Processing problems: Experimental film, pornography, historiography

This chapter examines the material and textual connections between avant-garde cinema and feature pornography, two nodes in the network of 16 mm-based production in the 1960s and 70s, through the lens of film laboratories. Much has been written about experimental film and pornography in their respective "golden ages," yet we know very little about how sexually explicit films were processed and printed in the era when obscenity law was widely enforced. Some of the most revolutionary sexually explicit experimental films were printed after hours at smaller labs that were supplementing their "straight" income by developing pornography at night. Thus, this essay reveals new details about the "business" of Underground Film, as well as the production histories of avant-garde classics such as Flaming Creatures (Jack Smith, 1963), Christmas on Earth (Barbara Rubin, 1963-65), and Fuses (Carolee Schneemann, 1964-67). It also provides a fresh perspective on the moment that marked the summit of the avant-garde's cultural visibility, the anti-censorship crusade launched by Jonas Mekas on behalf of Flaming Creatures. Moreover, this chapter supplies the first extended discussion of a peril that comes up repeatedly in interviews with experimental filmmakers: labs confiscating, destroying, and/or reporting to the police sexually explicit films.