a decade of keeping the secret to myself, I am going to share my technique with you all. Here's how it worked.
I would grab the tape off the shelf. It might be Robocop. Or The Thing. Maybe it was Total Recall, or A Nightmare On Elm Street. I would hold it, stare at it for a moment, check over my shoulder to make sure that Mum was engrossed in scanning the shelves, and then I'd nonchalantly wander over to her, pretending that it was absolutely no big deal, and there was no reason for her to be concerned - and I'd slip it into her hands. Because I was such a cool cat, and there was nothing underhanded going on, I'd just look at the shelves with her, and stick my hands into my pockets, rocking back and forth on my feet.
"Found anything?", I'd say.
She would frown, and look at the tape in her hands. "What's THIS?"
I'd not look up, pretending I didn't hear her. "Hmm?"
"What's this, David? It's R-rated. I'm not sure -"
"Oh, Mum. Don't worry about THAT. That's the OLD R-rating. There's nothing to be worried about."
"But, I -"
I'd be gone. Cooly walking away, my eyes relaxed and my hands swinging loosely by my side. I wouldn't even break a sweat, as I exuded an air of total confidence. Of COURSE I'm going to hire 'Xtro'. And while I'm here, I might pick out a few more tasty titles. Anyone for 'Basket Case'?
And, rather than shatter my confidence, or risk getting into a heavy debate about the relative merits of the cinema, she'd hire the damned tape.
Of course, she should have been worried. 'The Toxic Avenger' WAS about as depraved a film as one could imagine - a cornucopia of degenerate sex, pointless violence, and a seemingly endless litany of perverse behaviour, by a cast who genuinely seemed brain damaged. A squalid, foul, vulgar film - I absolutely adored it, and would unequivocably rave about it whenever I could. For a few moments in the schoolyard, I reigned supreme. The other boys would sit around me, crosslegged, with their faces displaying pure awe, as I stood powerfully before them with my arms folded across my chest, and a defiant smirk pressing my rubbery, oversized lips together. I regaled my classmates with tales of the unknown. Of the forbidden. Violence, sexuality, and human depravity were the tools with which I asserted my intellectual and cultural supremacy over these peons. My biceps felt taut and hot as I would wave my arms in the air like some kind of powerful sorcerer, the boys spiralling upwards in a frenzy of bloodlust - visions of The Toxic Avenger slipping into their VCR's, and unlocking a world of clandestine cinema that lay just beyond their grasp.
Then, when I ran out of 'It was really cool when -' stories, they'd beat the shit out of me and stole my lunch money.
As I grew older, I started to explore Troma's back catalogue. An expansive series of films which seem to cover every conceiveable sexual perversion and vehicle for dismantling the human body, I was awestruck by the chutzpah of these upstart filmmakers, who seemed to hold issues of taste and public morality in so little regard that they would actively mock their detractors from inside their film world. From The Class Of Nuke 'Em High to Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid to Bloodsucking Freaks, to the infamous Surf Nazis Must Die, it seemed that Troma would stop at nothing to splatter the screen with their hellish, savage vision of humanity. The thing that confused me, though, was that despite the orgy of carnage and sex that constitutes the average Troma film, I couldn't honestly conceive of anyone being offended by them. They were so damned good natured. So amiable. There was a sweetness and an innocnce that pervaded them - and even in the darkest, most savage lows that Troma vomited onto the screen, the films were tinged with a playful sensibility that stopped the images from being offensive, and made them - somehow - fun. The bad jokes. The self-consciously goofy special effects. The eighties rock scores. The acting - which can't really be described, it can only be labelled 'The Troma Style'.
The reason behind the sweetness of Troma has something to do, I suspect, with one Lloyd Kaufman - the president of Troma. A fascinating figure, Lloyd is also one of the more accessible figures in cinema - with the Troma webpage featuring an email address where he can be contacted, and a continually updated series of articles on issues pertaining to free speech, globalisation, and the monopolises on media and art that the conglomerates are attempting to achieve. Lloyd appears on most of the Troma Team's VHS and DVD releases, and his presence simply warms my heart. He seems to be a man of great intelligence, verve, and passion - who can be both self-deprecating on one hand, and fiercely protective of his the cinematic output of his company, citing Troma's catalogue as one of the last bastiens of free speech and independant thought operating on the cinematic landscape.
Troma swooped down during the brief, glorious age of independant VHS distribution in the early 1980's - attacking the market aggressively with their flagship titles, such as The Toxic Avenger and Class Of Nuke 'Em High, stealing the thunder away from the major studios, who were too paranoid about losing money through video piracy to actively take part in the video revolution. This was the pre-Blockbuster age, where video shops were just that - shops that people opened which rented videos, as opposed to the foul chain stores which now clutter our landscapes, offering us nothing but the same films from the same companies ad nauseum. No, in 1985, it was not unusual to walk into the 'Greensborough Video Library' and see 'I Drink Your Blood' sitting quite comfortably next to 'Kramer Vs. Kramer'. As Lloyd tells us on one of his wonderful DVD commentaries, there was a hell of a lot of shelf space to fill in those days - and shops would take whatever was offered. As it turned out, there was a lot on offer - a tapestry of independant films, too bizarre or individualistic to be given massive distribution found a home in OUR homes, entertaining us, and giving us a world that wasn't simply more Hollywood Product. We had the freedom to choose. And we loved it.
So, it was in this atmosphere of freedom that Troma first tasted success, both financially and culturally - and it was the slow, sneaky erosion of this atmosphere that forged Troma's aggressive protection of its independant status, and the
passionate fire that seems to burn inside Lloyd's words. As the major studios began to realise that there was a market for VHS tape that was so huge that piracy wouldn't be an issue, and as the cinema industry was deregulated so that studios could BUY theatres - controlling all aspects of distribution, it seemed that the party was over. Once again, the bogus rich kids - in their desperate attempt to keep their gnarled claws wrapped around our wallets - had decided that we were simply having TOO much fun, so they ended it. Blockbuster - now the predominant chain of video rental stores across the world - began to move in and seize control of the market, using their considerable financial muscle to simply destroy and and all competition in their path - united in an unholy pact with the major studios to ONLY stock mainstream product, and to flat out REJECT independant film, including that made by our beloved Troma.
Troma, and any other independant artists, have basically been shut out of any form of media-distribution heirarchy. Their films have been blacklisted from promotion on any major television networks. Reviews, essentially pieces of plastic writing designed to schill for major studio Product, aren't written on Troma films in the mainstream press. Even when Troma acquired a classic children's film and reissued it on DVD, it was totally ignored. By virtue of the fact that Troma refuses to play the game with AOL/Time Warner, they have become outcasts, exhiled into the realm of festival showings - yet still maintaining their presence as force on the home video market.
We are gridlocked. Our pathways for access to film, music, and literature that isn't simply a piece of the mainstream culture machine are being rapidly destroyed. If it isn't Bradd Pitt and Cameron Diaz - then it doesn't exist. For Australia, the consequences of this are dire, to say the least. Australia has been culturally colonised by the major U.S corporations - and at the same time as they have destroyed their own independant art scene, they have destroyed ours. Australia now has no outlet for its reservoir of writers, actors, filmmakers, and musicians - unless they want to bend and spread for the ruling elite, lose the stupid accent, and accept the powerful American phallus. Homogeneity in art is all that can and will be accepted by the corporate elite - as Lloyd reminds us on his website, the mainstream cinema is now nothing but a wasteland of 'sequels, remakes, and films made from bland literary sources.' There will be no room for deviation - no originality or imagination. The passionate fire of Troma still burns - but it can only be seen by the devoted. The mainstream will have none of Troma's mayhem - and for that, I pity them.
Troma's films might be perverse, profane, violent, and filled with an obsessive, adolescent fixation on the female body - but that is how they were intended to be. Kaufman's vision of the world - which, when seriously analyzed, is actually quite profound and complicated - is just that: A deeply personal vision of humanity and society, interlaced with an exploitation film aesthetic. It is undiluted and raw. Troma does what Troma does, and if you don't like it - you can get fucked. Go whine to someone who cares, crybaby - because Uncle Lloyd couldn't care less. If you want something clean and sanitised, then make your own damned movie.
I don't have a way out. I wish I did, but I don't. I will tell you this, though - I really do miss days like the one when I hired The Toxic Avenger. I miss being able to scan the racks and dig out gems every time - I could rummage through hundreds of tapes and dig out all kinds of weird and wonderful treasures, and watch films so demented that I needed a shower afterwards. Or not - I could simply watch something that provided me with a window into someone else's mind. Something that was open and bleeding - and allowed itself to hurt when it needed to, and could accept that film can be ugly, rough, and burned - and still be wonderful.
Lloyd, on the other hand, being a far more resourceful chap than I, has put together a list of things that all of us CAN do to at least TRY and defeat the machinations of the corporate media machine.
Quoted from www.troma.com:
DON'T Go to shit Hollywood movies
DON'T Read shit newspapers, magazines and websites published by the media conglomerates
DON'T Buy shitty overpriced CD's put out by the major labels
DO Read independently published newspapers, magazines and websites
DO Support independent art
DO Everything possible to destroy the media conglomerates
I do try to do all of these things - and I urge all of you to do the same. But sometimes, it is hard. Sometimes, the way that our streets and houses are cluttered with advertising material forcing Jennifer Lopez and Lucy Liu down our throats is enough to make you simply cry. But do you want to know something?
Every time I walk past Hoyts, and see Ben Affleck's box head staring down at me, with a quote from Roger Ebert, I feel a little futher away from little boy who whined at his mother to hire The Toxic Avenger, after finding it in a stack of video tapes in the 'horror' section of the 'Main Street Video Library'. I feel like I want to take him aside, give him a hug, and tell him to make the most of the wonderful array of choices he has - the seemingly endless kaleidoscopic vision of modern culture that the video shop provided in the eighties and early nineties. I really start to miss the freedom - and I miss the feeling of excitement and exhileration at the discovery of something new, some little diamond that I'd never seen before. All that's left is me, Blockbuster, and George Clooney.
And it's at times like that, that Lloyd Kaufman becomes even more important to me than usual.