Baltimore — John Waters leads a delegation from the Academy Film Museum for a week from Los Angeles on a 32-year tour of his home, filled with film artifacts and kitsch antiques, in quiet Corner 5. I was hiding behind a tree. A few miles from the city’s waterfront.
There was a lot to see: his 1974 dark comedy electric chair, “Women’s Trouble” at the front door. Birth certificate of Divine, a 300-pound transvestite who played “the dirtyest living person” in “Pink Flamingo” hanging in a basement full of souvenirs. A mimeograph poster of the 1966 premiere of “Roman Candles” taken from the pile of boxes.
“Give me The lamb’s legWaters asked his assistant as two curators, and the museum director took him up a narrow staircase, through a doorway, to a cramped two-room home office. ,sale. He offered to consider his favorite artifacts from his filmmaking career. The (rubber) legs of a lamb used by Kathleen Turner as a murder weapon in the particularly horrifying scene of “Serial Mom”.
For decades, Waters was famous for pushing back the boundaries of taste when the boundaries of taste were actually there, including the infamous final scene of “Pink Flamingo” (his former torturer). Forced by an entity such as the Maryland Censorship Commission). This includes dog excrement. William S. Burrows called Waters the “Pope of the Trash” and he meant it as a compliment.
Next summer, 76-year-old Waters is praised for its founding, which has been brilliantly provoking for over 50 years. He will be the subject of a vast 11,400-square-foot exhibition at the Academy Film Museum, a museum celebrating Hollywood that opened last year. In this exhibition, the Academy reveals that the curator’s appetite exceeds R2-D2 and Dorothy’s Ruby Slippers.
This may not be easy. The Academy Museum has flagged it as a family and tourist destination, but it’s not a John Waters fan base. Despite the exhibition’s name, “Trash Pope,” the museum’s director, Bill Kramer, said he might put a sign at the front door to warn of the squeaking noises of young people.
“We don’t want to keep the audience away,” Kramer said, pulling up the chair next to the Waters in the living room. “We are currently in the process of designing, and through that process we guarantee that the exhibition will be accessible to all ages without being flooded.”
“This is a challenge,” Waters intervened.
“This is a challenge,” Kramer agreed.
Waters has a variety of “Pink Flamingo”One of the most sneaky, Stupid and repulsive movies made so far. His subsequent movie — “Polyester” starring Tab Hunter. “Cry Baby” with Johnny Depp. And “Pecker” with Patty Hearst has become a cult favorite, to name a few, and some are still crowding at the midnight show. His 1988 comedy “Hairspray” has become an eight Tony Award-winning Broadway musical. Waters will join Spike Lee, Pedro Almodóvar, The Wizard of Oz, and The Godfather as the subject of the exhibition at the Academy Museum.
“People will definitely see the irony in it,” Waters said. “My movie certainly didn’t have good reviews at first and was censored, but people were always coming. Just crazy people came.”
“And did any of them get better?” Waters talked about his film and warmed up the subject. “No! They were all accepted over the years, which just meant that American humor had changed better. If it was extreme and styled, I was used to accepting movies of all kinds. think.”
If he’s right about it, and he may be, what works the curator will highlight next year, how cruel, scatological or adult details will be presented, and how. It should make the curator’s life easier as it decides whether to present it. There is a lot to leave to the viewer’s memory and imagination.
Among the items they are considering is a barf bag that was given to the audience in a protective manner for the “Pink Flamingo” show. The hand-held camera Waters used in “Your Makeup” filmed a reenactment of Kennedy’s assassination in his parents’ vestibule for the horror of his neighbors. Divine plays Jacqueline Kennedionasis. A list of live bugs, the German cockroach, and the dragonfly nymph that actor Johnny Knoxville was happy to mention in the 2004 movie “A Dirty Shame.”
And there is a depiction of shoes painted by Baltimore’s trampling sniffing glue while serving prison time in “polyester”. The Scratch and sniff A card with an embedded scent that makes you feel hungry, handed to regular customers of “Polyester”. You can experience the movie with your nose and eyes. The legs of the lamb.
But such a decision is months ahead. The exhibition is in the planning stage. Before arriving in Baltimore, curators Jenny He and Dara Jaffe spent months exploring the Wesleyan University Waters archive with considerable success. “In’Hairspray’, at the end, Debbie Harry wears this towering wig with this explosive device,” Jaffe said. “We asked everyone, but no one knew what had happened. It turned out that it had been in Weslian all the time. I found it in a box in the corner.”
“Dara and I started jumping,” he said.
In this city that defined Waters’ career and life, they passed through his home, something like a museum in itself, before driving to his studio and his office, and which of the 881 items was spare. I wondered if I made a list (“I” Waters said the display benefits.
“Jennie, I need to measure this,” he found the “Maryland Censorship Commission” sticker drawn by the fan, took out the tape, and sent it to his office, Waters. A scene of “female trouble”. Waters had the censors give him a receipt for a piece of film that he had cut out the reel and handed over.
When they arrived in his studio, the curators flocked with Waters to share one idea of the entrance to the exhibition.
“So we know we want people to be a little shocked when they first come in,” Waters nodded, Jaffe said. “And we know how much you love showmanship and gimmicks.” According to her, the idea is to wrap a waters movie montage near the altar to create the interior of the church. That’s it. She explained that the pew (“movie seat”) is equipped with a hidden buzzer to “literally shock” when she sits down.
“Can you make it work?” Waters exclaimed. “That is wonderful!”
This exhibition may seem like a gold retirement clock to Waters. This is a late recognition of his contribution to film and culture over decades. It’s been 18 years since Waters made his last movie, A Dirty Shame, and it was rated NC-17. However, he was then rewarded for writing three sequels to “Hairspray,” none of which eventually received the studio’s green light. He also continues to develop a Christmas movie for long-gesting children called “Fruitcake”.
However, Waters has rarely retired.He has traveled the country to promote his first novel, “Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022), but more recently. Had a cameo At “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”. He is participating in a new advertising campaign for Pride Month’s Calvin Klein Fashion Line. He still had a pencil mustache and refreshed it all day long.
Museum staff could hardly catch up with him as he climbed up and down the stairs of a four-story house before jumping into a rented Cadillac (his car was driven by an assistant in Provincetown. And there he spends the summer) leads Cadillac on a drive to his studio and his office.
In fact, Waters has become part of the entertainment facility. He is a member of the Academy and is sponsored by filmmaker David Lynch. (“And I take my duty seriously,” he said, an Oscar judge. “I see everything.”) “Hairspray” was rated as a PG. rice field. And as another sure sign of success, Waters is surrounded by his assistant coterie as he travels the day. “We need three assistants to turn on the TV,” he said.
This week, Kramer, appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, proposed an exhibition in March 2020. Waters agreed and the curator headed for a scout visit that month. This was the first time Jaffe and he had returned to Baltimore due to a pandemic. “I’ve kept this secret for a long time,” Waters said.
The show introduces the Waters canon to an audience unfamiliar with his work, but the base is his loyal followers, those who went to his films before being legalized at film festivals and the Revival House, and attended. Can be a person Camp john watersHis sold-out adult summer camp in Kent, Connecticut.
“My audience was always humorous and always a little angry, but they were always movie fans, they had a good sense of humor themselves, and they accepted their tastes in a way that others would disagree with. I was having fun, “Waters said. “My audience wasn’t just gay and heterosexual. It was a biker, or it didn’t fit all people. Even their own minorities they had problems, and There was my target audience. “
Although Waters has never lived in Los Angeles, he attended the red carpet opening of the museum last year as a guest and shared the spotlight with Cher and Lady Gaga. “I was just surprised-who would have thought that all this would happen?” Waters asked. He waited for the beat. “And the answer is — me.”
