Official Synopsis:
Jack Smith was a legendary figure on the New York avant garde art scene, and his FLAMING CREATURES is rightly hailed as a masterpiece in its field. This documentary gives an overview of Smith's incredible career.
  
Our Take:
About five minutes into Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis it became abundantly clear to me that not only did I not know who Jack Smith was, but artists and filmmakers as a whole don’t really know who he was anymore either. So, before I could watch anymore of the film, I had to pause it and do a quick google search on the man just to have all the basic foundations while watching this documentary. Of course, this being a documentary on the man’s life and art there was really no need for me to do such an internet search, but I felt compelled to nonetheless.

What I came to learn about Jack Smith is that he wasn’t just an underground filmmaker and artist; he was the underground filmmaker and artist. Just about everyone in NYC during the sixties was inspired by him – even Andy Warhol, who went so far as to call Smith the only artist he’d ever copy. He basically created the whole “scene” that everyone always reminisces about.

Smith was known as a filmmaker more than anything else (despite his prominence in still photography, stage plays, spoken word, etc.) due to one single film that just about shot him into stardom and killed him and his career all at the same time: Flaming Creatures. Creatures was a movie that played every hour on the hour…until the cops broke all that up and it ended up being banned from 22 states and 4 countries. Sure there were bizarre set pieces with nude males, females and transvestites running around, but it’s not like it was pornography.

Special features include:

* Glitter (2 minutes) – Jack Smith says he invented glitter make-up.

* Agosto Machado with Mario Montez on The Master (2 minutes) – Two of his transvestites talk about Jack being the greatest artist of our generation.

* Lawrence Rinder on Jack’s Legacy (2 minutes)

* Ken Jacobs on life as theatre (2 minutes)

* Jack’s Loft (2 minutes) – Jack’s studio.

* Mario Montez on being Mario Montez (2 minutes)

* Nayland Blake on the art world (2 minutes)

* Holly Woodlawn on Jack and Andy (2 minutes) – Andy being Andy Warhol.

* George Kuchar on Jack and the Creatures (2 minutes)

* Colette and Vivienne Dick on Jack at the Cologne Art Fair (2 minutes)

* Ronald Tavel on modeling for Jack (4 minutes)

* Judith Malina on Art and Capitalism (4 minutes)

* Sylvere Lotringer on Jack vs. Capitalism (4 minutes)

Really, Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis is a tale about an artist who just wouldn’t compromise his vision (so much so that he never actually finished another piece of art after Flaming Creatures due to his theory that art should never be stamped down and finalized, but ever evolving) and in doing so drove himself through hell. It’s a great watch if for nothing more that to get this man’s name back out into the public.

RECOMMENDED!

Overall Picture:
Movie: A-
DVD: B

- Landen Chase Pelish
Staff Writer