I first heard of George Kuchar thanks to the WTF interview with Todd Solondz. Maron was trying to get something out of Solondz as far as what he was/is influenced by as far as other filmmakers - Solondz was trying to keep to just saying he's influenced by, uh, life and not much else - but he finally mentioned that he's a fan of George Kuchar's films. So when I looked him up this seemed to be the most prominent (or the one people watched the most - hey, boobs on youtube right?), and I was looking forward something that would likely be transgressive and satirical and... I got that, but it's... as other people have said, out *there*. It may be so out there as a piece of experimental cinema that I had to watch it twice to get something out of it (originally this rating was lower, but giving it another shot I saw a little more there).
What is this? Supposedly a semi-autobiographical collage by Kuchar, who is out to explode the form of cinema while also detailing how a movie he was trying to make fell apart due to an actress being mad about being nude all the time. Hold Me While I'm Taken may be what happened in Kuchar's life... in a sense. But it's so locked inside the filmmaker's head that when it doesn't involve characters talking - there's a one minute or more stretch where it's a walking close-up shot of what I assume is Kuchar's movie double walking around uh... just walking - it is simply all over the place.
Now, this place does happen to be involving a lot of nudity (or suggested at some points), and I think the strongest thing here is how Kuchar frames his shots. There's a real eye here and that was what I especially liked seeing it a second time in a row, how he got his "characters" in shots, with unusual compositions and how his camera moves but also how it takes in framing devices (when we see a couple starting to make love it's through a glass door where things are obfuscated, and the music on soundtrack is "Here Comes the Bride.? The whole tone here is a meta comment on itself, about how filmmakers burning with passion can get sidelined. I... wish I could get at more of what it was trying to do, outside of the imagery of a reel of film lying on the floor, or yet another woman disrobing and getting into the shower and... yeah, it's a steady stream of consciousness that doesn't have much of a foot in reality. It's all about the PLAY of filmmaking and sexing and doing sexing for filmmaking, and that part is fine. I just wish I could've got more into the rhythm of the whole piece; there's a point where the movie almost stops to indulge a magnificent orchestral score that builds and builds over images of... stuff.
File this under 'a lot of people LOVE this, and... it wasn't for me, nice boobs aside.'
