Stella Kuchar

Another Holiday Diary film from George Kuchar

An overheated tale of lust, guilt, and Mom, made as a response to the French New Wave.

Return to the House of Pain documents my walking through the turf and sludge of the Big Apple and many worm holes... I chomp my way back west and gnaw on all that sinks stomachward and beyond in vertiginous aching.

A trip to Boston to visit a local filmmaker in his studio is followed by a journey to the cinematic facilities of SUNY College in Purchase, NY, and then to the kitchen and living quarters of my mother in the Bronx. My mother is in her most candid mode as we relate and debate. My brother Mike suffers dental woes, too.

Presented as loosely autobiographical, Hold Me While I’m Naked centres on the tribulations of an independent filmmaker, frustrated at every turn as he tries to make a film that pretends to artistic merit.

George Kuchar received his only funding grant for this film ($20,000 from the NEA), and so, freed from the usual financial restraints, he was determined to have a good time and make a “spectacle” with “tons of color” and dazzling superimpositions. A big, colorful tapestry about rumors that are in all of the previous UFO movies. A loose story line that weaves in and out of the UFO phenomenon.

"The whiteness of winter cannot bury the blubbery things that splash and frolic among the frozen memories of Heathen harvests, in a land haunted by lard and ancestral lip-smacking." The collision of an overly dramatic film score/soundtrack with the banal yet enigmatic images of snow covered streets leads to a dissonant effect; the expectation of one is not fulfilled by the other.

A short film by George Kuchar.

A documentary portrait of filmmaker George Kuchar conducting a tour of his apartment where he displays memorabilia and his toys which were used for props.

A short comedy by Curt McDowell. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2015.

The New York City summer is fueled by the sultry emanations of hot air that tumble off the tongues of potential thespians as they attempt to decipher the gastric guesswork embedded in the prose of the pre-production process. The video camera flits across the boroughs of NYC in a splash-dash sojourn of sumptuous banquets and bohemian bombast, while the down-to-earth wisdom of the seeing impaired helps to guide the protagonist into detours of wisdom befitting his putrid project. A theatrical play incubates in the balding head of the videomaker and as its presence makes itself felt among the various victims of his vision, we share with them the horror of advancing age and the descriptive diatribes toward the destiny of the decrepit damned.

"In Xmas 1986, George Kuchar’s mother Stella has come to stay with him for the holidays. After a series of dinners with friends, Stella’s repeated discussions about her shingles and Kuchar’s ominous film-noirish narration, Kuchar rescues the morale of a dinner party gone bad thanks to an undercooked ham by presenting his hosts with a very memorable holiday gift." – Kyle Riley