I'm not some nut who will throw himself off a building for Waters or lick shoe polish from the Master's boots. I have rather fixed opinion on the different stages of the director's career. The early Super-8's (the few I've seen) are short, crude and original; the first features, including "Multiple Maniacs", "Mondo Trasho", "Pink Flamingos", "Female Trouble" and "Desperate Living" are all very interesting, though not all classics; the films that followed from "Polyester" are Waters Lite, strange birds documenting Waters' struggle to please the mainstream financiers and broaden his own creative output. Naturally, I like the middle period.
When I think of "Multiple Maniacs", I think of David Lochary inviting conservative punters to come and seeing the most disgusting show of their lives. "See Puke Eater!" he screams with pride, and in that solitary invitation, he sums up why we loved the 70's and early 80's John Waters. Waters showed us filth without the sermon, without the hypocrisy. He acknowledge our love of sleaze, our passion for the putrid, and our lust for freaks. He came across as honest, as a misfit himself, an artist determined to rub our noses in the dirt we secretly craved.
Well, some of us did.
I prefaced this review with my declaration that I'm not a Waters brown-noser. Far from it. Despite its admirable desire to shock and sicken, "Multiple Maniacs" is also very boring at times and in dire need of a ruthless edit. The Lobster scene goes on forever and the trek to Calvary is almost as long as Gibson's "Passion of the Christ".
The beauty of "Multiple Maniacs" is its pus-filled heart, not its aesthetics. The aesthetics would come later with "Female Trouble" and "Desperate Living" and seem counterfeit with truly awful trash such as "Cecil B. Demented", a film I want to murder.
When I think of "Multiple Maniacs", I think of David Lochary inviting conservative punters to come and seeing the most disgusting show of their lives. "See Puke Eater!" he screams with pride, and in that solitary invitation, he sums up why we loved the 70's and early 80's John Waters. Waters showed us filth without the sermon, without the hypocrisy. He acknowledge our love of sleaze, our passion for the putrid, and our lust for freaks. He came across as honest, as a misfit himself, an artist determined to rub our noses in the dirt we secretly craved.
Well, some of us did.
I prefaced this review with my declaration that I'm not a Waters brown-noser. Far from it. Despite its admirable desire to shock and sicken, "Multiple Maniacs" is also very boring at times and in dire need of a ruthless edit. The Lobster scene goes on forever and the trek to Calvary is almost as long as Gibson's "Passion of the Christ".
The beauty of "Multiple Maniacs" is its pus-filled heart, not its aesthetics. The aesthetics would come later with "Female Trouble" and "Desperate Living" and seem counterfeit with truly awful trash such as "Cecil B. Demented", a film I want to murder.