Archive of films Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream / Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream

Canada
2005, 88 min

Section: Special Events
Year: 2005

An unusually engaging documentary about six movies that changed the shape of American film in the 1970s. Night of the Living Dead, Pink Flamingos, and Eraserhead are a few of the so-called midnight movies - low-budget cult films which flaunted an infinitesimal amount of respect for sexual, religious and all other taboos.

Synopsis

The six films El Topo, Night of the Living Dead, John Waters’ Pink Flamingos, The Harder They Come, Eraserhead, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Literally over night they changed from unknown footage into cult films through the revolutionary American cinematic phenomenon of the 1970s – midnight movies. The films’ radical generic experiments and breaking of sexual, religious and other taboos found a wildly enthusiastic response from young people who, like their peers from other parts of the world, were just then subjecting post-war social values to radical revisionism. Although attending midnight screenings started out as a fad, it quickly turned into a social ritual, as seen in period shots of theatres packed with raucous filmgoers. The directors themselves appear in the documentary and place the flamboyant ‘bad taste’ of their work in a socio-historical context. The film was screened at last year’s Cannes festival.

About the director

Stuart Samuels (b. 1940, New York City) is a Canadian television director, screenwriter and producer interested mainly in documentary filmmaking. He co-directed Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography (1993), winner of a New York Film Critics Circle Award. He also shared in the writing and directing of the documentary Hollywoodism: Jews, Movies and the American Dream (1998). From 1967 to 1981 he lectured in history at the University of Pennsylvania, he is a founding member of the Society of Cinema Studies and an acknowledged expert in the field of film history and film archiving.

Contacts

Menemsha Films, Inc.
213 Rose Avenue, 2nd floor, CA 902 91, Venice
United States of America
Tel: +1 310 452 1775
Fax: +1 310 452 3740
E-mail: [email protected]
www: www.menemshafilms.com

Stuart Samuels Productions, Inc.
68 Scollard St. Suite 301, M5R 1G2, Toronto
Canada
Tel: +1 416 968 9362
Fax: +1 416 968 9870
E-mail: [email protected]
www: www.stuartsamuelsproductions.com

Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream

About the film

Color, BETA SP

Section:	Special Events

Director:	Stuart Samuels
Screenplay:	Stuart Samuels
Dir. of Photography:	Richard Fox
Music:	Eric Cadesky, Nick Dyer
Editor:	Kevin Rollins, Lorenzo Massa, Mike Bembenek, Robert Coleman
Producer:	Stuart Samuels
Production:	Stuart Samuels Productions, Inc.
Cast:	Alejandro Jodorowsky, George A. Romero, John Waters, Perry Henzell, Richard O`Brien, David Lynch
Contact:	Menemsha Films, Inc. , Stuart Samuels Productions, Inc.

Guests

Stuart Samuels

Film Director / Producer