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Jonas Mekas, Andy Warhol and Barbara Rubin

Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground
Regissør: Chuck Smith
( USA)

FLOWERING TIME / Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground tells the story of an enigmatic and central woman in New York's male-dominated environment for experimental underground movies in the sixties.




(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

The sixties were a time of flourishing for experimental underground films in New York. With Jonas Mekas and Andy Warhol as leading characters, this environment was very male-dominated, but one of the most groundbreaking films was made by a woman. Her name was Barbara Rubin, and she was only 18 years when she filmed the first recordings for Christmas on Earth (1963).

Chuck Smith's documentary Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground says the story of Rubin through interviews with witnesses and other connoisseurs as well as hefty archival clips from the time depicted. The latter material is often accompanied by music from the same period, including The Velvet Underground – the "husband" of Warhol's studio The Factory. The film contains extensive interviews with the recently deceased Jonas Mekas, a close friend of Rubin, and excerpts of letters she wrote to him. Mekas and filmmaker Smith have also collaborated on a book on Rubin entitled The Legend of Barbara Rubin, where you can read these letters in full.

Gradually, Barbara Rubin left New York's art community to continue her spiritual quest in the Orthodox Jewish faith community.

After the screening of the film at the documentary film festival in Thessaloniki in March, Smith told the audience that Mekas had been determined that in the film he did not want to talk about his personal relationship with Rubin. Just as fully, their warm feelings for each other are evident in her loving and sometimes very poetic letters. Poetic in the literal sense, as she often wrote poems in these letters. In Smith's own words, the movie is "a kind of love story."

Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground Director Chuck Smith

However, Rubin's romantic feelings should have been directed at comrade Allen Ginsberg during this period, without these being fully reciprocated by the gay beat poet. At the same time, the film describes a time of free sex as well as free artistic expression.

visionary

Rubin was taken under the wings of Mekas and his "Film-Makers' Cooperative", and he quickly embraced this group's free approach to filmmaking – made possible by smaller and lighter cameras now available. Among her sources of inspiration was the avant-garde film Flaming Creatures (1963) by Jack Smith from the same environment. This was refused to appear in several cinemas due to its sexually explicit content and even led to the arrests of several people involved. IN Christmas on Earth – which was originally called Cocks and CuntsRubin filmed body paints and masked performers in sexual expression of both gay and heterosexual character, as well as showing close-ups of a female genitalia. Not surprisingly, this film also had problems with the censorship.

Some of what does Christmas on Earth Noteworthy is its innovative use of dual exposures. Rubin gave the cinematographers a thorough introduction to how the film should be presented, with two projectors each showing different film rolls on the same canvas – one with a smaller image cut than the other. Because of this, the film is considered by many to be one of the first multimedia works of art.

Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground Director Chuck Smith

Artistic "matchmaker". The documentary itself is quite conventional – paradoxically, one might say. However, the aforementioned combination of "talking heads" and archival clips has often proved to be an appropriate narrative form for such historical portraits, and Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground is no exception.

In Christmas on Earth, Rubin filmed body-painted and masked performers in sexual portrayal of both gay and heterosexual characters.

Chuck Smith's film draws a picture of Rubin as a restless, explorative and spiritually searching soul, who was plagued with mental disorders from a young age. Probably these problems were further compounded by her extensive drug use. She was a visionary artist who undoubtedly inspired many in her circle – but to call her a "muse" would be to reject her own artistic production. INnevertheless, the list of her famous friends is both long and impressive, with names like Bob Dylan, Lou Reed and mentioned Allen Ginsberg – and she seems to have had a rare talent for "splicing" creative people. For example, she introduced The Velvet Underground to Andy Warhol in 1965.

Rubin even made films that were projected during the concerts of the same band, and appeared in one of Warhol's Screen Tests – as well as in other The Factorys film productions.

Left the art

Gradually, Barbara Rubin left New York's underground art community as well as filmmaking in general, for the benefit of the Orthodox Jewish faith community. An apparently radical change of almost "Zeligske" proportions (Woody Allen's 1983 comedy about Leonard Zelig showed a human chameleon who changed personality from day to day, from situation to situation, ed. Note), but it may seem that she was disappointed that the art community did not support her as much as she herself had contributed to its flourishing. And not least, she wanted a more normal family life.

Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground Director Chuck Smith

Tragically, Rubin died at the age of 35 in 1980, after giving birth to his fifth child. At this time, she was living as a dedicated Hasidic Jew in Paris. But in this subculture, too, she was a vital and inspirational figure, according to filmmaker Smith.

The fact that Rubin opted out of his film artistic work was possibly a major loss to the development of the experimental film. A never-so-small patch on this wound, though, is that this documentary helps make her art and life story known to many. And while the film leaves several questions about the latter part of her life unanswered, we can hope that Rubin eventually found a form of happiness that the explosive underground world of New York could never quite offer her.

Aleksander Huser
Aleksander Huser
Huser is a regular film critic in Ny Tid.

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