Curt McDowell
Directing
Biography
Curt McDowell worked in San Francisco from the late 1960s until his death in 1987 – a period that witnessed the Summer of Love, gay liberation, and the onset of HIV/AIDS, to which he succumbed at the age of forty-two. The author of numerous films that recast the American dream of plenty in pansexual terms, McDowell, like so many artists of his generation, indulged in the era’s carnal abundance, and his appetites and experiences are reflected in his work, which alternates between the revealing and the puerile.
Born: January 9, 1945
Place of Birth: Lafayette, Indiana, USA
Known For
Symphony for a Sinner
Symphony for a Sinner (1979) was a long, lavishly photographed color film generally considered the magnum opus of the class productions.
George Kuchar: The Comedy of the Underground
A documentary portrait of filmmaker George Kuchar conducting a tour of his apartment where he displays memorabilia and his toys which were used for props.
It Came from Kuchar
It Came from Kuchar is the definitive, feature documentary about the legendary, underground filmmaking twins, the Kuchar brothers. George and Mike Kuchar have inspired two generations of filmmakers, actors, musicians, and artists with their zany, "no budget" films and with their uniquely enchanting spirits.
Little Showoffs
From filmmaker Zachary Youngblood (Deep Tango) comes Little Showoffs, an intimate study of the sexual fantasies of real people, brought to the screen. From the surreal, to the highly personal, Little Showoffs explores the range of erotic desire through six vignettes framed by and starring the actual people who conceived them.
Thundercrack!
An eccentric and alcoholic widow hosts a motley assortment of travelers - four men, three women and one gorilla - who arrive one eventful night to get out of a torrential rainstorm.
The Mongreloid
A man, his dog, and the regions they inhabited, each leaving his own distinctive mark on the landscape. Not even time can wash away the residue of what they left behind.
The Devil's Cleavage
A shady motel manager becomes obsessed with a neglected wife.
Confessions
"Just as outrageous is Curt McDowell's CONFESSIONS. McDowell, a graduate student at San Francisco Art Institute, opens his film with a confession to his mother and father, listing in exhausting detail his sins of the flesh."
Loads
"San Francisco based Curt McDowell has always been a pioneer in sexual frankness, but his new film, LOADS, goes far beyond his earlier all-out efforts and puts such big-time dabblers in eroticism as Bernardo Bertolucci and Nagisa Oshima decidedly in the shade." - David Ehrenstein, Los Angeles Herald Examiner
Audience
Barbara Hammer’s Audience is a fascinating deep cut from the director’s prodigious filmography. Relatively raw in its design, this 16mm diary of audience reactions at retrospectives of Hammer’s work in San Francisco, London, Toronto, and Montreal in the early 1980s bears none of the distinctive visual flourishes and essayistic form one usually finds in her filmmaking. Today, Audience serves as an invaluable historical archive, providing quick but complex portraits of lesbian scenes in different cities and countries: the San Francisco women are bold and raucous, treating Hammer like a celebrity; the London crowd more reserved and tentative; the Canadians politely critical after initial hesitation. It also functions as a testament to the power of Hammer herself as a figure of lesbian culture, showing how fully she engages audiences to incite new forms of discourse about representation.
Filmography
as Self (archive footage)
as Himself
as Himself - Interviewer (as Roger Halcyon)
as Self
as Himself
as Medusa / Gerald Hammond (as Pamela Primate)
as Frank
as Himself (Voice)
as Mean Brother
as Mean Brother
as Mugsy
as Mick Terrific