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Gutter Auteur: The Films of Andy Milligan
Grindhouse filmmaker Andy Milligan has been the subject of a revealing biography, and boasts a grassroots fan base, but his remarkable work has thus far received no serious critical overview. Working virtually alone, on infinitesimal budgets, often using a used 16mm newsreel camera, Milligan crafted some of the most unique melodramas of the 1960s and 1970s. Often mounted as period pieces, using costumes sewn by the filmmaker, Milligan's gritty, bizarre films come across as inimitable meldings of the avant-garde theater of Jean Genet, the experimental films of Jack Smith, and the random cinema verite of a lunatic with a home movie camera. Yet Milligan's films are anything but random, ruminating at length on profound sociocultural themes of the day, including the emptiness of the sexual revolution. Evident throughout all the films are two pet a rabid deconstruction of the heterosexual paradigm, and a grotesque illumination of the family as breeder of dysfunction.
- GenresFilmMedia Tie In
312 pages, Paperback
First published November 29, 2012
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About the author
Rob Craig
9 books1 followerRob Craig has been writing about cult film for more than twenty years. His work has been published in such magazines as Videoscope, Screem and Horror-Wood. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 28, 2019
As a "fan" (those who are familiar with his work will understand the quotes!) of Andy Milligan and an even bigger fan of Jimmy McDonough's wonderful biography of Milligan, "The Ghastly One," I was very much looking forward to reading "Gutter Auteur." However, I have to say that I was very disappointed by this book.
"Gutter Auteur" is extremely over-written and full of itself, to the point of making one wonder whether the author could even possibly be that pretentious in real life. I mean, seriously, who talks like that?
Every page is filled with overlong, overcomplicated sentences that seem to have been generated using an online thesaurus. The repetition of ideas from page to page and chapter to chapter reek of a doctoral dissertation.
So many outrageous comparisons are made, e.g. comparing the works of Milligan to - wait for it - Shakespeare!, that you have to wonder if the book is meant as a satire or parody. Every interpretation of any of Milligan's works boils down to incest and sadism. While this may be true, if it's the case in every case, then doing separate chapters for each movie becomes unnecessary and mind-numbingly repetitious, as this book indeed does.
Milligan never spent more than $12,000 making a movie. There isn't a page in "Gutter Auteur" that doesn't have more than $12,000 worth of pretentious $1,000 words on it.
Overall, this was an extremely put-downable book that I got almost to the end of, but just couldn't quite make it. It's a slog, it's badly written, and may be the most poorly written excuse for a book about Andy Milligan I can even imagine. And, that's saying something!
"Gutter Auteur" is extremely over-written and full of itself, to the point of making one wonder whether the author could even possibly be that pretentious in real life. I mean, seriously, who talks like that?
Every page is filled with overlong, overcomplicated sentences that seem to have been generated using an online thesaurus. The repetition of ideas from page to page and chapter to chapter reek of a doctoral dissertation.
So many outrageous comparisons are made, e.g. comparing the works of Milligan to - wait for it - Shakespeare!, that you have to wonder if the book is meant as a satire or parody. Every interpretation of any of Milligan's works boils down to incest and sadism. While this may be true, if it's the case in every case, then doing separate chapters for each movie becomes unnecessary and mind-numbingly repetitious, as this book indeed does.
Milligan never spent more than $12,000 making a movie. There isn't a page in "Gutter Auteur" that doesn't have more than $12,000 worth of pretentious $1,000 words on it.
Overall, this was an extremely put-downable book that I got almost to the end of, but just couldn't quite make it. It's a slog, it's badly written, and may be the most poorly written excuse for a book about Andy Milligan I can even imagine. And, that's saying something!
Displaying 1 of 1 review