The Wild Wild Cinema Of Jack Stevenson!

By Jens

Jack Stevenson is one of those dedicated pioneers who tried to bring strange and outrageous treats of the seldom seen wild side of cinema to the audience in Copenhagen and other places. The films are from his own massive 16/35 mm movie collection and nothing pleases Jack more than seeing people leaving his showings completely bewildered by the surreal images they've just witnessed on the screen. Mr. Stevenson is also an acknowledged author of books on John Waters, The Kuchar Brothers, drug & sex films, Lars Von Trier etc. as well as a writer of many articles. I particularly enjoyed his showings at the "Stare If You Dare" filmclub at Rust, where b-movies like "Wild In The Streets", "The Cool Ones", "Shanty Tramp" and weird little shorts filled up the screen. So I was more than thrilled when my old friend and fellow Jess Franco freak, Anders (Klub Argot, and also a former non-conformist employee of The Danish Film Institute) got me in contact with Mr. Stevenson.

LC: You're born in the US, and then moved to Denmark?

Jack: I lived in American until 1993 when I moved to Denmark. I grew up in upstate NY, in a suburb of Rochester, Greece, then in a small town to the south, Elmira, but later lived in many different places.

LC: When did your fascination with weird films start? As a kid with the Ghoulardi horrorshow on TV?

Jack: Yes, the monster movie double-feature every Saturday afternoon was a high point of my childhood though I can't recall the local scary host of the show or if there was one. I think what really influenced me was going to the theater all the time in my little town and seeing weird shit back around 1968-70 like "Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls", "Planet Of The Apes" and 5 James Bond films in a row at the local Drive-in.

LC: You mostly collect 16/35 mm films?

Jack: I started collecting films in 1986 when I was organizing live music/film shows at a dive bar in Boston and found out I didn't have to pay rent on films if I could own them myself. That is how I got into the film world, playing "Female Trouble" after The Queers left the stage, showing "The Wild Angels" on the same bill as The Gore Hounds band - not by going to University and studying film although that's a good way to get exposed to new stuff. I like showing films in atmospheric locations and this summer I'd like to do outdoor screenings in Copenhagen. If anybody has any idea on a good location, let me know! I did actually do an outdoor drive-in show in Amager 2 years ago for the American Car Club group, it worked well: "Hot Rods To Hell" under the stars.

LC: How did you get hold of army 'eductional' films?

Jack: I contacted the Army to send them to me, posing as a journalist.

LC: My first real experience with your collection, I think, was in the 80s in Huset. A wild double bill of Jodorowsky's "Holy Mountain" and a disgusting mondo movie on an bizarre African tribe? Right now you're showing films in Huset again including the infamous gay porn horror epic "Thundercrack!"...

Jack: The show you recall must have been a Kim Foss production (now the boss of Copenhagen's great NIGHTFILM FESTIVAL) at Barbue club in Huset (happening in the late 80's) on video. I never had prints of those films and I only show 16mm & 35mm prints, and didn't start working with Husets Bio until 1992. Some of my prints are very choppy but that can actually improve a film. They still talk about the screening of the 35mm print of "Dracula The Dirty Old Man" up in Trondheim many years ago - it was so fucked-up & splicy that nobody knew what the fuck was going on for one hour and they loved it. It made it MORE strange. When that film grinds through a projector you can hear the floorboards creak & groan. This is the opposite of the modern DVD mentality where people want hours of extra material to explain the film to the 9th degree. I think its better if the film just comes out of nowhere and blindsides you and you think "What the FUCK was that...?" Today I help out at Husets Bio and most weekends do a cult screening. We have a mailing list to alert people to what's happening. If people want to join the list contact me at jack.stevenson@mail.dk. We showed "Thundercrack!" yesterday and it was a good success, a room full of people got more than they wanted...some were a bit dazed. The trouble with most films is that you know EXACTLY what you are going get even before the movie starts!

LC: The "Stare If You Dare" nights in Rust was a success that many talked about for years.

Jack: The STARE IF YOU DARE CLUB ran from 1996 to 2000 at Cafe Rust and was great but it was time to find new locations.

LC: Klub Argot?

Jack: I just showed films at the KLUB ARGOT space and that was fantastic, kind of a return to my roots of showing 16mm films in between live music. I hope to show more films with KLUB ARGOT. I'm 20 years older now but will continue to do this until I'm too old to lug a projector since I am unfit for regular employment, (not least because I speak such bad Danish!). In September I did 20 shows around Europe, sleeping on couches and dirty mattresses on the floor, then the next night to get an ultra-luxury 300-Euro-a-night-hotel room that is so luxurious that you have to be computer genius to turn on the TV...strange.

LC: You've written books on John Waters, Kuchar Brothers, drug movies, Lars Von Trier, sex flicks etc. What makes you choose a certain topic or director?

Jack: I've written books on Danish subjects because I can read Danish perfectly, can do the research and find aspects of the stories interesting and think there should be other voices heard than just the University academics. American exploitation is my first love, but then again you could call von Trier's "Breaking The Waves" the greatest exploitation movie ever made.

LC: Your 5 favorite movies, and why?

Jack: Its impossible to name favorite movies because it changes. For example back in the early 80's I was obsessed with John Water's "Female Trouble" but today that movie wouldn't have the same effect on me. I hate lists like the 'the best 10 films in world history' - it's ridiculous! In no other art form do they make lists like that. It's more about the ego of film writers.

LC: One of the craziest film I've seen is actually shot in Copenhagen, "The Sinful Dwarf", have you seen it? A friend of mine, the editor of eXtase, is writing a big article on it at the moment.

Jack: Nils also turned me on to "The Sinful Dwarf", it IS great, from that very special time, the mid-70's, when it was in fashion to make a DIRTY, SLEAZY film. It was released on Video in America and Michael Weldon reviewed it but they didn't give the film it's due!

LC: How is Copenhagen compared to other cities for showing cult movies?

Jack: Copenhagen is not a good city for cult movies. Actually Århus is better, primarily because Slagter Hal 3 Co. has been showing cult movies for so long and has cultivated an audience. Once in a great while the Film House shows something interesting but if you have 3 theaters and show films all day the law of averages dictates that it can't be avoided. But they completely ignore Danish exploitation cinema of the past, it appears they have many prejudices. ...Compared to bigger European cities like Hamburg or Amsterdam for example, Copenhagen is a desert, a place where a Woody Allen Marathon is considered a far-out idea. It's not the fault of the people who live here but owes to the very conservative art-film oriented tastes of the cinema owners and film programmers. Its also been said that Danes in general don't get excited or fanatic about things but are a bit indifferent, I don't know if that's true.

LC: I reckon only few of Lowcut readers had a drive-in theatre experience, what are you fave drive-in theatre in the States?

Jack: Actually living in the MOST uncool town in all Denmark, Allerød, has one advantage - its only 10 minutes from the Drive-in theater in Lynge, and we go at least once a week. It's great and makes even a shitty Hollywood
movie seem exciting. That's pretty much the only theater we go to, although it lacks the sleaze appeal of most Drive-ins in the US which serve as staging grounds for the local white trash population and where the smell of greasy junk food and pop-corn hangs heavy in the hot, humid air. It is perhaps too clean and civilized, and shows only new films, but is still good and goes some way to curing homesickness.

LC: With the dvd explosion you can almost get any obscure movie ever made, have you ever been tempted to show dvds instead of real film?

Jack: For watching films at home DVD is fine but for projecting films in various public spaces 16mm is far easier and better quality. The color and type of light and focus from a film projector is still usually better and its hard to do outdoor shows on video or DVD projection and get any quality. I have an old Ampro speaker from the 30's that I can plug right into my projector and fill any space with great sound, takes 5 minutes to set up. Everything fits into a suitcase I can travel with, like they did back at the start of the century. So I say, fuck the new digital technologies! All I need is a tent and a freak show to go with the films! (Even though I am forced to watch DVDs and video when writing a book, its OK for home viewing and research).

LC: Future plans; books, articles, filmshows etc.?

Jack: I just spent spent 3 years writing a book about Danish erotic cinema of the 60's and 70's but no publisher in the English speaking world thinks anybody will buy a book only about Denmark so I'm expanding it to cover 'Scandinavian Sex Cinema' by including Sweden to some degree. Nils of eXtase has helped me with this project.

http://hjem.get2net.dk/jack_stevenson/