Introduced by J. Hoberman (tentative) Author and film critic J. Hoberman is staff writer for the Village Voice. He has contributed an essay to the Banned in the U.S.A. catalog. Flaming Creatures (Jack Smith, USA, 1963) In this pre-Cockettes fantasy of sexual confusion, Jack Smith's "creatures" go in for the kind of gender play and exhibitionism that made him the Big Daddy of camp. Seemingly a drag-queen parade that devolves into an orgy of disembodied body parts-limp penises, large breasts, lipstick-smeared lips emerge from the heap-the real orgy here is one of ecstatic imagery. Relentlessly poetic, the experience of Flaming Creatures is further excited by a pioneering soundtrack of rock-and-roll, commercials, and samples from Maria Montez movies. The pleasure here is not in the knowing, or being able to interpret, but in the directness, power, and lavish quantity of the images themselves. This visual blurring extends Smith's sexual transformations beyond transvestitism into a realm where desire is outside of physical possibility. The cast of Flaming Creature's censorship drama included Jonas Mekas, Ken Jacobs, Strom Thurmond, Abe Fortas, and Charles Keating. Find the lurid details in J. Hoberman's essay in our catalog. (45 mins, B&W, 16mm, From Canyon Cinema Cooperative) Scorpio Rising (Kenneth Anger, USA, 1963) One of the seminal underground films of the sixties, Anger's Scorpio Rising conjures the proto-fascist mythology of gay bikers. Thirteen episodes, each linked to a pop song, present a motorcycle gang as a chrome-plated, high-velocity fetish. The raw materials of Scorpio Rising-the ornate hulking bikes, the massive cyclists in studded leather jackets-are the sacred totems in a magical evocation of "Thanatos in chrome and black leather and bursting jeans." Juxtaposing these seemingly homoerotic bikers with mythical cult figures such as Brando, Christ, Presley, Hitler, and James Dean, Anger pictures the dying Age of Pisces, the Christian era, as a motorcycle race speeding toward oblivion. Death is everywhere, in the skulls, scorpions, swastikas, and sadomasochistic acts of sexualized violence. Scorpio Rising was hounded by the dogs of disdain. Even the American Nazi Party attempted to sue Anger-for desecration of the swastika.