Flesh and Excess: On Underground Film

by Jack Sargeant

Jack Sargeant's first new book dedicated to underground film since 1999 sees the cult author return to the physical, body-focused and transgressive films that first seduced him. With Flesh & Excess: On Underground Film, the focus is now divided between the historical, theoretical and philosophical. Starting with an exploration of the return to the shock of the body in underground film in the 1980s and the growth of underground film in the '90s, he explores and defines an underground cinema that remains radical and contemporary, informing subcultures and independent cinema today.

Primarily focusing on a handful of key works by two award-winning underground filmmakers (Usama Alshaibi and Aryan Kaganof), Sargeant examines the the desire - even the need - for a shocking bodily representations and interventions. Punctuating his writing with philosophical analysis, explorations of areas as diverse as industrial culture, surrealism, butoh dance, fine art and medical fetishism, the book challenges the reader to examine the very nature of pleasure, of viewing and of experiencing cinema. Comprehensively illustrated throughout.

256 pages, Paperback

Published March 15, 2016

Reviews

[Jessrawk · Rating 2 out of 5]

During his brief literature review, he chastised others for widening the definition of underground film to include ones he (obviously) deems unworthy. However, he fails to ever define or even delineate what underground film is to him at any point. It is a very strange pot, kettle, black situation.

Apart from dropping Kristeva & Mulvey in for a sentence each, he fails to engage with any theory that isn't explicitly male. It was quite strange to not see any feminist theory, especially given the subject matter of the body & its depiction & division. There is plenty that would be quite relevant & further illuminating. & to ignore that body of knowledge, while repeatedly bringing up Freud? Come on.

[Darko Duilo · Rating 5 out of 5]

An Even Deeper Dive Into the 'Underground' World

My first encounter with Jack Sergant's movie criticism goes back to the late nineties when i found his "Creation Books" edition of The Naked Lens: Beat Cinema (1997) in an used bookstore in Trieste. At first I couldn't believe that someone could put together an exhaustive study of almost 300 pages, based mostly on the sparingly movie heritage of the early American underground writers. However, as I started to analyze the text more intensely, the clearer the role of the pure (naked) film image arise in the context of the immediate need for more formal (everyday) presentation of the beat authors and their complex humanistic literary production from the classic period. After reading the whole text in just two or three days, it became clear to me that Jack Sergant is a really a great writer and a top expert on the "root equations" of the american underground culture.
During a brief stay in Ljubljana at the beginning of the new millennium, I borrowed a "Deathtripping: The Cinema of Transgression" (1999) study from a friend and was really surprised once more. The extremely complex material legacy, so hard to handle film heritage of a seemingly unimaginably radical and elusive movement was (thanks to Jack`s intelligent analytical approach) broken down to the last detail. And it was really fantastic... ten years later I ordered the second edition of that book and started to follow any new information about Jack`s activities...
As for spite until the middle of this decade I did not come across more of the relevant information about the author and then his book "Flash and Excess" (2016) came out of print. For the last three days i am searching through a deep and highly respectable word-net of the names, movies and other information connected with cine-underground after cine-underground and transgression cinema after transgression cinema. Very brave and bold book, I guess Jack`s best so far and fucking unbeatable for the minor concurrency (including myself) of the american radical cinematography researchers. Highly recommended "gunshot wound of a book" with all the respect for the author...

[Danny · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s unclear how the American underground film scene from the late 70s, 80s and 90s will be viewed and written about in years to come. Jack Sargeant was there, taking it in, documenting it, writing about it, and programming so many of these films in various venues across the globe. His new book, Flesh And Excess, contains great insights into the underground scene, and he does an excellent job situating it in a historical perspective. For this alone, Flesh and Excess is an important read. Full disclosure--I get mentioned in the book, but as someone who holds this universe dear, I was excited to see this marginal world discussed in such a savvy manner.

Additionally, Flesh And Excess gives the academic once-over to a number of films that deal with all the messiness and nastiness that the body has to offer. The fluids are definitely flying in the pages of Flesh And Excess. This exhumation may not be for everybody, but Sargeant does a great job of situating these transgressive works in a historical context, not only in the film world, but within the worlds of art and literature as well.