Russ Meyer's Birthday

 

It was sex/filmmaker Russ Meyer's birthday a few days ago, or maybe yesterday? What a remarkable film artist. I remember going to see a film retrospective on Hollywood Blvd and being transported to an extraordinary world. Only two filmmakers affected me in that sense. The other director was Fassbinder. Both are obsessed geniuses who transform their landscape into a private space that becomes public. For me, there is nothing sexy about Meyer's work. It's about sex without the sexy feeling, which is very odd. Also, since he's the cinematographer and director/writer, one enters a place with its own sense of rhythm and rhyme. Meyer is a unique artist. Exploitation is his soul, and the crisp black and white images of his early films are a wonder in itself. But also in his color films how blue the sky is. Nature, tits, ass, and Russ Meyer.