John Waters

I watched Hou Hsiao-Hsien's film, Cafe Lumiere, this afternoon.  It's his homage to Ozu and I found it inscrutable and wonderful enough that I put it back in the player and watched it all over a second time.  I didn't figure I'd have anybody to discuss this movie with, though. 

The guy in the video store tonight, as I was stocking up on the other Hou Hsiao-Hsien movies I've missed, asked me if I also knew the cinematographer Christopher Doyle .  He knew everything about Hou's movies.

Someone likes to tell the (true) story of how I was hitchhiking back to Illinois from New York City one time when I found a bundle of one-dollar bills on the Geo Washington bridge.  It was enough that I turned around, went back to the city, and used the money to catch a double feature of John Waters films.

The story of John Waters is fascinating.  The fact that he is mainstream now ("Hairspray") is almost inconceivable.

The last time I was in New York, exploring the Summer of Love exhibit at the Whitney Museum, I ran into Waters.  I asked for his autograph and I talked about the play I'd seen the night before, a revival of the Living Theatre's The Brig.  It was a pleasant encounter and we parted.  I had scheduled myself to see the latest Bruno Dumont film, Flanders, that afternoon and I hopped subways to get in the downtown vicinity of the theatre.  As I waited, Waters also walked up. 

"I'm not stalking you," I told him.

Waters was meeting his group of oddly geeky looking friends.  They sat around discussing films, giving star ratings to this and that, and for all the world behaving like a goofball cinema club at any university. I envied them. They weren't glamorous in the least.  And I really liked the Dumont film, although not as much as Dumont's Humanity, which is one of my three favorite movies.  I watch it again and again.