When we met Mike Kuchar in the early seventies:

 

Mike Kuchar

This post comes from my friend Fred Harden who was one one the original people who set up the Melbourne Filmmkaer's Co-op. 

I will also add some comments into this post with some of my own reminiscences of that time as Mike visited Monique and me when we lived at Canning Street, North Carlton. I think that was in 1973 when the world was wonderful, our lives were full of expectation. I'm sure those days were much better than the days we're living through now.

I really enjoyed meeting Mike Kuchar. He had a lovely personal style, very gentle, great wit and most elegant.

I also found the Kuchar programme which we presented at the Co-op to be ground breaking, a great gift from the US Underground. That programme was organised by the people at the Sydney Filmmakers Co-op and sent on to us, as they also did with a programme by Pier Farri. We were very lucky to have Pier visit us while he was in Melbourne for his season.

Anyway, here's what Fred wrote about it all in 2019. Many thanks Fred.

fredharden

On December 6, 2019

Mike Kuchar

Mike Kuchar came to present his and identical twin brother George's films at the Coop. We introduced him to a few of our filmmaker friends - the Super 8 movie shows a night at Michael Lee (and Magda's) house and recording a video interview.

Until I find the small poster we used for the Mike and George Kuchar film screenings,  ( I gave ACMI a copy) I don’t have the accurate 1972 date for this.

It was one of the Sydney Film Coop screenings, organised by Albie Thoms and I think they paid for an airfare and we shared some costs for George (and Mike?) to come to Australia  and speak at the screenings. Mike came alone, and he stayed at, then manager of the Melbourne Co-op John Matthews, shared house in South Yarra.

There were only a couple of screenings of the hour (or so?) long program of their films, one at Spring Street and another at Melbourne Uni (I think). We introduced him to a few of our filmmaker friends – the Super 8 movie below shows a night at Michael Lee (and Magda’s) house.

At the time I had an AKAI 1/4 inch portapak and we made a taped interview with Mike sitting in the kitchen of the South Yarra house, over toast and jam. I still have the tape reel if it can be transferred.

I can’t make out a microphone on the table here, so it may have been just the on-camera mic, so who knows what the sound would be like. But I did a few of these ‘conversations’ and remember the sound in a quiet environment being good.  But Kuchar’s voice was quiet, a gentle man. I can’t remember where these tapes were shown, maybe once at the Cantrill’s Maze screenings.

They often seemed part of performance pieces, we had a couple of large monitors that I used to lug around. The videotapes were really just another way of archiving our ‘film’ lives.

John must have taken Mike out of town, as there is a sequence where Mike was editing a 16mm film of John playing one of his didgeridoos, intercut with flashing sunlight through a windmill vanes. The flat rocky landscape suggested it was near Woodstock (that I wrote about here) So maybe Kuchar stayed overnight there. I may have even loaned them my car as I sometimes did.

At the end of the film there’s some images of Mike using the editing room we had at the Spring Street Coop.  It was fairly basic, some rewinds, a small 16mm viewer, a  4 gang-synchroniser, tape splicers,  some Super 8 splicers and benches and a trim bin. The images at the end of the film, were from the screen of the 16mm viewer as I advanced it with one hand and filmed with the Beaulieu in the other. Again it’s one of the lowres scans from the Reflecta+ so watch it small in HD.

 

This is a good introduction to the Kuchar’s films and helps explain the low-fi attraction. The robot being ‘born’ from between the woman’s legs in Sins of the Fleshapoids remains a moment that has lingered.

Okay so now I'll put in my two-bobs-worth!

The three films which made an enduring impression upon me were:

 "The Craven Sluck" 

"The Secret of Wendel Samson" 

"Sins of the Fleshapoids"

I've found a version of "The Craven Sluck". 

I loved it so much at the time.

 

This film is available via "Daily Motion" as Part One and Part Two:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x22gx1f

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x22gx36

At this moment I can't find a link for free view of 

The Secret of Wendel Samson: 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0207085/

 

Here's a link for  Sins of the Fleshapoids

https://archive.org/details/1965MikeKucharSinsOfTheFleshapoids

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