![]() It revels in sensuality over sense, without a responsibility to narrative logic or even its own preservation and posterity. Despite this, the rich half-life of the persisting versions of Normal Love available to us still inspires contemporary scholarship that articulates the work’s exceptionalism. It is a purposefully indeterminate work that drew much of its energy from the presence of its maker who, in his live edits, literally cut the work to pieces again and again. Such an interpretation also carries with it an unavoidable sense of irony, given that the persona and the films of Jack Smith are most clearly characterized by their relentless desire to shun the ossifying structures of reason and methodology. An interpretation of Normal Love relies on various forms of remembrance and documentation as well as on Jerry Tartaglia’s edited version of the film that was completed after Smith’s death. “ appeal is not to the understanding,” Smith explained, but to “movement and gesture.” 2 This drive is continually foregrounded both in Normal Love’s content and Smith’s intended form of interventionist display, both of which will be discussed further. In an interview with poet and artist Gerard Malanga, Smith responded to the question of whether his audience would ever understand his films. The fact that Normal Love is both referred to as an “unfinished” and a “complete” film underscores the paradox of discussing it at all. ![]() Throughout his life as an artist, Smith worked in various modes: composing vibrant and exquisite photographic images that resemble film stills for nonexistent films presenting performances in his New York loft apartment that ran for unspecified lengths of time and drew improvised players from the audience in attendance and continuously reediting his films as they spooled through the projector. He was a perpetual revisionist his art was always evolving and his work was all-consuming-of effort, of others, and of time that insisted on the priority of the present moment. To consider the film Normal Love, then, one must first consider the personality, the ideals, and the life of Jack Smith. In its ineluctable multiplicity, Normal Love must be examined as emblematic of Smith’s legacy as a whole: it exists in many versions, is unfixed, and difficult to fully account for in textual form. And, in its initial incarnation, it was a short story about freaks, sex, and God. ![]() But Normal Love was not always Normal Love the work was also called Normal Sex, The Great Moldy Triumph, The Great Pasty Triumph, The Pink and Green Film, The Pink and Green Horrors, The Rose and Green Horror, The Moonpool Film, and The Drug Film. ![]() Format DVD.Normal Love is a 16mm color film by Jack Smith, shot in 1963, and shown in 1964. Participant Commentary: Nayland Blake, Ira Cohen, Tony Conrad, Richard Foreman, Helen Gee, Robet Heide, Gary Indiana, Ken Jacobs, Mike Kelley, George Kuchar, Sylvere Lotringer, Agosto Machado, Judith Malina, Taylor Mead, Jonas Mekas, Mario Montez, Billy Name, Lawrence Rinder, Andrew Sarris, Jerry Tartaglia, Ronald Tavel, John Waters, Holly Woodlawn, Mary Woronov, Nick Zedd, John Zorn. Production credits Cinematography, Mary Jordan. Publication date 2008 Note Special features: Glitter Agosto Machado with Mario Montez on Jack the master Lawrence Rinder on Jack's photography Ken Jacobs on Jack's life as theater Jack's loft Mario Montez on being Mario Montez Nayland Blake on the art world Holly Woodlawn on Jack and Andy George Kuchar on Jack and the creatures Colette and Vivienne Dick on Jack at the Cologne Art Fair Ronald Tavel on modeling for Jack Judith Malina on art and capitalism Sylvere Lotringer on Jack vs. ![]()
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