George Kuchar Hold Me While I'm Naked - 1966

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"A very direct and subtle, very sad and funny look at nothing more or less than sexual frustration and aloneness. In its economy and cogency of imaging, HOLD ME surpasses any of Kuchar's previous work. The odd blend of Hollywood glamour and drama with all-too-real life creates and inspires counterpoint of unattainable desire against unbearable actuality." - Ken Kelman

"This film could cheer an arthritic gorilla, and audiences, apparently sensitized by its blithely accurate representation of feelings few among them can have escaped, rise from their general stupor to cheer it back." - James Stoller, The Village Voice

I remember my first film class. It was a Super 8 class with Luther Price. I was a snotty nose teenager wanting to make comedy films. Luther taught us how to process our own film and put emphasis on the straining the batch of chemicals to it's last potential.

Well we saw a lot of experimental films in that class. At the time a lot of them past through my memory. Except Hold Me While I'm Naked from George Kuchar. There was a lot of talk about the way George used light and color and exploited the 16mm saturation of color. Although that was very important to the film, I was more interested in the delivery of the film. George Kuchar was filming a melodramatic sequence which pulled you into the drama effectively. He also showed you his directing techniques in the form of a performance within the film. George combined music and his fantastic exploitation of his directing to execute a hilarious pathos on both himself and his talent. Key scene: George holding the bird on his finger. Cinema's greatest capture of the pathetic nature of sniveling poetics.