Radar Redux.com is expanding the traditional concept of journalism, to cover a wide array of Baltimore Arts and Culture.
Who is Crispin Glover? He is an actor, and a writer, and a director. He was George Mcfly once but that was thirty years ago. Now he makes movies. He refuses to release them on television or DVDs or the net. He travels around the country screening them in person. That is, literally, the only way to see them.
Luckily he came to Baltimore.
The Charles was packed with Baltimore’s strangest. It was hard to discern too much in the theater. John Waters was in there somewhere as was Dan Deacon. I kept myself busy counting moustaches.
“Have you seen any of his movies?”
“Charlie’s Angels?”
A couple next to me was trying to figure out what the deal was with Crispin Glover and why he was here. Before they had come to a conclusion a figure had walked out in front of the theater screen. It was him.
“Hello. I’m Crispin Hellion Glover and I’m going to read six of my books.”
And he did.
Crispin launched into the preface for Concrete Inspector rattling off nonsensical technical jargon at light speed. A slick sweat sheen covered his face as he raced from book to book reciting large portions of text from memory losing his place then jumping in pages later and making up the text in between.
Rat Catcher
The Backwards Swing
Oak Mott
Schizophrenic amalgamations of found text and photographs and drawings formed something like a narrative as Crispin, eyes wide and hands outstretched, shouted the text at us. Images flashed across the screen: children, women, animals both whole and dissected. An hour later we still didn’t have our bearings and he was done.
“Thank you. This is part two of the “it” trilogy: “It is Fine: Everything is Fine!”
The movie stars and was written by Steven C. Stewart, a man with severe Cerebral Palsy. It follows him as he seduces women, plays with their hair, and then strangles them to death. Steven’s inability to form intelligible words coupled with his increasingly explicit actions left the audience confounded. Is this supposed to be funny? Sad? Disturbing?
As the movie closed Glover slipped back in front of the screen.
“Are there any questions?” he shouted.
Yes.
Glover’s gift as a filmmaker is to create work that raises questions not about his work but your own capacity as a viewer – and as a human. Laughing at Stewart’s inability to form coherent words while the actors around him continue obliviously is sick. Why, then, is everyone laughing? And what about Stewart? “It is Fine!” is a montage of violence and explicit sex – and it was entirely his fantasy. Though Stewart’s disability will give the movie notoriety it’s his humanity that’s on display.
While conducting his Q & A Crispin kept insisting that he was merely translating Stewart’s vision. If he could have been there Stewart would have loved to answer questions himself. He couldn’t be there, though. Stewart died of a collapsed lung one month after filming.
With “It is Fine” Glover has elevated outsider art beyond exploitation. “It is Fine” is a tragic fantasy: disgusting in its brutality and heartbreaking in its humanity.
For more on Crispin Glover check out our interview with Rick Royer, the man responsible for getting him to Baltimore.
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